Sivga’s new closed back DD headphone – Robin!

PROS: Highly attractive boutique build quality and design, lightweight, easy comfortable fit, W-shaped fun, exciting and musical sound signature, good clarity and resolution, good micro-detail retrieval and instrument separation, good choice of materials for construction, attractive box.

CONS: Not for people looking for a reference-neutral headphone, loose-ish fit even in the lowest setting because of less clamp force which makes snugness of fit dependent on head size and its sound signature’s perception dependent on fit, might be big for smaller head sizes.

The product was provided to me free of charge for the review in exchange for my honest opinion.

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About SIVGA.

Sivga is based out of Dongguan (China) and was founded by two childhood friends, Jian Zhou and Rongchun Pan who shared a common love for music and quality headphones. Jian had been working in the field of headphones for nearly 20 years before he founded SIVGA Audio, where he was a senior technical engineer of a leading OEM headphone factory in China and led the R&D, headphone design, craftsmanship as well as manufacturing departments. During his career in the last company, Jian worked with many international headphone brands and played an important role in helping those brands grow. Rongchun on the other hand was an avid audiophile who was obsessed over the pursuit of sound quality and developed a knack of tuning headphones. SIVGA are an OEM as well as have their own line of headphones under the brand names -SIVGA and Sendy Audio. They follow boutique as well as modern manufacturing techniques, where their wooden ear cups are built and finished by hand and all the metal parts used in the headphones are CNC machined to perfection. We previously reviewed Sivga’s open-back dynamic driver headphone Phoenix and open back planar magnetic flagship headphone PII. Check ’em out if you’re interested in knowing how they perform.

Links – Official Website | AliExpress Store ($179)

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Technical Specifications.

• Driver – 50mm Dynamic Driver
• Frequency response – 20 Hz – 20 kHz
• Sensitivity – 105 dB +/- 3dB
• Impedance – 32Ω +/- 15%
• Cable – 1.6m single crystalline copper with braided fabric sleeve
• Jack – 3.5mm
• Weight – 275g

Included in the box.

• Robin headphone
• Braided fabric sleeve cable
• Headphone carry sack
• 3.5mm to 1/4″ adapter

Technology and Design.

Colours – Robin is available in 2 colours – Brown and Black.

Dynamic Driver – Looking at the driver specs, I reckon Robin has the same 50mm dynamic driver as the open-back headphone, Phoenix but I’m not sure. As per SIVGA, the team developed this ultra thin and flexible diaphragm in-house and its physical characteristics ensures good dynamic performance and detail representation.

• Magnet – 3mm thickness high performance Nd-Fe-B which provides stronger power to the driver.
• Coil – The coil is made of special copper clad Aluminium wire.
• Diaphragm – Combined with self developed diaphragm structure, this unique in-house developed polycarbonate diaphragm solves the problem of easy deformation.

Ear cups – Robin’s ear cups are made of high-density rosewood and are CNC machined, sanded and then lacquered and polished to high gloss. The ear cups tilt but do not swivel.

Ear pads – The ear pads are detachable and made of leather with soft memory foam cushioning.

Headband and Yoke – The headband is made of good quality high protein leather with well done visible stitching. The adjuster and yoke are made of metal and have a matte finish.

Build quality.

Be it the rosewood wooden ear cups, the matte finished metal yolk and headband adjuster or the high-protein leather headband and ear cups, Robin oozes of good boutique build quality and all the components look and feel high-quality and premium for the asking price.

Cable – The stock cable looks and feels quite nice but is slightly microphonic.

Fit and Comfort.

Robin’s size is slightly on the large side if you compare it to headphones like AKG K371 but is quite lightweight and extremely easy to manage and wear. It has a very comfortable fit for my medium sized head but there’s a catch for smaller head sizes. Robin’s ear cups do not exert a lot of clamp force and neither does the headband exert a lot of pressure on the head even in the lowest setting. This does make for a loose-ish comfortable fit but not a very snug one. I can see this being a problem for smaller head sizes as it may fit a bit loose, which will also make perception of its sound signature subject to individual fit. For medium to larger heads, Robin will feel very comfortable for long durations without any discomfort ever creeping in.

Page 2 – Sound analysis, Comparisons and Conclusion.