Equipment
AudioQuest NightHawk Headphones
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AudioQuest Nighthawk measurements can be found by clicking this link.
September 2015
I couldn’t even guess how many companies have gotten into the headphone business since 2010, but I doubt any has done it so boldly as has AudioQuest. Their NightHawks ($599 USD) are the result of a from-the-ground-up effort to improve headphone sound. In fact, so much about the NightHawks is radically different that I mention here only their most important features; if you want an in-depth explanation, AudioQuest has devoted to them an excellent microsite.
PSB M4U 4 Earphones
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PSB M4U 4 measurements can be found by clicking this link.
August 2015
PSB’s new M4U 4 earphones raise an important question for audio manufacturers: After you’ve achieved near-perfection, where do you go? Before PSB’s founder and chief engineer, Paul Barton, built his first set of headphones, he read all the existing research and did a lot of his own. The result, the M4U 2 over-ear headphones, were indeed close to perfect, according to reviewers. But a manufacturer generally has to offer a complete line of headphones -- and Barton is responsible for designing headphone-related products for two of the audio brands owned by the Lenbrook Group: PSB and NAD. What’s a designer to do? Voice them all the same, so there’s little reason to spend more for the more expensive models? Or make some models sound different from the others?
Bowers & Wilkins P5 Series 2 Headphones
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Bowers & Wilkins P5 Series 2 measurements can be found by clicking this link.
August 2015
Bowers & Wilkins continues to be one of the most popular manufacturers among audiophiles. Mere mention of the name makes me think of hi-fi icons like their Nautilus loudspeaker, and the Nautilus 801 and 802. These speakers were far ahead of their time for their build quality, materials used, and acoustical engineering. Somewhere along the way, B&W made the leap from a pure hi-fi firm to a premium audio company, likely with its introduction of the Zeppelin iPod dock. Since then they’ve moved from strength to strength, offering a variety of wireless speakers, as well as a full range of earphones and headphones. The subjects of discussion here, the P5 Series 2 headphones ($299 USD), are a perfect marriage of old-school hi-fi and class-leading industrial design.
Aurender Flow Headphone Amplifier-DAC
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July 2015
In a recent column, I complained about the rapid growth in the number of lookalike headphone amps that are little more than a DAC-amp chip stuffed into an extruded-aluminum box. The Aurender Flow ($1295 USD) is the exact opposite: a product that represents a major rethinking of what people -- specifically, audiophiles -- need in a headphone amp.
I’m writing this review on a sleek, highly portable Hewlett-Packard Spectre laptop equipped with a modestly sized solid-state drive (SSD) that makes me wish I’d spent the money on a bigger drive. Despite my efforts to move my storage-intensive audio and video files to an external drive, my SSD has just 2.2 gigabytes of space left. Yet thanks to the Flow, I can now use this overstuffed computer to access my entire collection of digital music files, and I can add more music without worrying I’ll run out of space.
Oppo Digital PM-3 Headphones
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Oppo Digital PM-3 measurements can be found by clicking this link.
July 2015
In just one year, Oppo Digital has become one of the biggest names in audiophile headphones. The new PM-3 closed-back headphones ($399 USD) follow on the impact Oppo made with its other models, the PM-1 ($1099) and PM-2 ($699). Not only is the PM-3 the least expensive model Oppo has made, it’s their first closed-back model, which opens it up to a much wider audience. Closed-back headphones provide some degree of isolation from sounds around you, so you get less noise and more music. I’d guess closed-back headphones outsell open-back models by 100 to 1.
Torque Audio t402v Headphones
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Torque Audio t402v measurements can be found by clicking this link.
June 2015
It’s a good thing most headphones are relatively inexpensive, because they’re the riskiest purchase an audio enthusiast can make. Headphones vary greatly in tonal quality -- more than speakers do, at least according to my ears and my measurement gear. Listeners’ opinions of headphones also seem to vary more than do their opinions of gear in other audio categories. Yet it’s rare to be able to listen to headphones before you buy. Sometimes you can check them out at a headphone meet or hi-fi show, but for the most part you have to rely on reviews written by people who may or may not share your taste in music and/or sound.
Optoma NuForce DDA120 Direct Digital Integrated Amplifier-DAC
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June 2015
NuForce, the California-based audio brand best known for their proprietary class-D power amplifiers, was recently acquired by Optoma Technology, known to many as a major maker of DLP projectors. Also recently, the high-end division of NuForce was spun off as a new company, NuPrime, which will manufacture more expensive products, such as the amplifiers based on NuForce’s high-end, class-D amplifier modules with Cross Matrix Array (CMA) capacitor boards.
NuForce itself will continue to manufacture less costly products, but gone from their product line are many of the very small models -- e.g., the Icon integrated amplifiers -- which were popular for use with desktop systems. However, NuForce continues to offer compact stereo and home-theater components, and high-quality earphones. Thankfully, my favorite NuForce product, the DDA-100 Direct Digital integrated amplifier (discontinued), now lives on as the DDA120, which adds some key new features and a slight increase in price, from $549 to $699 USD.
Phiaton MS 100 BA Earphones
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Phiaton MS 100 BA measurements can be found by clicking this link.
May 2015
The new MS 100 BAs -- Phiaton’s first earphones with balanced-armature drivers -- make me wonder once again why there’s not more controversy or disagreement about balanced armatures. Look at all the stuff audiophiles do disagree about: tubes vs. transistors, the benefits (or lack thereof) of high-resolution audio, whether or not cables make a difference. Well, the audible difference between using balanced-armature and conventional dynamic drivers in earphones is much more significant than the differences you’d hear in any of the pairings just mentioned.
Marshall Headphones Mode EQ Earphones
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Marshall Headphones Mode EQ measurements can be found by clicking this link.
May 2015
How many new consumer-audio brands have emerged in the last seven years or so? I doubt anyone’s counted, but I bet the number has at least doubled, and perhaps tripled. With so many new marques emerging, the entry of the legendary guitar-amp brand Marshall Amplification into consumer audio didn’t get as much attention as it probably would have 15 years ago. That’s sad, because it deserves better.
NAD Masters Series M17 Surround-Sound Processor
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April 2015
Having established, over the past 40 years, an excellent reputation for manufacturing affordable yet high-quality audio gear, NAD has recently gained the attention of audiophiles with their Masters Series models, most of them priced at a few thousand dollars -- relatively expensive for NAD models, but not when compared to gear from many specialty-audio makers. And, like other NAD products, the Masters Series models have already become known among audiophiles for providing excellent performance and value, even at their higher prices.
