High power doesn’t add fidelity or more bass, so look to smoother-sounding sources and amplifiers instead. For example, I prefer the XRK portable amp here over my CEntrance HiFi-M8 V2, which is 4x the price. Why? Because it is buttery smooth and has a musical flare, while the M8v2 is more clinical in tone. The active noise cancelation on this model is excellent. I simply do not have any other headphones that compare, nor have I owned any that can compare. The headphone though, I want to actively thank this company for listening to my rants in the past about bad headphone headband design and making sure their model doesn’t have these problems. RBH and Focal used them on their models and both were extremely amazing headphones. I suspect that Mark Levinson’s future models will adopt this too and they will secure themselves as a powerhouse headphone company if they keep this up. ANC

Driving for massive staging can sometimes ruin the density factor of the entire headphone and make it sound thin and stretched. The No. 5909 is quite dense and hefty for a dynamic driver. Harman has developed its own frequency curve for headphones. The Harman curve is well known in the industry, and one that many headphone manufacturers aim to follow. It is not frequency linear, but instead attempts to mimic the frequency response of a pair of linear speakers playing in a room. By taking the room’s influence into account, the headphones will be perceived more as frequency linear, rather than actually being so. And should you get those thoughts – then yes, Mark Levinson also seeks to follow that curve as best as possible. Photo: Mark Levinson Three levels of noise reduction The No. 5909 comes equipped with 40mm beryllium coated drivers, a metal mesh bass port, and Bluetooth 5.1 with Hi-Res Audio certification for aptX and LDAC streaming. Most of my time was spent listening to Spotify on mobile devices and my Apple Music library via MacBook Pro. In addition, I kept the No. 5909 set to its default EQ.

Specifications

Mark Levinson, as a Harman company, has access to the minds – and ears – that created the Harman curve, which is a representation of the sort of sound supposedly preferred by most of the people most of the time. Usually this sort of marketing-speak suggests nothing more than endless focus groups and a result that’s inherently compromised; but in this instance, the goal is to reach an ideal.

This moves the driver further away from the ear compared to most models where the driver sits even with the surface of the cup. One major plus about the design is that the inner foam pad and cloth that protects the driver is easily replaceable should the need arise. Vocals were pristine with near perfect timbral accuracy. Vocals were rendered with the clarity, detail, and the flat-out hair-raising purity that you’ll experience from a high-end loudspeaker. For example, Elaine Paige’s iconic rendition of “Memory,” from Cats, played through the No. 5909 was intimate, energetic, and intoxicating. I also compared the 5909s to other wireless over-the-ear headphones, for their noise-cancelling features, like the Sony WH1000-XM5 and the Bang & Olufsen Beoplay HX. The Sony is still the best out of the three but not by much over the 5909s which is an accomplishment on its own. The earpads are leather and very soft, and due to the closed design, things do tend to get a little warm but that is to be expected and is totally normal for a design such as this. They also have a metal mesh material over the bass port.Such is not the case here. The No. 5909 is wildly coherent in every direction. And when everything meshes just right like this, the experience feels broad and engaging. It feels interesting, and you don’t focus on one part of it like you would the HD800, for example. ANC is very good to excellent. I don’t have the Sony’s or APM here to compare but after several commutes, I can say I don’t feel the need to have a set with stronger ANC. Strings have good energy and timbre making the No.5909 a great choice for string quartet pieces. Piano notes are delivered with excellent weight, detail, and very realistic timbre and it was rather impressive how well the headphones reproduced one of the most challenging instruments to get right.