HiFiMan

HiFiMan's story starts in New York City in late 2005, when Dr. Fang Bian — then working toward a PhD in nanotechnology — founded Head-Direct, a small web-store and Head-Fi community sponsor built around his lifelong obsession with personal audio. That obsession traced back to childhood, when young Fang became fascinated with why different earphones sounded different from one another, eventually helping his parents build home theatre systems as a teenager.

Bian began using the HiFiMan name in 2007, and the brand quickly built a reputation for genuine innovation: the HM-801, released in 2009, is widely regarded as the first true high-end portable digital audio player, and HiFiMan became one of the earliest companies to bring planar magnetic headphone technology to a wider audience with the HE5. Bian's scientific background proved a genuine asset, applying nanotech research methods to headphone driver design in a way few competitors could match.

Now headquartered in Tianjin, China, with continued US operations, HiFiMan has grown into one of the world's leading names in planar magnetic headphones, still guided by Dr. Bian's original mission: Innovating the Art of Listening.