Ordered these out of not being able to get on the Lokahi train for the longest time. They came in a case that is fine, along with some tips but no box which is understandable as it is just a small team, I believe.
Quite a bit disappointed that the "upgrade" cable out of the box was defective. I had to chip away at the plastic covering one of the solder joints on the jack so I could re-solder the thing(pic is post-op, I had to cover the joint with tape so the thing wouldn't short with the cover) because pre-fix, there were just a few strands making contact with the solder joint which caused the right side to be severely underpowered and made the left side super loud by the time you got to hear anything from the right. Not everyone who might buy this is going to have the soldering skills nor the patience to deal with the hassle of trying a return/refund on these. Another minor gripe I have is that although the construction quality on the shells is great, the handcrafted nature will stand out as the execution on the design is noticeably asymmetrical. I would have preferred the Lokahi style with just a homogenous color instead of the S thing.
That being said, with the issues out of the way, they sound like a concert hall with main emphasis on the bass as it is an upgraded Lokahi setup just with a dedicated dynamic driver for the lows, which is at times a bit too much at least for some of my library, and is a hair under what I would consider bloated but will probably satisfy most bassheads. Mids and treble are clear and non-sibilant. It has a warm, v-shape sound signature which, combined with the slam on the lower frequencies on a proper and comfy fit, makes it quite enjoyable for longer periods of time. Soundstage depth, tonality, and imaging are above average but timbre might leave more to be desired(just something about BAs you have to consider, still quite good though). They're also not all that difficult to drive.
Minor comparison with the only other BA set that I have, KZ AST is similarly tuned and is a bit wider in the staging and slightly better layering but everything else pales to the Hekili, as the mids and highs on the KZ have a muffled, veiled feel to them, and cohesiveness isn't anything to write home about. Bass slam, overall timbre is also more enjoyable on the Hekili.
Solid recommendation outside the quality control issues on the cable however I might be an outlier here.
*Updating the review to reflect the value these things have over the course of the year. The only viable replacement that I tried that compared to these that were nearly identical to how they sounded were the Sony M7s but they are double the cost of these. I'd rather stomach the wait time for pre-ordering a set of this over the Sony's.
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