Dan Clark Stealth Review (State of the Art Headphone)

[Acidicfriend]

There has never been and probably there will never be consensus on which headphones sound better
My impression based on reviews and comments online is that E3 is more widely liked than Stealth.

That has been my takeaway too from what I've seen online. I just wonder what an additional really $2,000 gets you. I see that distortion is lower on the stealth?

 

[IAtaman]

That has been my takeaway too from what I've seen online. I just wonder what an additional really $2,000 gets you. I see that distortion is lower on the stealth?

I don't know what you get for an additional $2000.
Distortion is indeed a bit lower on Stealth, but distortion on E3 is low enough to be irrelevant as well, so it does not matter.
I think your best option is to listen to them if possible and figure out which one you like better.

 

[Acidicfriend]

I don't know what you get for an additional $2000.
Distortion is indeed a bit lower on Stealth, but distortion on E3 is low enough to be irrelevant as well, so it does not matter.
I think your best option is to listen to them if possible and figure out which one you like better.

I actually have the E3's right now, they are beautiful. Easily the most tonally balanced pair of headphones I've ever worn, I cannot believe these are closed backs. sadly, this is the second unit I've had to return too. Both have had a rattle in one of the drivers - first time, the rattle was apparent when making music at sub-frequencies, now it rattles at around 400hz - found via doing a frequency sweep. Such a shame. I didn't think DCA would have so many QC issues, I might just be very unlucky.

 

[sharock]

I don't know what you get for an additional $2000

Maybe better QC?

 

[milosz]

There seems to be a lot of gnashing of teeth and foot stomping over the price. And, no, the manufacturing, materials cost and QC are not likely the reason for the high cost. My guess is cost is driven by R&D. The metamaterial tuning is something of a breakthrough in headphone technology, and developing it likely took quite a few talented people many hours to develop. Having talented people work many hours costs MONEY. Engineers, polymer scientists and acoustics experts are paid commensurate with their talents, experience and training. Developing the product likely cost a whole bunch of cash, and it's a low production item so that cost has to be amortized over a fairly small pool of sales.

And we all know that with many things, there is a diminishing returns effect. $500 can buy some decent headphones, but the $1000 headphones are not TWICE as good...and $2000 'phones are not four times as good... and so on.

Also I think that the metamaterial "filters" in Dan Clark headphones are made via additive manufacturing which is time consuming and has a fairly high scrap rate.

I have a pair of Stealths. I also just got a pair of Corinas. Not sure yet which is the better headphone. I am tempted to say the Stealths are, but I need more time with the Cornias to make up my mind. They are both better sounding than anything else I've heard, and I've heard pretty much all the TOTL 'phones on the market, though have only owned / lived with two dozen or so since buying a pair of ESP-9's in 1971....

 

[IAtaman]

People like to justify to themselves there are good reasons why something costs what it costs based on bill of materials, but these are not commodity products, and there needs to be no correlation between the cost of the product and its price. Any smart manufacturer, like DCA, will price their products based on how much value they think they bring to the consumers, not how much it costs to build them or develop them. Cost is a parameter of margin, not of price.

 

[NoteMakoti]

Crossing my fingers for a price drop on these sometime soon. I'm too anal to run an EQ over the E3 every time I want to use it, but the $2k price difference is steep.

 

[ZolaIII]

Crossing my fingers for a price drop on these sometime soon. I'm too anal to run an EQ over the E3 every time I want to use it, but the $2k price difference is steep.

Well don't be and you can run same EQ on broad spectrum of device's once set up you can as well forget about it. I started using Stelth error to JM-1 to Denon AH-D5200 Harman OE in convolver and Wavelet form (with additional 18 Hz high pass 12 dB per octave as final touch not shown in the picture).
Result is smoothed up and extended Stelth keeping up a bit of 120 Hz boots impact.

Anyway point is you can simulate one headset on another if its not far off and you don't really push it. It's quite easy actually.

Home

Automatic headphone equalization from frequency responses - jaakkopasanen/AutoEq

github.com

AutoEq

Automatic headphone equalization

autoeq.app

 

[milosz]

I still LOVE my DC Stealths. I like them even more than the Corina that I have.

FYI I am not a person that has more money than sense. I lack both, as it turns out.

 

[milosz]

...by the way, Amirm, are you going to review the Corina?

 

[lewdish]

...by the way, Amirm, are you going to review the Corina?

I was hoping Dan would have sent a pair to Amir to review by now

 

[Grobbelboy]

Love 'em as well, with an estimated 250 hours of listening so far. I do EQ the 105Hz bump down a bit and add a small subbass boost around 50Hz, as well as a high shelf filter >3.000Hz of around 1.5dB. With those in place it is as neutral as I've ever heard any OE headphone.

 

[milosz]

I drove to Axpona yesterday and stopped by the Dan Clark booth, hoping to engage with the company a little but the person minding the store was too busy on his phone, I couldn't easily get his attention. I have $8,000 of Dan Clark headphones and I thought maybe they'd be interested in hearing what I had to say, but maybe not.

Anyway, I had the opportunity to listen to the Corina on a Blue Hawaii amp, and they had some streaming service (Was it Qobuz? I dunno) so I was able to select a track that I am well familiar with so that I could compare how the Corina sounded on the Blue Hawaii vs. how they sound on my Carbon amp. Of course this couldn't be a direct A/B, and was decidedly not a blind test, but my IMPRESSION was that the Carbon has tighter bass control, and maybe less treble artifact compared to the Blue Hawaii. MY OPINION ONLY for what it's worth.

After a time, I wandered around - went and had some really good potato soup at the restaurant there in the hotel - Schaumburg Public House - which was very tasty and really reasonably priced for food in a hotel / trade show so I thought it deserved a shout out.

I heard a bunch of speakers, none of which I liked because they were all boxes and sounded boxy- I am a panel speaker / open-baffle subwoofer guy - and also saw a bunch of black and silver aluminum boxes full of circuits, none of which impressed me very much. I understand it's hard to get good sound in a hotel at a show but I know the smeary bass of a box when I hear it....

After a while I came back to the Dan Clark table but I didn't want to be rude and interrupt the guy doing things on his phone, so I left.

BUT- I was glad to have had the opportunity to hear the Corina on a different high-end electrostatic amplifier. That, and the potato soup, were the highlights of the show for me.

 

[Robbo99999]

I drove to Axpona yesterday and stopped by the Dan Clark booth, hoping to engage with the company a little but the person minding the store was too busy on his phone, I couldn't easily get his attention. I have $8,000 of Dan Clark headphones and I thought maybe they'd be interested in hearing what I had to say, but maybe not.

Anyway, I had the opportunity to listen to the Corina on a Blue Hawaii amp, and they had some streaming service (Was it Qobuz? I dunno) so I was able to select a track that I am well familiar with so that I could compare how the Corina sounded on the Blue Hawaii vs. how they sound on my Carbon amp. Of course this couldn't be a direct A/B, and was decidedly not a blind test, but my IMPRESSION was that the Carbon has tighter bass control, and maybe less treble artifact compared to the Blue Hawaii. MY OPINION ONLY for what it's worth.

After a time, I wandered around - went and had some really good potato soup at the restaurant there in the hotel - Schaumburg Public House - which was very tasty and really reasonably priced for food in a hotel / trade show so I thought it deserved a shout out.

I heard a bunch of speakers, none of which I liked because they were all boxes and sounded boxy- I am a panel speaker / open-baffle subwoofer guy - and also saw a bunch of black and silver aluminum boxes full of circuits, none of which impressed me very much. I understand it's hard to get good sound in a hotel at a show but I know the smeary bass of a box when I hear it....

After a while I came back to the Dan Clark table but I didn't want to be rude and interrupt the guy doing things on his phone, so I left.

BUT- I was glad to have had the opportunity to hear the Corina on a different high-end electrostatic amplifier. That, and the potato soup, were the highlights of the show for me.

View attachment 363609

He's already there with a customer who's sitting down at the table though? Or is that you sitting down at the table and he ignored you, lol? At least the potato soup was good!

 

[milosz]

I was sitting at the table, so were a few others. His attention was riveted on his phone. I said something to him but he didn't acknowledge or reply; perhaps he didn't hear me, it was quite loud in all the rooms at Axpona. I could see he was busy swiping left (or whatever he was doing) so I just left him to his own device (pun intended) and I got busy with the Corina and the Blue Hawaii. I had wanted to ask him what other electrostatic headphone amps Dan Clark Audio had used to develop the Corina.

Speaking of Axpona, even with my lack of enthusiasm for box speakers ("monkey coffins") I need to say that it is an AMAZING show. Huge! All kinds of stuff to see and many 'industry luminaries' are there if you wish to meet them. For example I met Vance Dickason there, he was signing copies of his new book. I read his writing in Voice Coil magazine all the time, it was nice to meet him. I also met the people behind Sparkos Labs, whose ultra-low noise regulators I have used in a number of designs. There are also a lot of snake oil salesmen you can argue with if you wish, the cable guys and the 'crystal grounding box' people and so on. But mostly it's the big players in hi-fi and you can see and get some kind of hands-on and limited listening experience of gear you can't really find otherwise. I've been in this hobby since the late 1960's so I'm a bit jaded- it's not as impressive to me after going to perhaps 20 audio trade shows over the years, but if you have a chance I suggest that by all means you go to Axpona. It's the biggest show, with the most brands showing, in the Americas. Only High End/ Munich is bigger.

Here's a view of the location of Axpona 2024- the Schaumberg Renaissance Convention Center; the architect is John Portman.

 

[gilency]

Hi Milosz
DCA really needs to improve their customer service during shows. At the Irivine headfi there was a not very helpful lady and a rude gentleman. Neither of them were very helpful. Your comment is not isolated either. You can look it up in headfi. Needless to say I walked out and bought a different brand of headphones. Hope DC is aware of this.

 

[quattro98]

That guy at the DCA table was vaping at the table today. Sheesh.

 

[jhaider]

Here's a view of the location of Axpona 2024- the Schaumberg Renaissance Convention Center; the architect is John Portman.

I didn't know that. Portman also designed the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, with the tall atrium that so impressed Jim Morrison.

When Jim Morrison of The Doors Stayed at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta – Invisible Themepark

www.invisiblethemepark.com

 

[Robbo99999]

I was sitting at the table, so were a few others. His attention was riveted on his phone. I said something to him but he didn't acknowledge or reply; perhaps he didn't hear me, it was quite loud in all the rooms at Axpona. I could see he was busy swiping left (or whatever he was doing) so I just left him to his own device (pun intended) and I got busy with the Corina and the Blue Hawaii. I had wanted to ask him what other electrostatic headphone amps Dan Clark Audio had used to develop the Corina.

Speaking of Axpona, even with my lack of enthusiasm for box speakers ("monkey coffins") I need to say that it is an AMAZING show. Huge! All kinds of stuff to see and many 'industry luminaries' are there if you wish to meet them. For example I met Vance Dickason there, he was signing copies of his new book. I read his writing in Voice Coil magazine all the time, it was nice to meet him. I also met the people behind Sparkos Labs, whose ultra-low noise regulators I have used in a number of designs. There are also a lot of snake oil salesmen you can argue with if you wish, the cable guys and the 'crystal grounding box' people and so on. But mostly it's the big players in hi-fi and you can see and get some kind of hands-on and limited listening experience of gear you can't really find otherwise. I've been in this hobby since the late 1960's so I'm a bit jaded- it's not as impressive to me after going to perhaps 20 audio trade shows over the years, but if you have a chance I suggest that by all means you go to Axpona. It's the biggest show, with the most brands showing, in the Americas. Only High End/ Munich is bigger.

Here's a view of the location of Axpona 2024- the Schaumberg Renaissance Convention Center; the architect is John Portman.

View attachment 363803

Wow, well that's extremely rude of the Dan Clarke rep, I can barely picture how you'd turn up at a trade fair for the purpose of showing off your products to potential customers and then behave like that, that's really rude of him!

 

[lewdish]

Hi Milosz
DCA really needs to improve their customer service during shows. At the Irivine headfi there was a not very helpful lady and a rude gentleman. Neither of them were very helpful. Your comment is not isolated either. You can look it up in headfi. Needless to say I walked out and bought a different brand of headphones. Hope DC is aware of this.

I'd love to work for DCA, even for CS lol