Dan Clark Stealth Review (State of the Art Headphone)

[TunaBug]

What connector does the headphone have? Considered a pair of used one and was trying to figure out if there is a reasonably priced aftermarket option for a balanced cable.

It's called a "hirose" connector.

I’m very happy with Hart Audio cables. I dig their whole system, and the prices aren't stupid.

HC-12: Dual Push-Pull (Mr. Speakers) Balanced Headphone Cable

Our HC-12 headphone cable design includes dual SN-8-4 Push Pull connectors used with Dan Clark Audio (Mr. Speakers) headphones. This is a balanced cable design, compatible with our entire interconnect line. For more interconnect choices to pair with your headphone cable, browse to the...

hartaudiocables.com

Note that if you're new to Hart you would need to get an appropriate interconnect to go with that, too.

 

[DJBonoBobo]

I finally had a chance to listen to the Stealth in a store. I had 1 hour, my own music and took my Aeon 2 Noire with EQ (Qudelix 5K) for comparison.

I only listened to a few songs that I know particularly well, but did not do it very systematically. I also didn't pay attention to volume matching, etc. That said, my experience is purely subjective and close to worthless to others. I report only as another of many other voices, with no claim to know anything better.

My impressions:
- I had expected the Stealth to sound "unspectacular", since it is, after all, very neutral. That is actually exactly what I wanted (I thought). However, I was then surprised HOW unspectacular it sounds. I hardly felt like listening to my favorite songs because I didn't get the impression that there was anything special about it.
- In comparison, however, the Noire then seemed surprisingly much worse to me. The treble in particular is actually unbearably exaggerated for me. Even with my EQ, which includes an HS of -6dB from 13 14Khz, I still found the Noire's treble unpleasant in comparison.
- For this, I found the area around about 2 Khz in the Stealth too emphasized, almost a bit "shouty". But not really disturbing, just a slight tendency. It may well be that this is due to my anatomy and I have a different preference.
- Overall, I immediately believe that the Stealth is particularly "correct". However, it also seemed "limited" to me. I always had the feeling "I'm wearing closed headphones right now". I had that a little less even with the Noire. That surprised me, because I expected it the other way around.
- I liked the wearing comfort better with the Noire, I had to constantly pluck at the Stealth. But that can of course be habituation, the Noire I have had longer.
- In the end, the Stealth didn't really convince me, or in other words, it didn't lock in, wasn't what I was looking for. Not that I doubt it's very, very good. As a side effect, though, I now like the Noire worse than before....

Overall, I have come into doubt whether I was really looking for something like this: a very neutral, closed headphones. I have now started to use my Focal Clear more often again and am now considering whether I should not try a HD800S.

 

[Robbo99999]

I finally had a chance to listen to the Stealth in a store. I had 1 hour, my own music and took my Aeon 2 Noire with EQ (Qudelix 5K) for comparison.

I only listened to a few songs that I know particularly well, but did not do it very systematically. I also didn't pay attention to volume matching, etc. That said, my experience is purely subjective and close to worthless to others. I report only as another of many other voices, with no claim to know anything better.

My impressions:
- I had expected the Stealth to sound "unspectacular", since it is, after all, very neutral. That is actually exactly what I wanted (I thought). However, I was then surprised HOW unspectacular it sounds. I hardly felt like listening to my favorite songs because I didn't get the impression that there was anything special about it.
- In comparison, however, the Noire then seemed surprisingly much worse to me. The treble in particular is actually unbearably exaggerated for me. Even with my EQ, which includes an HS of -6dB from 13Khz, I still found the Noire's treble unpleasant in comparison.
- For this, I found the area around about 2 Khz in the Stealth too emphasized, almost a bit "shouty". But not really disturbing, just a slight tendency. It may well be that this is due to my anatomy and I have a different preference.
- Overall, I immediately believe that the Stealth is particularly "correct". However, it also seemed "limited" to me. I always had the feeling "I'm wearing closed headphones right now". I had that a little less even with the Noire. That surprised me, because I expected it the other way around.
- I liked the wearing comfort better with the Noire, I had to constantly pluck at the Stealth. But that can of course be habituation, the Noire I have had longer.
- In the end, the Stealth didn't really convince me, or in other words, it didn't lock in, wasn't what I was looking for. Not that I doubt it's very, very good. As a side effect, though, I now like the Noire worse than before....

Overall, I have come into doubt whether I was really looking for something like this: a very neutral, closed headphones. I have now started to use my Focal Clear more often again and am now considering whether I should not try a HD800S.

Ha, that sounded like a bad day! Didn't like the Stealth & now as a result you don't even like the headphone you used to like, ha! If you've tried some Oratory EQ's for any of the headphones you own then you'll have an idea if you like the Harman Curve, which is targetted almost perfectly by the Stealth, but unit to unit variation of the headphones you own (and a few other more complicated factors) will mean that your EQ'd headphones won't all sound exactly the same; however, the Stealth being an extremely expensive & quality headphone should have tremendously good/low unit to unit variation & as we know it targets the Harman Target perfectly - so the Stealth should really be a guarantee of what the Harman Target really should sound like. So from your listening experience with Stealth you should know if you like Harman or not, you can always tweak the bass level to personal preference though with a 105Hz Low Shelf Filter as that's an acceptable/valid part of the "science" revolving around the creation of the Harman Target - and that bass tweaking can really change the balance and appeal of a headphone for you. One area of unknown for me re the Stealth would be it's soundstage, as that is not completely conveyed by the measured frequency response, and as you say it's a closed back headphone which in general have worse soundstage than open backs, but of course it's not the only variable for good soundstage. To me good soundstage is created by large / angled earcups that don't touch the ears combined with a decent frequency response (Harman being my choice although I tweak bass level to preference for each headphone).

(If you know you like Harman, then you could always take a punt on an inexpensive but quality headphone like the HD560s (open backed), I think it has great soundstage and it has really good frequency response that EQ's well with Oratory's settings, it's got the large earcups with angled drivers & is low distortion.....so might be worth a punt, it's my favourite headphone at the moment for all those reasons, I don't change my favourites very often at all, so I'm not fickle. I'm not saying it's gonna be as good as Stealth, but hell it might be better for some people, or worse! Remember, price of headphone is not a solid predictor of preference/performance. You're probably almost bound to have less unit to unit variation with the Stealth though, and probably better channel matching too, but a punt is a punt! It sounds like you need to do some experimentation with EQ and different headphones.....I suggest you start with Oratory EQ's and tweaking the Low Shelf Filter at 105Hz to personal taste, so tweaking bass level to your own preference.)

 

[DJBonoBobo]

Ha, that sounded like a bad day! Didn't like the Stealth & now as a result you don't even like the headphone you used to like, ha! If you've tried some Oratory EQ's for any of the headphones you own then you'll have an idea if you like the Harman Curve, which is targetted almost perfectly by the Stealth, but unit to unit variation of the headphones you own (and a few other more complicated factors) will mean that your EQ'd headphones won't all sound exactly the same; however, the Stealth being an extremely expensive & quality headphone should have tremendously good/low unit to unit variation & as we know it targets the Harman Target perfectly - so the Stealth should really be a guarantee of what the Harman Target really should sound like. So from your listening experience with Stealth you should know if you like Harman or not, you can always tweak the bass level to personal preference though with a 105Hz Low Shelf Filter as that's an acceptable/valid part of the "science" revolving around the creation of the Harman Target - and that bass tweaking can really change the balance and appeal of a headphone for you. One area of unknown for me re the Stealth would be it's soundstage, as that is not completely conveyed by the measured frequency response, and as you say it's a closed back headphone which in general have worse soundstage than open backs, but of course it's not the only variable for good soundstage. To me good soundstage is created by large / angled earcups that don't touch the ears combined with a decent frequency response (Harman being my choice although I tweak bass level to preference for each headphone).

(If you know you like Harman, then you could always take a punt on an inexpensive but quality headphone like the HD560s (open backed), I think it has great soundstage and it has really good frequency response that EQ's well with Oratory's settings, it's got the large earcups with angled drivers & is low distortion.....so might be worth a punt, it's my favourite headphone at the moment for all those reasons, I don't change my favourites very often at all, so I'm not fickle. I'm not saying it's gonna be as good as Stealth, but hell it might be better for some people, or worse! Remember, price of headphone is not a solid predictor of preference/performance. You're probably almost bound to have less unit to unit variation with the Stealth though, and probably better channel matching too, but a punt is a punt! It sounds like you need to do some experimentation with EQ and different headphones.....I suggest you start with Oratory EQ's and tweaking the Low Shelf Filter at 105Hz to personal taste, so tweaking bass level to your own preference.)

I thought i already tuned it to Harman, and i thought i liked it. I began with Oratory´s settings and adjusted them for my taste.
But after listening to the Stealth i have realized my idea how the Harman curve sounds was wrong.

For reference, these were the EQ settings for the Noire:

 

[Robbo99999]

I thought i already tuned it to Harman, and i thought i liked it. I began with Oratory´s settings and adjusted them for my taste.
But after listening to the Stealth i have realized my idea how the Harman curve sounds was wrong.

For reference, these were the EQ settings for the Noire:
View attachment 183924

I don't know if you've inputted the EQ correctly or not, but I'll assume you have - as that might be something to check, but you've probably already done so.

If you were to have 4 headphones on your desk in front of you - 2 units of headphone model A and 2 units of headphone model B - and they were all EQ'd to the Harman Curve, then there's no guarantee they would all sound the same, not even between the headphones of the same model.....the headphones of the same model would likely sound more like eachother but probably not exactly the same - that would be a function of unit to unit variation, which is a real thing I've experienced with my K702 (I have 3 of them now!). Also, different models of headphones will react differently (somewhat unpredictably) with your anatomy, so even if you had EQ'd two units of different models of headphones on a GRAS measurement device to be exactly equal, then it's quite possible that if you were to then wear those two headphones and measure the frequency response at your own eardrum then it's quite likely they wouldn't measure exactly the same frequency response - that's because the headphone transfer function is unique for each model of headphone to your own head, so will create some deviations (how large I'm not sure, and it's probably a variable based on gross physical design structure of the headphone). So yeah, you can expect some variations between headphones even when EQ'd to the same target curve. This is one very good argument for headphones that have low unit to unit variation, as it makes published EQ's a lot more reliable.

It's possible the Stealth just reacts badly to your own anatomy to create a strange frequency response at your eardrum, but you won't know this unless you've tried a number of different headphones EQ'd to the Harman Target.....or perhaps something obvious like poor bass seal on the Stealth that you might be able to recognise immediately when listening.

 

[icenine]

Listening to, and owning, the Stealth is the same as a high-end stereo rig. Great speakers/big setup has always sounded to me at first flat until you LISTENED and realize what you normally listen to has EQ boost here and there.

 

[icenine]

Listening to Grateful Dead live. The bass is SO DEEP on the recording May 1977: Get shown the light. Stealth does not bloat the bass like my Meze Empyreans used to

 

[moedo]

@amirm thanks for this review. Been listening to these for 3 weeks straight so far and they are amazing (used to lurk this forum (and others) heavily until, finally, receiving these (haven't visited any since - until now)). Also can confirm the bass is extremely impressive (hearing deep and slammin' bass notes in house music I never heard in my mid-range equipment), although I had to utilize my higher powered equipment to get the full bodied response (daily stack wasn't cutting it). After reading/watching multiple reviews, bass was my primary concern; but had to experiment/experience this for myself. After the higher end equipment was plugged in, these things are absolutely incredible. Probably 'end-game' as I've used no other headphones since. This is coming from a 'bass-head' (earth quakes in middle of nowhere Canada each and every weekend with my 7.2 (subw=2x12” 1000watt peak) speaker system) - however my windows have had a break since getting these headphones. Worth every inflated penny. One note is that I find these headphones embellish absolutely nothing and heavily rely on the quality of the recording, so now my library is 100% lossless, where possible. Thanks to all the users here who put up with my PMs while debating this purchase!

 

[Robbo99999]

@amirm thanks for this review. Been listening to these for 3 weeks straight so far and they are amazing (used to lurk this forum (and others) heavily until, finally, receiving these (haven't visited any since - until now)). Also can confirm the bass is extremely impressive (hearing deep and slammin' bass notes in house music I never heard in my mid-range equipment), although I had to utilize my higher powered equipment to get the full bodied response (daily stack wasn't cutting it). After reading/watching multiple reviews, bass was my primary concern; but had to experiment/experience this for myself. After the higher end equipment was plugged in, these things are absolutely incredible. Probably 'end-game' as I've used no other headphones since. This is coming from a 'bass-head' (earth quakes in middle of nowhere Canada each and every weekend with my 7.2 (subw=2x12” 1000watt peak) speaker system) - however my windows have had a break since getting these headphones. Worth every inflated penny. One note is that I find these headphones embellish absolutely nothing and heavily rely on the quality of the recording, so now my library is 100% lossless, where possible. Thanks to all the users here who put up with my PMs while debating this purchase!

Quality of the recording is more heavily influenced by the production rather than whether or not the file is lossless or say 320mbps mp3 or 256 AAC etc. Just because the Stealth follows the Harman Curve accurately doesn't mean it's an absolute perfect fit for you re frequency response, so that's quite a large variable itself. I'm assuming unit to unit variation of the Stealth is very low, as otherwise that would be another variable. I don't doubt it's a capable headphone though, although I'm not sold on it's "untouchable uniqueness", albeit it's probably easier to get closer to headphone nirvana with this headphone than it is with others that may have greater unit to unit variation - EQ can be a massive gain for "lesser" headphones and particularly if unit to unit variation is controlled well, which is variable from manufacturer to manufacturer & model to model. I'm not sold on the Stealth as being the must have for accurate sound and the "ultimate experience in headphones". I do think you can feel lucky to be able to afford & own them, as you can't say the measurements are bad, the opposite for sure, just all that is not a pre-requisite for the best headphone experience ultimately. I'm sure it's an easy way to get a good experience though, so I can't deny the enjoyment of your headphones.

 

[psiyari]

Quality of the recording is more heavily influenced by the production rather than whether or not the file is lossless or say 320mbps mp3 or 256 AAC etc. Just because the Stealth follows the Harman Curve accurately doesn't mean it's an absolute perfect fit for you re frequency response, so that's quite a large variable itself. I'm assuming unit to unit variation of the Stealth is very low, as otherwise that would be another variable. I don't doubt it's a capable headphone though, although I'm not sold on it's "untouchable uniqueness", albeit it's probably easier to get closer to headphone nirvana with this headphone than it is with others that may have greater unit to unit variation - EQ can be a massive gain for "lesser" headphones and particularly if unit to unit variation is controlled well, which is variable from manufacturer to manufacturer & model to model. I'm not sold on the Stealth as being the must have for accurate sound and the "ultimate experience in headphones". I do think you can feel lucky to be able to afford & own them, as you can't say the measurements are bad, the opposite for sure, just all that is not a pre-requisite for the best headphone experience ultimately. I'm sure it's an easy way to get a good experience though, so I can't deny the enjoyment of your headphones.

So what exactly do you think is left unnoticed in Stealth that can be improved?

 

[Robbo99999]

So what exactly do you think is left unnoticed in Stealth that can be improved?

It can be tuned to be a more accurate sound for the individual wearing it, because Harman Curve is not gonna be the most accurate sound for everyone due to physiological differences. I would recommend tuning it using the customisation filters that Oratory uses, following an example (from my HD560s):

I had great success tuning my HD560s using Band 2 and 4.

Also on the Stealth, there's an element of "soundstage" that is not really quantifiable by the measured frequency response, so I have no idea if that could be improved upon as I've not listened to the Stealth. But really the Stealth measures perfectly pretty much, but that doesn't guarantee a perfect experience, nor does it mean that this experience can't be equalled.

EDIT: Band 2, 5, & 10 might be the best for tuning the stealth - obviously you'd start off with them all at 0dB and then you'd tweak them up & down to taste.

 

[psiyari]

It can be tuned to be a more accurate sound for the individual wearing it, because Harman Curve is not gonna be the most accurate sound for everyone due to physiological differences. I would recommend tuning it using the customisation filters that Oratory uses, following an example:
View attachment 186757
I had great success tuning my HD560s using Band 2 and 4.

Also on the Stealth, there's an element of "soundstage" that is not really quantifiable by the measured frequency response, so I have no idea if that could be improved upon as I've not listened to the Stealth. But really the Stealth measures perfectly pretty much, but that doesn't guarantee a perfect experience, nor does it mean that this experience can't be equalled.

EDIT: Band 2, 5, & 10 might be the best for tuning the stealth - obviously you'd start off with them all at 0dB and then you'd tweak them up & down to taste.

Given your focus on individual wearing, I suggest you to go and listen to Stealth extensively for a couple of months rather than following any review website or Youtube channel because there will not be much gain for you doing that. You have not tried Stealth but it seems you already have a ton of comments on its performance. As a Stealth owner after several months of intense listening (still doing it), the soundstage is not that bad at all IMO. In fact it is great! Keep in mind that nothing is over exaggerated in Stealth, as it should not be for other headphones; and that includes the soundstage, spatial qualities, etc.

My experience with Oratory was actually pretty bad! As a PhD in electrical engineering with extensive background in filter design, it is very intuitive for engineers that the abundance of filters can introduce irregularities in frequency response (this is as simplified as I can explain), especially when it comes to digital filters (i.e., EQ) impacting the analog domain. So no! Just because you can have 10 filters to force a frequency response to follow the Harman curve, does not mean that you are doing a good job.

In some parts of your post you are saying that even the Harman curve is not for everyone! So … I don’t what we/headphone designers should do then!

 

[someguyontheinternet]

I don’t what we/headphone designers should do then!

Some standard is a lot better than no standard. With Harman sitting pretty close to the average preference according to research it makes sense to use it as a standard. The difference to individual preference will be as small as it statistically can be.
It would be nice to see more automated DSP to shape the FR to individual preference though. There is already some in place in Samsung phones if I remember correctly, but the quality of the results are mixed from what I have heard so far. There is also one integrated into the Peace UI for EqualizerAPO I think.
Having manufacturers take adjustments into account and testing for reasonable bass and treble deviations from Harman when designing the headphone would be a good step I think. The next step would be integration or separate software side DSP for automated individual adjustments.

 

[psiyari]

Some standard is a lot better than no standard. With Harman sitting pretty close to the average preference according to research it makes sense to use it as a standard. The difference to individual preference will be as small as it statistically can be.
It would be nice to see more automated DSP to shape the FR to individual preference though. There is already some in place in Samsung phones if I remember correctly, but the quality of the results are mixed from what I have heard so far. There is also one integrated into the Peace UI for EqualizerAPO I think.
Having manufacturers take adjustments into account and testing for reasonable bass and treble deviations from Harman when designing the headphone would be a good step I think. The next step would be integration or separate software side DSP for automated individual adjustments.

Just to be clear, is what you are saying any different from the EQ presets in apple music or parametric EQ in Roon?

 

[someguyontheinternet]

Just to be clear, is what you are saying any different from the EQ presets in apple music or parametric EQ in Roon?

Yes, because instead of manually changing bands and filters it would be a lot nicer to have a program that guides the user through a more intuitive process and creates the specific bands and filters accordingly.
Another possibility would be using microphones inside the cups to extrapolate the individual HRTF, but doing that seems a lot less feasible.

 

[psiyari]

Yes, because instead of manually changing bands and filters it would be a lot nicer to have a program that guides the user through a more intuitive process and creates the specific bands and filters accordingly.
Another possibility would be using microphones inside the cups to extrapolate the individual HRTF, but doing that seems a lot less feasible.

Well, to do such a thing, you first need a headphone capable of handling all the changes instructed from the digital domain. Even if you have a very nice user interface that guides you through all the EQ presets (or somehow creates your "preferred" EQ),how do you determine that the headphone will render all of those customizations perfectly? Let me answer that for you; You need a headphone with extremely low distortion in all parts of the spectrum at a very high SPL, so that it has enough headroom for literally every hungry/thirsty audiophile! Maybe you can do all of that with Stealth yourself, why would you need a software? I am pretty sure that a software would not be able to give the fine control that your mouse and your hands already have, especially when it comes to getting every bit of detail

A software is able to help only if it knows what the audiophile is looking for! I doubt you can find two subjective testers who have the same taste across a wide range of music genres. I guess sticking to science and same old boring THD, FR, impedance would be more clea, more revealing and a lot easier to first determine what headphone can handle all of this customizations. Then, the listener can play with the EQ, which should not be that hard.

Just grabbing a pen and paper to write down all of Amir's instructions throghout his YouTube videos would be enough to know a lot about EQ'ing! That is of course the case, if one leaves YouTube's trend of below 10min videos, and starts watching Amir's videos as if he/she is actually attending a class in school!

 

[w1000i]

I hope this isn‘t too off topic - @JohnYang1997 and @amirm can you help me out here please - I‘m trying to compare and determine whether the Topping A90 or the Benchmark AHB2 would be best suited to drive the Stealth to best performance:

- While the A90 is measured at unity gain (4V in), the AHB2 is measured at 5W out. Is there a way to „convert“, and compare?
- The A90 has THD+N at 0.000094% and SINAD at 121dB there, whereas the AHB2 reaches 0.000225% and 113dB. Is this comparable?
- Signal to Noise Ratio of A90 at 4V is 126dB, whereas AHB2 at 22.5kHz BW is 130dB. Again, is there any way to relate this?

In short: based on the measurements made, is there a way to determine whether either the A90 or the AHB2 in measurememt terms would perform / measure better with the 23 ohm of the Stealth…?

if you care about measurements get Singxer SA-1. + get iEMatch4.4 ( if you use 4.4 balance) to raise the impedance so the amp will work at its best.

 

[someguyontheinternet]

Well, to do such a thing, you first need a headphone capable of handling all the changes instructed from the digital domain. Even if you have a very nice user interface that guides you through all the EQ presets (or somehow creates your "preferred" EQ),how do you determine that the headphone will render all of those customizations perfectly? Let me answer that for you; You need a headphone with extremely low distortion in all parts of the spectrum at a very high SPL, so that it has enough headroom for literally every hungry/thirsty audiophile! Maybe you can do all of that with Stealth yourself, why would you need a software? I am pretty sure that a software would not be able to give the fine control that your mouse and your hands already have, especially when it comes to getting every bit of detail

Yes, that is also what I think about headphone design. The goal should be a Harman target FR. Additionally resonances and distortion should be eliminated as much as possible to allow adjustments without degradation of sound quality. That's why I mentioned that manufacturers should test ranges of bass and treble adjustments as they are likely to be influenced by human-individual factors.

A software is able to help only if it knows what the audiophile is looking for! I doubt you can find two subjective testers who have the same taste across a wide range of music genres. I guess sticking to science and same old boring THD, FR, impedance would be more clea, more revealing and a lot easier to first determine what headphone can handle all of this customizations. Then, the listener can play with the EQ, which should not be that hard.

The thing with presets is that they are too rigid in their core concept. There are assumptions made to how the different regions will influence each other and the bands are adjusted accordingly. However changing one region will consequently also impact other regions and the end-user might not know how to adjust for this manually. Guiding the lay-person through a more intuitive process can be very helpful in my opinion.

Just grabbing a pen and paper to write down all of Amir's instructions throghout his YouTube videos would be enough to know a lot about EQ'ing! That is of course the case, if one leaves YouTube's trend of below 10min videos, and starts watching Amir's videos as if he/she is actually attending a class in school!

While I have the time and motivation to do this, this is not the case for everyone. I already EQ my headphones manually and have some experience what to listen for and what to adjust. However this is a skill that I invested time and effort into while also being on the technically well-versed side. On the other hand other people might lack in one or more of these areas. Making things more accessible to all kinds of people would be desirable in my opinion.

There is also the thing about the understanding/interpretation of the Harman target. Most people in general are not very familiar with the concepts of statistics even though it should be taught in the course of every school and degree.
I think going through the effort and highlighting appropriate bass and treble regions around the target curve could cut down a lot of the misconceptions surrounding it.

While Amir and some other people try to make the variability of measurements and "still good" areas around the target line clear to people, the perception of a simple line can still confuse a lot of them.

 

[Robbo99999]

Given your focus on individual wearing, I suggest you to go and listen to Stealth extensively for a couple of months rather than following any review website or Youtube channel because there will not be much gain for you doing that. You have not tried Stealth but it seems you already have a ton of comments on its performance. As a Stealth owner after several months of intense listening (still doing it), the soundstage is not that bad at all IMO. In fact it is great! Keep in mind that nothing is over exaggerated in Stealth, as it should not be for other headphones; and that includes the soundstage, spatial qualities, etc.

My experience with Oratory was actually pretty bad! As a PhD in electrical engineering with extensive background in filter design, it is very intuitive for engineers that the abundance of filters can introduce irregularities in frequency response (this is as simplified as I can explain), especially when it comes to digital filters (i.e., EQ) impacting the analog domain. So no! Just because you can have 10 filters to force a frequency response to follow the Harman curve, does not mean that you are doing a good job.

In some parts of your post you are saying that even the Harman curve is not for everyone! So … I don’t what we/headphone designers should do then!

EQ doesn't degrade sound, you're just changing the frequency response, there aren't negative connotations with using EQ on a fundamental level, of course though you can make it worse but that would generally be because there's the potential of screwing up the frequency response even more as received at your eardrum, but there's nothing fundamentally associated with EQ degrading sound.

I would love to listen to the Stealth, but it's probably not gonna happen. I'm simply providing some perspective in this thread re my thoughts that the Stealth is not absolutely unique or unable to be equalled or unsurpassable - the Stealth is an easy way to probably get a great experience, but that doesn't mean it can't be equalled and perhaps surpassed by other headphones that have been tuned properly (which takes more effort / time / bit of luck experimenting with different headphones & getting a good unit, etc). I'm just putting in my perspective. I am a Harman Curve fan, but I think it can be improved by an individual through tuning so that it fits their physiology better, also to counteract unit to unit variation of a headphone, and also to counteract the unpredictable reactions that can happen with different physical designs of headphone and how that interacts with your particular ear & surrounding anatomy. That very last point in that last sentence being that if you EQ different models of headphone to the same curve on a GRAS and then if you were to wear those headphones and somehow measure the frequency response at your eardrum, then the curves would not all exactly match and the headphones are likely to sound a little different from one another. So that last point is providing variation from person to person even with the Stealth that we might assume is perfectly channel matched and very low unit to unit variation.

I'm definitely not being negative towards Dan Clarke's creation of this headphone, as there's nothing to be negative about it (apart from the price), as it measures great, but I'm just saying that's not an absolute guarantee of a great/perfect experience, and I'm also saying that the stock "Stealth experience" can probably be equalled or surpassed by other headphones if you take the time to tune them, choose the right headphone, have a bit of luck getting a good unit, etc, but it can be a pain in the ass or a labour of love doing so! Buying the Stealth does probably give you a bit of a leap frog to good/excellent sound by the closely adhering Harman Curve frequency response, probably good channel matching & low unit to unit variation.....but then it can be improved further by individual tuning, and as for the soundstage aspect I mentioned well that's an unpredictable variable that in my experience is imparted by the physical design of the headphone and can only be ascertained by listening to it, so that last point would obviously be an unknown for me re the Stealth, but with it being a closed back that could worsen that aspect, (and I don't know if it has angled drivers or pads which I've found to be influential in good soundstage).

It's a great headphone re the measurements, I'm just putting in my perspective.

 

[Dro]

A properly EQed HD800 (better than HD800S due to low frequency THD) is not really inferior to the Stealth in terms of sound. No isolation, but sometimes that can also be preferable. I like my Stealth for the isolation without sounding cuppy, the state of the art tech that is in it and because it just works. From a rational point of view, I would recommend the HD560S, HD58X or HD800 with EQ or K361/K371 for a tighter budget without EQ. The Stealth is not something you need and certainly not something you must have. It is something you want.