This is a review and detailed measurements of the Mark Levinson No 5909 noise cancelling headphone. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $999.
I must say, I expected something larger and more substantial. Other than the logo, not much oozes luxury befitting of the brand. Expanding the headband causes creaking sound. And overall feel -- whether made so -- is somewhat plasticky. The cups are naturally small and feel that way. Mind you, it is not bad overall. Just doesn't match expectation.
The buttons are cryptic and "overloaded" as far as usage with multiple modes. Power on is press for 1 second. But pairing is pushing longer. Some little LED blinks this color or that and I was not about to memorize what was what. Fortunately there is pleasant voice feedback which helps a ton compared to others that lack it.
Analog input oddly, is provided via a special USB to 3.5mm cable. I appreciated that it was there, not forcing me to use Bluetooth. Plug in an ordinary USB-C cable and the headphone acts like a DAC which is very nice. What is not so nice is that it turns off Bluetooth so the accompanied app no longer works. The app is where you change the EQ settings and such. Why or why is this done? Worse yet, at least on Windows, the volume buttons did not work. I had to use the sound control panel in Windows which made me quite grumpy.
Disclaimer: our company Madrona Digital is a dealer for Harman products in custom install industry. So while we theoretically could source this headphone, it is not something we remotely sell. Still, if you want to read bias into this review, by all means, do so.
Mark Levinson No 5909 Measurements
The small cup and their tendency to lose seal made fitting the headphone on measurement rig extremely difficult. That is, until I realized some of it is inherent to the design and is corrected in digital input mode! Here is analog:
Now as DAC device on Windows:
Notice the much improved bass and matching of channels! Shoot, I could have saved half hour if I knew this. There was another major impact and that was in Group Delay:
Fascinating!
EDIT: my mistake for not equalizing the vertical axis. That may show both having similar issue.
Back to our frequency response, compliance with our target is excellent as we would expect. There are some kinks to be sure and some resonance in higher frequencies but overall, this is the second best fit I have seen in all the headphones I have tested.
Distortion was the same in both modes:
As you see, in pass-through analog mode, the headphone went out of control at 114 dBSPL and with digital, it would simply not get that loud. Otherwise, distortion is extremely low. Considering that we don't need to boost anything, this is even better result than it seems. Here is the absolute level distortion:
There is one bad peak which we are going to correct anyway. It is bad enough that it is contributing to extra output at that frequency.
Passive mode input has very high impedance:
Which tells me that it is a buffered input of sorts. Sensitivity in this mode is average:
Mark Levinson No 5909 Listening Tests
I started listening before I measured the headphone and it immediately produced that familiar tonality I expect from neutral headphones. Post measurements, I started listening in digital mode that I thought it was a bit cleaner. Same nice tonality although with a hint of brightness. So I pulled out the EQ:
I tried a second filter at 12 kHz and was not sure if I liked it better. It seemed to be more "accurate" but made the sound more closed. Speaking of which, that is a major problem with this headphone. It has almost no spatial effects. With the small drivers, the sound is coupled claustrophobically inside your head. I switched to my DC Stealth headphone and what a revelation that was in this front.
Another problem in digital mode was lack of volume. Yes, I could get it loud but not enough for bass notes to have any impact. Switching to analog fixed this, allowing me to turn up the volume much more. Still, bass notes lacked impact that Stealth brings. I just couldn't get excited over the experience with the 5909.
Conclusions
Nice to see Harman bringing more headphones out that comply with their own research. Tonality of the No 5909 is right on the money, sans a bit of resonance brightness (which may be fine with others). The issue is that it comes in a small form factor that while good for portability, misses the mark hugely to provide a statement kind of experience. I am sure a Mark Levinson user would not mind schlepping a large headphone on the plane that sounded better.
As is, from looks to experience, it is that of a $300 headphone, albeit with very correct sound.
I hope I am not being too insulting but I wish Harman would just OEM a headphone from Dan Clark similar to Stealth line. Price it at $4,000 and it would sell similarly to what this is doing. FYI the number of downloads for the 5909 App was "100+" so not that much sale anyway.
It pains me to not recommend a headphone that hits the magical tonality curve but here we are. I want the headphone experience to do things that even good speakers can't. And we simply are not there with Mark Levinson No 5909 headphone.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
I must say, I expected something larger and more substantial. Other than the logo, not much oozes luxury befitting of the brand. Expanding the headband causes creaking sound. And overall feel -- whether made so -- is somewhat plasticky. The cups are naturally small and feel that way. Mind you, it is not bad overall. Just doesn't match expectation.
The buttons are cryptic and "overloaded" as far as usage with multiple modes. Power on is press for 1 second. But pairing is pushing longer. Some little LED blinks this color or that and I was not about to memorize what was what. Fortunately there is pleasant voice feedback which helps a ton compared to others that lack it.
Analog input oddly, is provided via a special USB to 3.5mm cable. I appreciated that it was there, not forcing me to use Bluetooth. Plug in an ordinary USB-C cable and the headphone acts like a DAC which is very nice. What is not so nice is that it turns off Bluetooth so the accompanied app no longer works. The app is where you change the EQ settings and such. Why or why is this done? Worse yet, at least on Windows, the volume buttons did not work. I had to use the sound control panel in Windows which made me quite grumpy.
Disclaimer: our company Madrona Digital is a dealer for Harman products in custom install industry. So while we theoretically could source this headphone, it is not something we remotely sell. Still, if you want to read bias into this review, by all means, do so.
Mark Levinson No 5909 Measurements
The small cup and their tendency to lose seal made fitting the headphone on measurement rig extremely difficult. That is, until I realized some of it is inherent to the design and is corrected in digital input mode! Here is analog:
Now as DAC device on Windows:
Notice the much improved bass and matching of channels! Shoot, I could have saved half hour if I knew this. There was another major impact and that was in Group Delay:
Fascinating!
EDIT: my mistake for not equalizing the vertical axis. That may show both having similar issue.
Back to our frequency response, compliance with our target is excellent as we would expect. There are some kinks to be sure and some resonance in higher frequencies but overall, this is the second best fit I have seen in all the headphones I have tested.
Distortion was the same in both modes:
As you see, in pass-through analog mode, the headphone went out of control at 114 dBSPL and with digital, it would simply not get that loud. Otherwise, distortion is extremely low. Considering that we don't need to boost anything, this is even better result than it seems. Here is the absolute level distortion:
There is one bad peak which we are going to correct anyway. It is bad enough that it is contributing to extra output at that frequency.
Passive mode input has very high impedance:
Which tells me that it is a buffered input of sorts. Sensitivity in this mode is average:
Mark Levinson No 5909 Listening Tests
I started listening before I measured the headphone and it immediately produced that familiar tonality I expect from neutral headphones. Post measurements, I started listening in digital mode that I thought it was a bit cleaner. Same nice tonality although with a hint of brightness. So I pulled out the EQ:
I tried a second filter at 12 kHz and was not sure if I liked it better. It seemed to be more "accurate" but made the sound more closed. Speaking of which, that is a major problem with this headphone. It has almost no spatial effects. With the small drivers, the sound is coupled claustrophobically inside your head. I switched to my DC Stealth headphone and what a revelation that was in this front.
Another problem in digital mode was lack of volume. Yes, I could get it loud but not enough for bass notes to have any impact. Switching to analog fixed this, allowing me to turn up the volume much more. Still, bass notes lacked impact that Stealth brings. I just couldn't get excited over the experience with the 5909.
Conclusions
Nice to see Harman bringing more headphones out that comply with their own research. Tonality of the No 5909 is right on the money, sans a bit of resonance brightness (which may be fine with others). The issue is that it comes in a small form factor that while good for portability, misses the mark hugely to provide a statement kind of experience. I am sure a Mark Levinson user would not mind schlepping a large headphone on the plane that sounded better.
As is, from looks to experience, it is that of a $300 headphone, albeit with very correct sound.I hope I am not being too insulting but I wish Harman would just OEM a headphone from Dan Clark similar to Stealth line. Price it at $4,000 and it would sell similarly to what this is doing. FYI the number of downloads for the 5909 App was "100+" so not that much sale anyway.
It pains me to not recommend a headphone that hits the magical tonality curve but here we are. I want the headphone experience to do things that even good speakers can't. And we simply are not there with Mark Levinson No 5909 headphone.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Last edited:
