Opening thoughts

I always loved music, but the thought of it sounding better did not come until was well into my twenties. At one point I remember replacing my NOKIA earbuds every 2-3 months, as they continued to fail. After some time, I started to think about buying a pair of headphones that do not fail on me every couple of months. During my browsing on Amazon I stumbled upon a lot of choices, of which some costed substantially more than the others. This sparked an urge to know "why?" This led to my first Koss Porta Pro headphones -that I still love, respect and suggest to anyone looking to improve their listening experience from generic earbuds. Couple of years down the line the list expanded to: Sennheiser Momentum, Sennheiser HD598, Hifiman RE00, AKG K812, Focal Elear and Audioquest Nighthawk.

The Audioquest Nighthawk

If you look at the list of headphones above you might ask -why am I writing about the Nighthawk first and not the others? Well, the answer is quite simple. I think this might be the best bang for buck headphone -in the higher end price category- on the market right now.

For its current retail price -usually between £400 and £500 it competes with headphones like Audeze LCD 2 and LCD 3, Focal Elear, Sennheiser HD800, Beyerdynamic T1 and AKG K812. I am not saying, that it is a better headphone -for critical listening than- the HD800 or K812, or that it has a better bass extension than LCD2 and LCD3 or that It has the punchiness of the Focal Elear. What I am saying that -to an extent- the Nighthawk has it all. It presents music in a manner none of the headphones -my brother or I had a chance to listen to- could. They liquid wood based headphones are gorgeous and sit with perfect balance and comfort on the head.

The Nighthawk's sound signature is on warm side. It has a very "meaty" base with good extension and good punch, it is never bloated or has any bleed in the other frequencies. The amount of base is enough to satisfy any but the wildest bassheads out there. In one word the base presentation is: "Full"

Mids are a bit forward sounding with plenty of clarity and detail. The nighthawks excel in the presentation male and female vocals equally well. If I had to choose one word to describe the mids I would choose: "Smooth"

The presentation of the upper frequencies in this headphone is quite unique. When I put them on for the first time and started to play music, the first thought that hit me was: "these are muffled?", this thought lingered in my head until after about 10 seconds into the listening session where I was thrown an amount of treble detail that left me more confused than an episode of "Falling Water" -It is a great show, give it a go if you can. The treble on the Nighthawk is never harsh, piercing or sibilant, but it is still crystal clear and present. The one word I would use to describe the treble is: "Clear"

Closing thoughts

First, I thought that it is important to mention that It is possible to use them on the go -they isolate quite well and don't leak sound as much as some other open/semi-open options out there. They look kind of dorky and awkward and potentially draw plenty of attention when you are commuting.

Second, I noticed during my testing sessions -although the specs would suggest otherwise- that these babies do love power. So do not expect anything extraordinary when powering them off your mobile device.

I forgot to mention two very important aspects of these headphones. One of them is the soundstage and the other is imaging. I found the soundstage on these quite good -considering these are semi-open headphones-, not as good as on my K812 or HD598. It is very similar to the soundstage of the Focal Elear.

The imaging on these is great, they have verticality and horizontality -which can be confusing at times-. I found the instrument separation and air great most of the times -they could get little claustrophobic very rarely.

Equipment used for evaluation:

Source material: lossless FLAC tracks with Dynamic Range of at least 10(16/44, 24/48, 24/92, 24/192 material)

Playback sources: Fiio X5 Gen1, Ibasso DX90

Amps: Fiio A1, Aune B1, Behringer Microamp HA400, DarkVoice 336SE

Headphones: AKG K812, Focal Elear, Sennheiser HD598, Sennheiser Momentum 1st gen, Koss Porta Pro, Hifiman RE00, Takstar HI 2050, Skullcandy Mixmaster.