Dan Clark Stealth Review (State of the Art Headphone)

[GaryH]

Even with EQing the Stax to the Harman Target the bass never sounded as impactful as the bass from the flagship Audezes like the LCD4 and LCD5. Again I think it it had something to do with the very open nature of the SR009S cup design and that it has a very gentle clamp with relatively thin leather pads.

Yep, good (sub-)bass impact is likely down to front volume seal (as you say something Oratory has previously stated, and in addition may involve the more readily triggering of the ear's stapedius reflex which could increase perceptions of percussive impact). This degree of front volume seal could be characterized by proxy through frequency response measurement down to ~0 Hz (ability to maintain static pressure without leakage), instead of stopping at the usual 20 Hz.

 

[Robbo99999]

very well sealed front volume (IIRC) that is aided by the fairly high clamping force along with the pads that seal fully.

This is exactly what Oratory1990 said about Audeze's design.

pressing on the earcups and the bass not changing.

There is a very small change I would say. Even using the bass boost on the ADI-2 DAC on the Stealth does not change my perception of the bass.

Yes, unless I send both headphones to be individually measured and EQed to Harman by someone like Oratory I cannot expect the FR to be exactly the same however the magnitude of the difference that I'm hearing convinces me that it would not change the result.

As I type this I have the LCD-5, CRBN and Stealth on my desk. The Stealth will be returned due to this issue. In every other way they are amazing.

I hope someone with a Stealth or Expanse will try an EQed LCD5 or LCD4 and report back.

I think @Resolve isn't imagining things. Headphones.com sell DCA and pretty much every other flagship so he has no reason to be biased one way or the other.

I don't have a Youtube channel, affiliate links, blog etc etc. I don't have a loyalty to any brand. If I preferred the Stealth I'd gladly sell the LCD-5 and CRBN and put the money in my pocket.

The Harman Target was meant to emulate speakers in an ideal room right? Well if that's the case out of all the flagships I've owned the result is as follows:

With EQ the LCD-5/LCD-4 and Audeze CRBN sound the closest to bringing the power and authority of full range speakers in a room to the headphone world.

All the other flagships (regardless of EQ) that I've owned fall short including the SR009S, Stealth, HD800S, SR007, Utopia)

There's more to a headphone than just the bass presentation though. Audeze are sometimes dodgy in the treble, they often used to be although they seem to be getting better recently when looking at Oratory's measurements. Maybe with Stealth they had to compromise on a perfect front volume seal in order to optimise the rest of the frequency response, which is more perfect to Harman than any other headphone.......so I don't think we can say "Oh, Audeze are better than Stealth". I have a NAD HP50 closed back headphone which is flat down to 10Hz ( ), and the bass does have a tactile difference in contrast to my open backed headphones, but the problem with the HP50 is that it's so fiddly to position properly that you can't always guarantee that kind of optimal bass experience with each listening session (also poor channel matching when I measured it on my miniDSP EARS) - so I do think there is something to be said for front volume seal and proper best bass experience.

 

[Rthomas]

There's more to a headphone than just the bass presentation though. Audeze are sometimes dodgy in the treble, they often used to be although they seem to be getting better recently when looking at Oratory's measurements. Maybe with Stealth they had to compromise on a perfect front volume seal in order to optimise the rest of the frequency response, which is more perfect to Harman than any other headphone.......so I don't think we can say "Oh, Audeze are better than Stealth". I have a NAD HP50 closed back headphone which is flat down to 10Hz (View attachment 237300), and the bass does have a tactile difference in contrast to my open backed headphones, but the problem with the HP50 is that it's so fiddly to position properly that you can't always guarantee that kind of optimal bass experience with each listening session (also poor channel matching when I measured it on my miniDSP EARS) - so I do think there is something to be said for front volume seal and proper best bass experience.

Audeze used to be more than just dodgy in the treble and upper midrange

They have produced headphones like the EL-8 and LCD-4 that have big dips in these regions and without EQ they sound muffled.

Now with their new generation of headphones they seem to be improving the tuning. To my ears the LCD-5 has a natural treble response and it measures fairly similar to the HD650 in this region. I prefer a slightly darker response and the HD650 treble is nearly perfect for my tastes.

All I'm saying is that to my ears as a whole the LCD-5 sounds more speaker like than the Stealth once EQ is used. Even without EQ the LCD-5 produces bass in a more pleasing and natural way for my tastes.

To people who own the Stealth and live in the USA: If you are curious please buy an LCD-4 or LCD-5 from a place with a generous return policy like Headphones.com and EQ them to Harman and then compare the two.

I'm very interested to see if people agree or disagree with what I hear.

Audeze please send Amir an LCD5 to review!

 

[tusing]

As I'm exiting the headphone hobby I'm getting rid of my Stealths for $2349 ($151 lower than the lowest aftermarket price I've seen on these. and $1651 lower than what I bought them for.) DM me here or on Head-Fi if interested!

 

[Jimster480]

As I'm exiting the headphone hobby I'm getting rid of my Stealths for $2349 ($151 lower than the lowest aftermarket price I've seen on these.) DM me if interested!

Good luck with sale, I hope you find a buyer quickly.

 

[Deleted member 4708]

According to Oratory's list the Stealth score is 87, right below Beyer DT 880 with an 88 score. That makes Beyer DT 880 a SOTA bargain.

 

[Jimster480]

According to Oratory's list the Stealth score is 87, right below Beyer DT 880 with an 88 score. That makes Beyer DT 880 a SOTA bargain.

I'd imagine this isn't very real as I haven't heard a Beyerdynamic headphone that sounds anything like my Aeon original in terms of clarity and tonal accuracy without ringing.

 

[Deleted member 4708]

I'd imagine this isn't very real as I haven't heard a Beyerdynamic headphone that sounds anything like my Aeon original in terms of clarity and tonal accuracy without ringing.

Beyer DT 880 has marginally better tonality and quite low distortion. It's been measure by Innerfidelity. What measurements point to DT 880 ringing?

https://www.stereophile.com/images/BeyerdynamicDT880600ohm.pdf

 

[GaryH]

 

[Yannick Willox]

If FR were the whole story, I could record an entire orchestra with sm57 mics and eq the hell out of it.
In that list, Sennheiser hd650 score 84 without EQ. Next to my aeon 2 noires they Sound like a broken toy.

interestingly the noires score 90, above the stealth ?
Seems like a very unreliable source.

 

[Yannick Willox]

Beyer DT 880 has marginally better tonality and quite low distortion. It's been measure by Innerfidelity. What measurements point to DT 880 ringing?

https://www.stereophile.com/images/BeyerdynamicDT880600ohm.pdf

The big distortion peaks at 200 Hz and 2000 Hz are a giveaway ?

 

[Rthomas]

If FR were the whole story, I could record an entire orchestra with sm57 mics and eq the hell out of it.
In that list, Sennheiser hd650 score 84 without EQ. Next to my aeon 2 noires they Sound like a broken toy.

interestingly the noires score 90, above the stealth ?
Seems like a very unreliable source.

I’ve chatted with Oratory about this. The scores are meant to be viewed in ranges. 90 to 100 means excellent. Doesn’t mean that 95 is better than 93. The calculation isn’t that accurate…..

Also the scores can’t exactly translate to how good a headphone sounds on your head. I prefer a number of lower scoring headphones over the Stealth.

Looking at Harman preference scores as some sort of absolute truth is like saying a DAC with 119 sinad is “better” than one with 118 sinad.

 

[milosz]

I have both the Stealth and the Beyer DT 880. The Stealth sounds very much better to me.

 

[solderdude]

Beyer DT 880 has marginally better tonality and quite low distortion. It's been measure by Innerfidelity. What measurements point to DT 880 ringing?

https://www.stereophile.com/images/BeyerdynamicDT880600ohm.pdf

(horizontal line is audible neutral)

and step response:

 

[Jimster480]

Beyer DT 880 has marginally better tonality and quite low distortion. It's been measure by Innerfidelity. What measurements point to DT 880 ringing?

https://www.stereophile.com/images/BeyerdynamicDT880600ohm.pdf

To be fair I haven't heard any of the 600 ohm headphones. Only the 80 32 and 300? Ohm ones. DT770, DT990, DT1990 and T1?
However none of these sounded as good as my original Aeon especially in my classical and jazz test tracks.
As a person with lots of live music listening experience in the classical world (partially since my wife plays violin); the Bayerdynamic headphones just didn't sound as true to life and accurate especially with the higher violin notes. The notes get lost in each other, additionally there are a few spots where I could hear ringing in the 990 when I listened to it. I don't remember the exact notes now as it has been years, but I'm just sharing my experience since I originally wanted a 990 or 1990 before I got the planar fever.

 

[usern]

Beyer DT 880 has marginally better tonality and quite low distortion. It's been measure by Innerfidelity. What measurements point to DT 880 ringing?

https://www.stereophile.com/images/BeyerdynamicDT880600ohm.pdf

If we look at Amir's measurements, we can see much worse situation in distortion:

Amir's measurement also correlates with my experience - DT 880 has little to no headroom for bass boost and they will distort at lower volume than Aeon Noire that I tried. In fact DT 880 distort most out of any headphones I own (at high volume).

 

[John B]

I used REW and in ear microphones to correct for how my ears dimensions interact with this glorious headphone. To my shock, this created a dramatic improvement and when I use can opener to emulate cross feed and directionality. things get positively spooky. Attached are the minimum phase files I arrived at. Obviously, wear on your pads, how they fit on your head and your ears will come into play, but in the off chance any of that is similar to me, it's worth checking them out to save yourself an afternoon.

44.1

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18QBOg3JNWhdukYRQ39uwmV8TxOEjuNYv/view?usp=share_link

 

[Lord Victor]

To be fair I haven't heard any of the 600 ohm headphones. Only the 80 32 and 300? Ohm ones. DT770, DT990, DT1990 and T1?
However none of these sounded as good as my original Aeon especially in my classical and jazz test tracks.
As a person with lots of live music listening experience in the classical world (partially since my wife plays violin); the Bayerdynamic headphones just didn't sound as true to life and accurate especially with the higher violin notes. The notes get lost in each other, additionally there are a few spots where I could hear ringing in the 990 when I listened to it. I don't remember the exact notes now as it has been years, but I'm just sharing my experience since I originally wanted a 990 or 1990 before I got the planar fever.

I’ll say personally I find T1 far more enjoyable than anything from DCA I’ve heard, for all genres, but thats mainly due to that blunted/damped feeling/quality DCA has, completely killing any musical enjoyment for me, where the T1 sounds much more dynamic and lively.
That said I’ve never thought much of any of the lower end Beyers I’ve heard, most of them felt like and a sounded like cheap plastic toys, but better than most of the truly cheap stuff I usually saw them demoed along side in pro audio shops.

 

[kopczas]

blunted/damped feeling/quality

I own DCA Aeon 2 Closed used with white pads. I do not feel any bluntness or dampness. Craftsmanship and materials used are also top notch.

 

[Lord Victor]

I own DCA Aeon 2 Closed used with white pads. I do not feel any bluntness or dampness. Craftsmanship and materials used are also top notch.

The build is the main reason I’ve tried to like his headphones. I haven’t tried the V2, just the original aeon, and all the aether closed and open variations, which all had that issue to a huge degree. So I’ve mostly given up on the brand - well, as a blind purchase at least. Really want to demo one of the newer models to see if the issue remains, but based on the people I’ve spoken to, it does - some are just not bothered by it.