!!! I hope people have time to read this long post !!!
After a long time of trying out different headphones, I finally settled with Dan Clark Stealth, and they are amazing; this where I try to stop giving this headphone too much compliment, as well as ranting about its price! There is already 70 pages of discussion about either of these two topics!
a. Other than Stealth, I tried about 20 other headphones ranging from $100 to $2000. The most notable ones were AKG K371, Bose QC35ii (wired), ATHM50X (with Dekoni's Sheepskin leather pads), Airpods Max (wired), HD800S, HD650, Aeon 2 Noire, Aeon Closed/Open X, and HE-6SE.
b. For all of the headphones, I used
@amirm's EQ settings. Regarding Aeon 2 Noire and Open X, I used Amir's EQ for Aeon Closed RT and innovated on that, utlizing the frequency response plots from Oratory1990. The final EQ settings for these two headphones are something between Amir's EQ and Oratory1990's PEQ settings. I just tried to replicate the same sound signature of Aeon Closed for these two headphones, and once I was there, I tried to see if I could do better.
c. I did go liberal on preamp gain and headroom adjustments for all headphones. Subjectively, I felt that some suggested preamp and headroom gains take too much away from headphones' capabilities. I was, however, careful to notice (and eliminate) any clipping and distortion due to lack of enough headroom.
d. I used Qobuz and Roon to play the test tracks. I also have Apple music subscription, and consistently compared the headphones performace between Roon and Apple Music.
e. I collected
@amirm 's leaked test tracks from his different reviews. I also had some tracks myself, in addition to Amir's.
f. I am using Topping E50/L50 duo with balanced input/output. I used 3.5mm/6.35mm adapters to XLR when needed.
g(!). All devices operate in room temperature with proper grounding and some "fancy" cables!!!
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Here is a summary of my "subjective" experience:
1. The bass in Stealth could enjoy a little bit more gain, so I EQ'ed the sub-80Hz a tad bit. I will share the EQ settings if there is any interest. I noticed this only in very few tracks though. For example, in "Billie Jean by Michael Jackson", the first few beats of the bass drums are somewhat dead in Stealth with no EQ. With a little bit of EQ, the beats come to life and you appreciate the severity of hitting the drums, or as some people put it, "the bass becomes physical after EQ"!. All of this can be done without the headphones becoming too boomy. In fact, right after the few beats of drums in Billie Jean, a trumpet-like instrument with a mouthful sound(!) plays which can give you a good indication on how boomy your headphones are.
Another track where the beats can be felt is "Riders on the Storm by The Doors". If you are using, Qobuz, right around mark 5:10, the drums are hit three times with increasing intensities. The headphones with good bass/mid response deliver this part very well. Stealth with EQ did the same, although it is a little bit harder to notice the difference in this example without EQ. Billie Jean is a much simpler example.
2. I felt a noticeable difference when switching from Aeon 2 Noire to Stealth. Stealth is much more balanced (Yes, that is as vague as I can describe it
). Generally, up until Stealth, my experience with Dan Clark was not top notch to justify their price. The closed-back design of DC audio headphones always made me tired after listening with a fairly loud volume. I believe that too many reflections inside the earcups just make my brain confused. And no, even the open-back designs of DC audio could not eliminate this problem for me. I will wait for Amir's review of Aeon 2 Noire, but to give you a glimpse of what I mean about previous Aeons, you can listen to the first minute of "The demon dance" by Cliff Martinez. If you manage to keep the volume right below where the driver starts ticking, all Aeon headphones produce a somewhat immature bass response, so much so that the beats become a little thin. That is of course the case, if your ears can handle a little bit of very loud sound. However, Stealth is a different animal! I did manage to get the ticking sound from Stealth's driver, but below that, there is no change in tonality.
3. As a curious individual, I do sometimes play with EQ and mindlessly increase the EQ gain in parts of the spectrum. I have to say that with Stealth, it almost feels like the different parts of EQ are completely independent from each other. I never had such an experience with any other headphone. In other headphones, increasing the EQ gain in one part does nasty things on overall tonality, so much so that EQ'ing becomes very annoying; there are just way too many moving parts. You might have already guessed that I have a thing in my heart for bass(!), so yeah, I do EQ bass all the time including when I am using Stealth; the problem that I mentioned casts itself much more in the bass domain. I will let you figure out which measurements done by Amir prove this claim and the previous claim!
With Stealth the EQ job becomes very easy though, so you can change the headphones characterstics to your liking even if you are a beginner.
4. When it comes to midrange and treble, I did not notice any issue, meaning that it is great. Much better than all of the headphones I tried, so I did not even try to nit pick and find faults in this domain. However, there is something that attracted my attention while testing. The track "Litany of the first encounter" can reveal a lot about a headphone IMO. One thing that became noticeable was a thing that I call "the tail of sound". That basically means the following: The way different instruments echo and then fade in the music. I tried to see which headphones act as naturally as possible in this scenario. As Amir mentioned in his review, Hifiman HE-6SE was the best in delivering in this test. Maybe Amir wanted to point to different things about HE-6SE (i.e., tonality, etc.), but this was my biggest takeaway from this track. Stealth was right up there next to HE-6SE. A headphone that does not do so well in this test is HD650.
5. Stealth was also great in terms of spatial qualities. In addition to Amir's suggestions (read his HD800S review), I think the track "Chocolate Chip Trip by TOOL" is a nice choice to showcase this ability in Stealth.
6. With a reasonable and completely listenable volume level, the dongle dac/amp THx Onyx delivers a very nice experience even with the Stealth. And sadly, Hidizs S9 pro did miserably when connected to Stealth. Up until now, I had not connected the iPhone to a low-impedance headphone but I did so with Stealth. Interestingly, the iPhone cuts the music and pauses after 2 seconds as if there is no headphone connected, signifying that it cannot deliver a lot of current with its battery. The situation is quickly resolved if you plug in the iPhone though. The camera dongle for iPhone allows you to connect dongle dac/amp and charger at the same time.
7. The next best headphone after Stealth was HE-6SE IMO. However, you need a very capable amp to appreciate this headphone. Even with L50, I felt like I could crank the volume a bit higher with HE-6SE. If you never experience Stealth, I believe HE-6SE is a very very competent alternative (with Amir's EQ).
There may be other things that I forgot to write here, but the above contains most important and most noticeable observations. Overall, you need to look at Stealth as a true all-rounder that does not compromise on any aspect. An open back headphone that manages to stay neck-and-neck amongst a myriad of high-end open back headophones; Sometimes, this very goal pushes a company to experiment with meta materials and come up with something that is worth the time and energy of filing a global patent for!
I just wish that Dan Clark does not come up with a better idea for a while until I can afford another high-end headphone
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In conclusion, I have one more praise for this headphone which is somewhat a cautionary advice! Please make up your mind before trying the Stealth, as the world of headphones will become pretty boring after listening to Stealth! My engagement in audiosciencereview has been pretty low ever since Stealth happened!
