Mark Levinson No. 5909 - High Resolution Wireless Headphones with Active Noise Cancellation (Red)

£499.5
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Mark Levinson No. 5909 - High Resolution Wireless Headphones with Active Noise Cancellation (Red)

Mark Levinson No. 5909 - High Resolution Wireless Headphones with Active Noise Cancellation (Red)

RRP: £999.00
Price: £499.5
£499.5 FREE Shipping

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Compared to what Bowers & Wilkins and Philips have been up to recently, this is actually less sophisticated than some of their premium models. There’s no sliding level of noise cancelling, just the preset positions or voice passthrough and you can’t have ambient forest noises either (I’m not saying you want ambient forest noises but there’s no option for such a thing). In this particular area of the spec, the 5909 looks most vulnerable to accusations that it does nothing more than much cheaper competition. 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. I’ve been testing noise cancelling and wireless headphones for a number of years now. In that time, they’ve made huge progress and much of it has been evolutionary; model year on model year, some aspects of the performance have moved on. At the same time, there have been points that have to be seen as evolutionary leaps. The PSB M4U2 (so venerable, it wasn’t wireless) had noise cancelling that both worked and was conducive to listening to music at the same time. The Sennheiser PXC550 had wireless that was functionally bulletproof and sounded good when you used it. The Bowers & Wilkins PX was equipped with a battery life that could cover any scheduled international flight on Earth and was the first outing for the dark magic that is voice passthrough. Then, more recently, the Philips Fidelio L3 was the first of these headphones that delivers a better music performance with the ANC on than off. Experience the first-ever headphones from Mark Levinson, a pioneer in high-fidelity audio for the past 50 years. Reference-quality sound meets luxurious comfort in a lightweight and durable set of headphones featuring Adaptive Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) that’s perfect for travel. Reveal the hidden details in your music – at home, on the go, or anywhere you find a moment to listen. 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

As with any other set of headphones, the burn-in period was done (100 hours) before my critical listening. From experience, the development of the headphones' drivers will change its constitution in this period. 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. 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.

The app doesn't render properly on the Samsung Z Fold 4 big screen, which is weird for a company owned by Samsung. Then there’s the noise cancelling. My comments earlier that the implementation of the 5909's ANC system isn’t as sophisticated as some cheaper headphones is as true as far it goes but it doesn’t tell the whole story. You can’t tweak the 5909 to the same extent and it won’t play forest or waterfall sounds at you but the manner with which it handles external noise is imperious. There are two factors at work here. The first is that the natural resistance of the 5909 to external noise is outstanding. Even with the ANC switched off, it does an incredible job of keeping the outside at bay.

One big correction is regarding the passive mode. I own these headphones and true passive mode is engaged when they are fully powered down. They can then be connected via usbc (headphone) to 3.5 mm (DAP) and the volume gets much louder than Bluetooth.

When Mark Levinson announced that they were coming out with a headphone, I expected it to be a high-end product. I was surprised to see that it was a wireless model as most reference level headphone makers still eschew wireless. I made a number of assumptions that proved to be wrong. Controls are split between cups with the power/pairing and ANC modes button on the left and the volume up, play/pause/volume down on the right. The right cup also has the USB Type-C charging port.

Low is recommended for “less noisy environments,” but a fair amount of noise still came through the mics. I could hear my mom-in-law’s speakerphone calls from one room over, as well as the tumbling noises from the laundry room. Adaptive was supposed to adjust ANC to my environment automatically, but it performed similarly to Low. ANC works very well and is on par with Sony and Bose for noise reduction and extremely good when it comes to not changing the sonic signature when engaged. Like most models, it works more effectively with lower pitched droning noises and I found that the low or adaptive settings were quite sufficient for most listening environments. The ear pads snap on and off easily when needed and unlike most brands there is a secondary pad that fits between the drivers and the cups. The baffles are sunken in the center where the driver is mounted with the driver sitting almost an inch deeper than the face of the baffle. If you use a normal USB cable at both ends, and connect the other side to your computer, it acts as a DAC+headphone amp. So you can play content digitally to it. This is the digital in, in my tests. The vocal experience is broad and wide feeling; however, I would not call it a headphone geared toward midrange or forward presentations.The 5909 headphones have been engineered to provide you with optimal sound for an over-ear headphone. Its sound profile has been expertly tuned to an acoustic response curve that achieved the highest subjective scoring across listening tests. Experience reference-quality sound, the culmination of decades of research into listening preferences and the science of acoustics. 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. Mark Levinson and Harman swung for the fences with the Mark Levinson No. 5909 and while it isn’t a grand slam — it comes very close. Remarkably close for a first generation wireless headphone. What Hi-Fi?, founded in 1976, is the world's leading independent guide to buying and owning hi-fi and home entertainment products. Our comprehensive tests help you buy the very best for your money, with our advice sections giving you step-by-step information on how to get even more from your music and movies. Everything is tested by our dedicated team of in-house reviewers in our custom-built test rooms in London, Reading and Bath. Our coveted five-star rating and Awards are recognised all over the world as the ultimate seal of approval, so you can buy with absolute confidence.



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