Headphones

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Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Mar 05, 2020
hfnoutstandingHigh-end headphone amps for connoisseurs of cans require total adjustability – has Manley Laboratories delivered the goods with the Absolute Headphone Amplifier?

Veteran makers of headphone amplifiers for studios, Manley Laboratories is taking on the extreme high-end of the domestic genre with a £4500 unit – the Absolute – that marries audiophiles' sonic requirements with the total control demanded of professionals. Company CEO Eveanna Manley says, bluntly, 'Our goal was simply to produce the most awesome-sounding and sonically flexible vacuum tube headphone amplifier!'.

Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Dec 01, 2017
hfncommended.pngSomething for the high-end user with a sense of fun – Metaxas' Marquis 'Memento Mori' headphone amp marries form with function and the result is rather jolly. Er, Roger.

Headphones now rule – period – and as a vivid illustration of the current profusion of cans, I was staggered to see, at a store in Tokyo, a selection of something like 1500 headphones, and with plenty of high-end brands notable by their absence.

Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Keith Howard  |  Dec 01, 2018
hfnoutstanding.pngMeze Audio turns up the heat in the hotly-contested high-end headphone sector with the radical Empyrean, claiming the first 'Isodynamic Hybrid Array Headphone'

Yes, £2700. For headphones. Ulp!… Meze Audio isn't messing around with its assault on the state-of-the-art and, thankfully, its new Empyrean model goes to great lengths to justify that price. These ooze with innovation, the construction is impeccable – all the better to convey immediate perceived value – and, thanks in no small part to the impressive packaging, an air of luxury rare in hi-fi. Which is what I have been screaming about for years: these tell you that you're getting what you pay for, and in spades.

Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Paul Miller  |  May 12, 2020
hfnoutstandingWith input from the designer behind MoFi's cutting lathes, the UltraPhono (and StudioPhono) were conceived as high value partners for its affordable turntables

Are we in the midst of a Golden Age of Analogue? If you're returning to, or just discovering the vinyl LP, then yes, we are. Mobile Fidelity's UltraPhono is an example of what the industry can deliver when inspired, and clearly this is a response to the need for affordable phono stages to render suitable 30 years' worth of post-CD integrated amplifiers without phono stages. At £499, it's not for the impoverished analogue neophyte, but neither is it horrendously expensive by any measure.

Review: Christopher Breunig, Lab: Keith Howard  |  Sep 24, 2019
hfncommendedTaking a load off your mind, these headphones are claimed to be the lightest open-backed planar magnetics around. Great for comfort – but what about the sound?

We've reached the stage in the renaissance of the planar magnetic (aka isodynamic) headphone where merely being one is no longer worth more than a passing mention. In fact it's a few months since I've had anything but PM headphones arrive for review. So to be more than the PM headphone du jour, any new model needs something extra: a true USP.

Review and Lab: Keith Howard  |  Mar 10, 2020
hfnoutstandingGenuinely novel headphones are few and far between but here, from a small brand in Vienna, is one worthy of the description. And it can boast a famous ancestor...

Among those fortunate enough to have experienced it, the AKG K1000 is often spoken of with a mixture of reverence and awe. It wasn't just AKG's flagship when introduced 30 years ago, it was an attempt to redefine headphone design and shove it in a new direction. The K1000 had no earpads as such – its capsules were held away from the head by small pads above the ears – and it was pared-down structurally to obviate other resonant cavities and minimise the reflective surface area.

Review: Andrew Everard, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Sep 16, 2021
hfnoutstandingThe evergreen Uniti Atom all-in-one platform, complete with custom streaming solution, is adapted to service the needs of the most demanding headphone users

Never let it be said the product name isn't long enough – in the 12 years since Naim launched its network audio all-in-one, to which the buyer need only add speakers, it's grown from the simple NaimUniti of the initial model, all the way to this, the £2399 Naim Audio Uniti Atom Headphone Edition. And yet here, less is more.

Review: Andrew Everard, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Mar 23, 2020
hfnoutstandingBest known for its music rippers and servers, the Korean company has now entered the personal audio market with a comprehensively-equipped DAC/headphone amp

When it comes to affordable music players with hard disk storage, few companies have the pedigree of Korea-based Novatron. Its range of products, sold under the Cocktail Audio brand worldwide – including here, before a UK-only rebranding to Novafidelity – starts from as little as £650 for the X14 model. In this instance the user is able to decide how much storage capacity to have installed, or even buy the unit 'bare bones' and add their own choice of drive.

Review and Lab: Keith Howard  |  Jun 26, 2019
hfncommendedA development of the earlier M4U 2, this new design adds Bluetooth and internal battery charging while listening, via micro USB. How do the improvements stack up?

Although it received a lukewarm review in these pages [HFN Dec '13], the M4U 2 – predecessor to the M4U 8 we're looking at here and still available – proved to be a success for PSB, garnering plaudits and awards along the way. The M4U 8 looks very similar and it would be easy to suppose that it's just an M4U 2 with wireless capability in the form of Bluetooth and NFC (near-field communication) bolted on. In fact it's a bit more than that, principally because its onboard DSP capability allows it, in active mode, to deliver a more precise adherence to PSB's RoomFeel target frequency response.

Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Keith Howard  |  Aug 01, 2018
hfncommended.pngEighty-two years after its founding and 61 years after the ESL-57, Quad delivers its first headphone, the ERA-1, and it's a planar design... but not an electrostatic!

For Quad devotees, the ERA-1 headphone has been a long time coming. One suspects that the company – like B&W, KEF and so many other traditional British brands – saw the writing on the wall. And what did this say? 'Headphones are now the only growth area in audio.' Disagree or concur, that's the reality check in the post-iPod era, and Quad has wisely chosen to deliver a model costing £599.

Keith Howard  |  Dec 03, 2019  |  First Published: Jun 01, 2014
Do headphone headbands carry unwanted sound? Keith Howard finds out

Imagine that instead of each of your stereo loudspeakers sitting in splendid isolation, optimally aligned with respect to the listening seat, there was a large band of metal or plastic curving between them, joining the two cabinets. If you know anything of loudspeaker design and the efforts taken to quell structural resonances, you'd immediately suspect this structure of colouring the sound and – by carrying vibrations from one speaker to the another – of messing with the stereo image.

Review: Andrew Everard, Lab: Keith Howard  |  Feb 01, 2018
hfnoutstanding.pngA high-end luxury headphone solution from a new name, the M1 offers a unique in-house twist on established technology. Is it the ideal solution for 'head-fi' enthusiasts?

There's no denying that headphone listening, or 'head-fi' as some fans describe it, is one of the boom sectors of the audio industry. There are now more upmarket headphones on the market than ever before, along with dedicated amplifiers and other accoutrements, and it's a safe bet that one of the busiest areas of any hi-fi shows is going to be the personal audio zone.

Review: Andrew Everard, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Aug 26, 2021
hfnoutstandingWith deep roots in 'professional audio' and a novel discrete op-amp module as a key driving force, SPL is looking to bring a splash of colour to our audiophile universe

Well, it makes a change from the usual choice of silver or black… Yes, you can have the German-made SPL Phonitor xe USB DAC/headphone amp, which starts from £1899 depending on specification, in either of those colours if you want, but it's also available in the bright red anodised finish you see here. Not that it needs colour to catch the eye for the unusual battery of features makes it either intriguing or something of a head-scratcher: what do all those knobs and switches do? And then there's the pair of illuminated, retro-looking VU meters – this is clearly not your common or garden DAC/headphone amp.

Review: Andrew Everard, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Sep 17, 2020
hfnoutstandingClose on the heels of T+A's flagship Solitaire P headphone comes this appropriately luxurious partner combining familiar digital tech with a Class A headphone amplifier

Well, it seems everyone's doing it, so why shouldn't German high-end company T+A have its own headphone system? Hot on the heels of its first headphone offering, the Solitaire P planar magnetic design [HFN Jun '20], T+A also has a matching headphone amplifier, the HA 200 – and here it is. Even by the standards of some of the headphone exotica out there, the Solitaire P/HA 200 duo is pitched unashamedly high: the 'phones will set you back £4800, and this headphone amp £6600 in either black or silver finishes, making the whole system the thick end of £11,500. So you're going to have to be pretty serious about your headphone listening to consider it.

Keith Howard  |  Dec 04, 2019  |  First Published: Jul 01, 2016
Keith Howard revisits the question of headphone headband resonance

Shortly after my first Investigation into headphone headband resonance was published [see HFN Jun '14], Owen Jones – he who designed THX's Achromatic Audio Amplifier circuit – pointed out to me that I could have done a better job of it.

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