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Mark Levinson 5909, new ANC wireless cans that advertise use of the Harman curve
- Thread starter elliott
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Kevbaz
Active Member
Anyone know where these are made, I would hope at £1000 they are made in USA.
Sounds like thy can be used in analogue mode connected to an external DAC/amp which makes them more flexible for on the go and home use.
Kev
Sounds like thy can be used in analogue mode connected to an external DAC/amp which makes them more flexible for on the go and home use.
Kev
Presumably made in China per the FCC labelling :
But I'm not certain that I understand this fixation for the "made in x" label given how modern goods are produced anyway. It's a rather meaningless thing to me.
I rather hope that they're made well to tight tolerances, and I can see that being entirely feasible when they're made in China, just as poorly toleranced products can make their way out of US factories.
Kevbaz
Active Member
Normally I don’t care where a product is made, but when a good Harman made headphone which is made in China can be bought sub £200, a harman product marketed as not only sounding good but a luxury product for me it matters where its made.
Also Mark Levinson takes pride in showing their products are designed and hand crafted in USA, I guess as part of the luxury product marketing and branding.
Agree on your point country of origin doesn’t guarantee quality, but when charging £1000 for a luxury headphone I expect more than just good sound.
Kev
Also Mark Levinson takes pride in showing their products are designed and hand crafted in USA, I guess as part of the luxury product marketing and branding.
Agree on your point country of origin doesn’t guarantee quality, but when charging £1000 for a luxury headphone I expect more than just good sound.
Kev
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Which is all well and good but I think for cans like these, the response in wireless mode (even without anc on) is a more meaningful measure for realistic use. And someone already asked the question, in wired mode is that digitised and amped internally too.
Made in X is now pretty meaningless anyway, what it generally means is that final assembly and a % of value is attributable to X. In most cases what that means is that a company does final assembly from what is basically a knock down kit in a percieved higher value country such as Germany or Switzerland and because they pay the people doing assembly and QC a lot more than those doing the true manufacturing work it takes them over the value threshold. For example, it's an open secret (i.e. not secret to anyone who takes an interest) that the "Swiss Made" marking on watches means nothing
LDAC, AAC and aptX Adaptive.
All that care in transducers then compressed audio; at how much again?
Too much. But that has nothing to do with lossy Bluetooth codecs. Try ABXing LDAC against lossless. And if you want lossless you can use them wired anyway.
I haven’t realised they can be wired as well. How does the app works when wired? The link on the OP was not detailed.
bt3
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The review line that stands out for me "But Bluetooth is Bluetooth, and the truth is if you're really serious about your music listening, you're going to do it with a set of wired headphones and not bother with wireless."An early impression of this headphone:
We tried the $1,000 Mark Levinson headphones that were just announced at CES
The No. 5909 are among the most expensive wireless headphones ever created. So how good are they?www.cnet.com
I'm not counting on sound quality parity w/wired and wireless headphones anytime soon.
Still via Bluetooth connection I'd imagine.
Kevbaz
Active Member
If these support both Bluetooth and wired, would be interesting to see if there is a way you could do a blind test between blowtorch and wired with them to see if the differences isn’t audible.
Ive never used wireless headphones other than for conf calls so looking forward to seeing how people rate these
Ive never used wireless headphones other than for conf calls so looking forward to seeing how people rate these
I'd welcome a better wireless audio implementation than what's currently available with bluetooth (if only for latency issues honestly), but I find the current state of BT audio far less concerning than FR concerns, a problem for which this type of active, ANC headphones can provide interesting solutions passive headphones can't.
As a daily user of a Qudelix 5K, I find its PEQ to provide much greater SQ dividends than the question of using it wireless vs. wired.
I agree, there are still improvements in the pipeline for bluetooth audio, including an upcoming Qualcomm lossless codec (16/44.1, not 24/96, though), and LE audio :
www.bluetooth.com
According to Qualcomm their current generation silicon (at least the top of the range), should support it.
But anyway, the quality that can be achieved today with LDAC, APTx, AAC or even SBC with high bit rates is more than enough, and wireless headphones can correct most of their FR aberrations through DSP/EQ, so if the base design is good they can be made to sound pretty good.
The Mark Levinson proposition looks interesting, but quite pricey, I suppose that there's a very nice markup (and 1000$ is the MSRP, so price may fall down the line), and there's currently some hard competition, among others, the Airpods MAX, Aonic 50 (I own these, with the latest firmware and applying hardware EQ they are pretty good), B&O H9 (they started selling for 800€ and now price has fallen to almost half the price), come to mind.
LE Audio | Bluetooth® Technology Website
The next generation of Bluetooth® audio Building on 20 years of innovation, LE Audio enhances the performance of Bluetooth audio, adds support for hearing aids, and introduces AuracastTM broadcast…
www.bluetooth.com
According to Qualcomm their current generation silicon (at least the top of the range), should support it.
But anyway, the quality that can be achieved today with LDAC, APTx, AAC or even SBC with high bit rates is more than enough, and wireless headphones can correct most of their FR aberrations through DSP/EQ, so if the base design is good they can be made to sound pretty good.
The Mark Levinson proposition looks interesting, but quite pricey, I suppose that there's a very nice markup (and 1000$ is the MSRP, so price may fall down the line), and there's currently some hard competition, among others, the Airpods MAX, Aonic 50 (I own these, with the latest firmware and applying hardware EQ they are pretty good), B&O H9 (they started selling for 800€ and now price has fallen to almost half the price), come to mind.
Kevbaz
Active Member
Will be interested no to see if after this they release a wired only version without ANC that would be cheaper or any other headphones.
Kev
Kev
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In wired mode ( analog in) it is lossless: no compression
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