Dan Clark Audio AEON 2 Noire Planar Closed Back Portable Audiophile Headphones with 2m Dummer 3.5mm/1/4-inch Cable (Black)

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It is easy to add Dan Clark Audio Aeon 2 Noire to Audiophile-Heaven’s Hall Of Fame, as one of the best headphones ever designed around the price point. Not only that, but the super nice comfort, good build quality, and reliable support from Dan Clark Audio helps me give them a well-deserved seat in our Hall Of Fame. Unfortunately the Net is stuffed with all that mumbo-jumbo about control, punch, warmth, amp-paring to circumvent headphone’s flaws, gigantic headroom, ... claimed night-and-day-differences whatsoever – these are pure myths and imagination and do not stand the above reality test. I knew in about 45 seconds of donning the Noires that by a long shot these were most effective anti-fatigue headphones I had ever had on my dome. With the above adjustments, the Noire delivers what I consider to be a comparatively lighter and cooler midrange timbre with a more ethereal high contrast quality compared to the AEON 2 Closed. The Noire is not the AEON 2 Closed V1.1. This is quite a different sound signature with a cleaner tone and a more expensive staging quality compared to the richer more intimate delivery of the AEON 2.

True to Dan’s nature, however, there is always a late-night party after the main show which makes this new Noire version rather aptly named. Both extend impressively on the low-end but the Noire has a little more physicality, perhaps a better sub-bass response in terms of elevation, and a slightly narrower peak around 80Hz to 100Hz. The Noire is somewhat closer to the AEON 2 Open than the AEON 2 Closed in terms of energy with both brighter and further forward in imaging on the upper mids top-end. You can argue that both have a tendency to sound more vivid than relaxed in that regard. Switching to the Pegasus introduced some lovely body and smoothness to vocal and instrumental timbre with those upper-mids sounding perfectly balanced for my tastes.That means the AEON 2 Closed carries a little more warmth with it into the lower-mids whereas the Noire is comparatively more neutral-sounding in the same region. Kraftwerk's Techno Pop played to the Noire's strengths, as it imparted the music's energy and vitality. The talented upper midband and lower treble region gave the classic synths real character and delivered the vocals in a less flat and robotic way than many rivals I've heard. However, while I enjoyed the snappy, driving bass, the Harman Curve's low-end treatment does mean that other similarly-priced headphones offer richer, more sumptuous extreme bass frequencies. The Aeon 2 Noire has a deep-reaching and lively low-end when fed with the right kind of music. While there’s no overt upper mid-bass hump that might otherwise lend it a sense of warmth and visceral ‘slam’, instead, Thundercat’s ‘ Show You The Way‘ affirms that the Aeon 2 Noire is able to convincingly and skilfully strike notes below 100Hz with speed, texture, and reasonable dynamics. It’s a snappy and tight low-end but it has been sufficiently improved since the original Aeon closed to be able to let you enjoy more than a bit of low-end indulgence from time to time, without any sort of bloat or distortion. In fact, the Aeon 2 Noire is extremely well-suited to EQ, and will happily accept a 3-4dB bass-shelf below 120Hz without any sense of distortion creeping in. The teardrop design leaves less to chance compared to on-ear pad designs in my opinion. The flatter front line of the pads runs smoother down the side of my cheekbone than the rounded pads of the original Ether series. That ups the comfort as well as the degree of isolation.

I got the Aeon 2 Noires today. I come from 20 years of Sennheiser and haven't been into headphones that much for a looong time. When I was last active on Head-Fi, Sennheiser HD650, Grado RS-1 and AKG K701 were pretty much the king of the hill while Stax was the super expensive high-end option and Sony and Audio Technica had some exotic models also. Things have changed a lot since. The Noire uses the same comfy headband strap as the AEON 2 under the NiTinol frame for comfort and balance and added adjusters on either side for fitting purposes. The central thrust of the new tuning is how close it mimics the Harman Target Response Curve and it largely does but with just a few quirks. The first is on the low-end with a slightly emphasized 80-100Hz peak and just minor roll-off below 50Hz but nothing too heavy. The second deviation is around the 3k and 5k marker with just a shade more emphasis than the curve normally offers. Damping reflections works best if the transition air->damping material is as continuous as possible, else the damping causes reflections by itself. Source matching did play a fairly critical role in each amp’s performance. For example, the line out of the iBasso DX300 was excellent sounding very balanced and spacious with the Bakoon HPA0-1 current mode amplifier.enhanced some of my favourite intensity-soaked recordings by finally enabling me to at last add more volume. If you have a dime to spare, please donate, and help us! It would make the day brighter for me and my wife- In our test scenario with the Violectric V590 using its internal delta-sigma dual AK4490 DAC the performance tended to emphasize those upper mids on the Noire with the tone a little on the hard and clean side.