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Mark Levinson No 5909 Headphone Review

Rate this headphone:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 22 11.6%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 55 28.9%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther

    Votes: 88 46.3%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 25 13.2%

  • Total voters
    190

MayaTlab

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This is the first one where I see little difference in tonal balance between passive and active.

The ANC can be turned off in the 5909 (acc to Sean O.) and will still have the same tonal balance.
AFAIK this is the only headphone that does this (not change tonal balance without ANC).

Of course it will be seal dependent wihout ANC for sure.

This is most likely an artefact of the way the ANC feedback curve was designed. My hypothesis is that the passive curve (which was designed to match Harman decently well from the start) was measured on a GRAS hammerhead-style fixture, and then the ANC feedback curve was designed and calibrated to dumbly match that on such fixture. Hence why on these fixtures you see a decent match between the modes, but you don't as soon as other fixtures are used (SoundStageSolo, HeadphoneTestLab), and you probably won't when real humans will use it.

If the feedback mechanism is off, the FR will vary depending on various factors - not just leakage (ex : pad compression). When it's on it clamps down on these variations and maintains the FR stable. Unless your on-head response in passive mode happens to magically match the response on an ear simulator - and given that these are a closed back from Harman it probably won't for most people - you won't get the same FR between ANC on and off. It's just not even possible.

I can't do much better than this on that subject : https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...se-use-of-the-harman-curve.29633/post-1087051

The headphones that are truly attempting to deliver the same FR between ANC on and off to a large range of people are the AirPods, but that's just because Apple has found a way to have the feedback mechanism still operates when ANC is turned off (and the way it works means that it can be tricky to measure them with sweeps without taking some precautions).

Certainly not most ANC headphones do this digitally.

Is that referring to the ANC itself or to the match between the modes ?

A lot of Qualcomm's SOCs for example mention that the ANC is implemented digitally, but maybe it's a misunderstanding on my end. Ex : https://www.qualcomm.com/products/application/audio/qcc5100-series/qcc5125
"Fully programmable digital ANC"
 

sai

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My takeaway: size matters

Jokes aside, the differences in FR between this and the Stealth still look significant to me. Stealth has much fuller subbass and is much smoother in overall response. Sometimes even small quirks can screw up the tonality. Also the upper treble peak around 12khz is not there on the Stealth. In my experience this could colour instruments quite significantly, as in the case of some Hifiman headphones.
 

GWolfman

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Spatial qualities requires having heard a Sennheiser HD800S and experienced its amazing quality to separate instruments. I am sure this is an artificial effect but it is the closest thing as a replacement for the imaging of speakers. This, combined with strong bass response and dynamics is what puts a massive smile on my face. Sadly few if any measurements back these things. As I say, headphone measurements are the most incomplete/variable of all the things we test.
Do the Stealths give you this separation as well? If so, better or worse than the 800S?
 

solderdude

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My hypothesis is that the passive curve (which was designed to match Harman decently well from the start) was measured on a GRAS hammerhead-style fixture, and then the ANC feedback curve was designed and calibrated to dumbly match that on such fixture. Hence why on these fixtures you see a decent match between the modes, but you don't as soon as other fixtures are used (SoundStageSolo, HeadphoneTestLab), and you probably won't when real humans will use it.

Sounds plausible. That would mean people could be reporting a change of tonal balance when switching ANC on and off.

That is indeed the downside of bombarding some specific fixture/config to a standard. Nice repeatable measurements but not necesarilly the truth.

Is that referring to the ANC itself or to the match between the modes ?

Not all ANC headphones use digital EQ and the same chip.
I have not seen many ANC headphones that have the same tonal balance when switched on.
This one seems to, on this specific test fixture anyway.
Would need to hear/test one in practice to evaluate how well it does for me.
Not going to buy one... spending 1k on a headphone that will last at least 10 years is not an issue.
All the wireless (battery powered) stuff is, very likely, not meeting my personal requirements.:)
 
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MayaTlab

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That would mean people could be reporting a change of tonal balance when switching ANC on and off.

There are several such reports in these threads :
A caveat of such reports is that with ANC headphones, even with a hypothetically identical FR, other factors such as occlusion effect or ANC background noise can result in different subjective impressions.

But it's fairly easy to demonstrate with in-ear mics : https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...se-use-of-the-harman-curve.29633/post-1092421
I'd be interested to see more blocked ear canal entrance in situ measurements from others, particularly for ANC headphones. Even better if compared to ear simulators using the same blocked ear canal entrance mics.

The way I personally experienced two samples in terms of ANC on vs off difference seems to be a hybrid mix between some degree of leakage (which interestingly couldn't be solved by firmly pressing against the pads - in fact it increased the difference between the modes) and increased pad compression vs GRAS hammerhead. While the basal FR was a little bit different between the two samples, the difference between the modes was identical.
 

Jimbob54

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If this is the best active headphones can do, I'll stick to the flawed but effective Bose 35ii with some eq for when I need them.

Most definitely not a replacement for proper sized wired cans well driven and EQd as required.
 

Thomas_A

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Spatial qualities requires having heard a Sennheiser HD800S and experienced its amazing quality to separate instruments. I am sure this is an artificial effect but it is the closest thing as a replacement for the imaging of speakers. This, combined with strong bass response and dynamics is what puts a massive smile on my face. Sadly few if any measurements back these things. As I say, headphone measurements are the most incomplete/variable of all the things we test.
With that in mind, it would be nice if you to test various cross-feeds algorithms with respect to spatial qualities. I think cross-feed should be standard on every headphone amp.
 

MayaTlab

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BTW, something interesting came up recently :


Some people observed that they share some resemblance to the ML5909, and while the FCC filings still don't have the internal pictures for the MW75 (will be made available shortly given the registration date), the "label" file suggests that they may share quite a few components :

ML5909's "label" drawing in the FCC database :
Screenshot_2022-06-24_at_00.06.19.png


MW75's "label" drawing :
Screenshot_2022-06-24_at_00.08.45.png


The pads' attachment mechanism and their design is a little bit different though, and it seems to use an optical sensor (?) for the wear detection instead of a capacitance one, so sound may not be perfectly similar.
 

Hephaestus

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BTW, something interesting came up recently :


Some people observed that they share some resemblance to the ML5909, and while the FCC filings still don't have the internal pictures for the MW75 (will be made available shortly given the registration date), the "label" file suggests that they may share quite a few components :

ML5909's "label" drawing in the FCC database :
View attachment 215268

MW75's "label" drawing :
View attachment 215270

The pads' attachment mechanism and their design is a little bit different though, and it seems to use an optical sensor (?) for the wear detection instead of a capacitance one, so sound may not be perfectly similar.
I reached out to M&D and asked about out sourcing the acoustic engineering. They claimed that the acoustic design and testing is carried out in house by their own product team. I have hard time to believe this due to striking similarities in mechanical design. The app is also based on same code as Mark Levinson Headphones.
 
OP
amirm

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Do the Stealths give you this separation as well? If so, better or worse than the 800S?
Stealth definitely has it. My memory of 800s is too foggy but if I were to guess, I would say it was better.
 

Jimbob54

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I reached out to M&D and asked about out sourcing the acoustic engineering. They claimed that the acoustic design and testing is carried out in house by their own product team. I have hard time to believe this due to striking similarities in mechanical design. The app is also based on same code as Mark Levinson Headphones.
Would be an interesting case study in how similarly 2 headphones with the same foundations perform both on a rig and user experience.
 

Cars-N-Cans

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How the headphone interacts with the ears is one area I have yet to see be explored publicly, and an area that headphones are often lacking in. I picked up a set of Sennheiser 560S just to have something to use (I primarily use speakers) and one thing they did that my hockey-puck shaped HiFiMan headphones did not was actually get the soundstage somewhere other than directly along the axis of the ears. Mind you, its not what speakers can do and it was still in the vicinity of my head, but it at least gives some impression of depth rather than just everything falling along a line. If the thing just has a flat response and that's it there are huge implications for how you perceive things from my experience. It goes further than just not having much of a soundstage to speak of or lacking spatial effects.
 

Thomas_A

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I think ”spatial qualities” really are phase/group delay issues even if it does not show on all measurements. Perhaps if our heads and ears were identical to the GRAS we could have better correlation.
 

Cars-N-Cans

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I think ”spatial qualities” really are phase/group delay issues even if it does not show on all measurements. Perhaps if our heads and ears were identical to the GRAS we could have better correlation.
It actually derives from psychoacoustics and how the sound interacts with your ears, at least as far as research is concerned. As you state, the GRAS cannot capture that aspect of headphones since it is a subjective experience in how we interpret what we hear, and there my not be a purely objective means that can. A comprehensive discussion would be long, deep dive into the science of HRTFs, ITDs, IIDs, HRIR's and a whole alphabet soup bowl full of acronyms and terms that define how and why we hear the way we do. An unfortunate downside to this is that they are also powerful product differentiators, and as such I suspect much of the work done is proprietary to companies like Harman, Sennheiser, etc. and wont be something that's readily available in the public domain.
 

MayaTlab

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How the headphone interacts with the ears is one area I have yet to see be explored publicly

It has ! But probably not thoroughly enough.

Among others :
Harman's own research performed a number of in-situ measurements, and published one article in particular on leakage that's quite interesting :
Rtings's FR measurements for over-ears rely on humans measurements below a few hundred hertz, merged past that with the dummy head measurements :
Hammershøi and Møller have published rather extensively on the subject and some of their articles are freely available. Ex here : https://vbn.aau.dk/ws/portalfiles/portal/227875204/1995_M_ller_et_al_AES_Journal_b.pdf

Not all headphones types / designs / model can be painted under the same brush though and the coupling issue is IMO best approached on a case by case basis. I'd be a lot less worried about the capacity of a pair of HD650 to deliver the target it was designed for to a wider range of individuals, at least up to around 3kHz or so, than, let's say, a pair of QC35 or K371.

and an area that headphones are often lacking in.

Since some headphones' FR vary because of coupling issues by an amount that exceeds the tolerances allowed by Harman's research for example, I'm tempted to wholeheartedly agree. A pair of headphones that can't produce a predictable FR curve at someone's eardrum is simply lacking, regardless of whichever target was chosen.
Regardless of where the HD820 measures on an ear simulator, this amount of variation at lower frequencies across individuals for the same sample should instantly makes these headphones harshly criticised :
 

Cars-N-Cans

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It has ! But probably not thoroughly enough.

Among others :
Harman's own research performed a number of in-situ measurements, and published one article in particular on leakage that's quite interesting :
Rtings's FR measurements for over-ears rely on humans measurements below a few hundred hertz, merged past that with the dummy head measurements :
Hammershøi and Møller have published rather extensively on the subject and some of their articles are freely available. Ex here : https://vbn.aau.dk/ws/portalfiles/portal/227875204/1995_M_ller_et_al_AES_Journal_b.pdf

Not all headphones types / designs / model can be painted under the same brush though and the coupling issue is IMO best approached on a case by case basis. I'd be a lot less worried about the capacity of a pair of HD650 to deliver the target it was designed for to a wider range of individuals, at least up to around 3kHz or so, than, let's say, a pair of QC35 or K371.



Since some headphones' FR vary because of coupling issues by an amount that exceeds the tolerances allowed by Harman's research for example, I'm tempted to wholeheartedly agree. A pair of headphones that can't produce a predictable FR curve at someone's eardrum is simply lacking, regardless of whichever target was chosen.
Regardless of where the HD820 measures on an ear simulator, this amount of variation at lower frequencies across individuals for the same sample should instantly makes these headphones harshly criticised :
I think the issue is perhaps not so much coupling, but how the sound interacts with the complex structure of the ear. That is, after all, how we can localize things in three dimensions. Obviously laterally will be the most accurate, but elevation and front/rear localization are also done. One thing I have noticed with speakers is they can at least move the soundstage out in front of you since they are external to the listener. For me with headphones its always referenced to the axis of the ears, and usually localized to be slightly behind me, which is what you would expect if the sound is simply being fired from a driver that is parallel with the ear. The auditory center duly interprets that as being the origin of the sound. I think the situation becomes much more complex when you have to have a driver firing in close proximity to the ear in some fashion. How do we get it to approximate what would be heard if one was there? Even stuff recorded on the KU-100 dummy head only allows things to be appropriately spaced laterally for me. Everything else is still localized with respect to my head and the actual location of the headphones. Whether that's down to the headphones, the KU-100's own HRTFs not matching mine, or some combination of the two is something I don't know. I would not have expected it to, but still its an interesting thing to think about.
 

Thomas_A

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It actually derives from psychoacoustics and how the sound interacts with your ears, at least as far as research is concerned. As you state, the GRAS cannot capture that aspect of headphones since it is a subjective experience in how we interpret what we hear, and there my not be a purely objective means that can. A comprehensive discussion would be long, deep dive into the science of HRTFs, ITDs, IIDs, HRIR's and a whole alphabet soup bowl full of acronyms and terms that define how and why we hear the way we do. An unfortunate downside to this is that they are also powerful product differentiators, and as such I suspect much of the work done is proprietary to companies like Harman, Sennheiser, etc. and wont be something that's readily available in the public domain.
Some of these cues are related to spectral content such impression of as height so there are several variables. My wonder if there is, on group level, a difference between large panel headphones and tilted drivers down to in-ears with respect to spatial effects. I find eg STAX a bit strange-sounding in the highs. This mighr speak for phase/group delay effects contributing to spatial effects.
 

Cars-N-Cans

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Some of these cues are related to spectral content such impression of as height so there are several variables. My wonder if there is, on group level, a difference between large panel headphones and tilted drivers down to in-ears with respect to spatial effects. I find eg STAX a bit strange-sounding in the highs. This mighr speak for phase/group delay effects contributing to spatial effects.
I would agree and I think the official scientific phrase is “the issues are many and manifold.” :) But in light of this being an active headphone you may be completely correct in that it could just be down to the odd characteristics of the headphone in the time domain or something similar related to the diver. I wonder how it would sound when being driven passively with external EQ, and if it would still lack spatial effects. It is perplexing to see that even the normal spatial effects associated with the correct FR in IEMs and headphones are conspicuously missing from what Amir says. Edit: It is able to be used passively and still the issue appears to persist, so it probably is down to the cup and driver design. Double-Edit: It has zero group delay in digital mode, which is odd. I wonder if that is causing issues as well?
 
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Cars-N-Cans

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Some of these cues are related to spectral content such impression of as height so there are several variables. My wonder if there is, on group level, a difference between large panel headphones and tilted drivers down to in-ears with respect to spatial effects. I find eg STAX a bit strange-sounding in the highs. This mighr speak for phase/group delay effects contributing to spatial effects.
Actually I’m talking crap. The active portion of the headphone seems to be active at all times regardless of input. Wonder if that’s the problem right there?
 
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