About the New Denon AH Series Headphones

Since their recent introduction, Denon’s new line of closed headphones has created quite a commotion in the headphone enthusiast community. Reaction has been largely positive, but many with more discerning ears and tastes remain divided in their opinions of these phones.

 

On the positive side, no one can deny that the Denons have a very realistic and natural sound, portraying instruments and the human voice in a way that sounds life-like, rather than stereotypically “headphone-y”.  Many have called the sound “speaker-like”, which is high praise for any set of cans. The Denons provide a lot of body to the sound, lacking the thinness and brittleness common to most other phones. They are capable of outstanding resolution and fine detailing, and can provide excellent thump and thwack with a thrilling quickness.

 

Great Potential, Not Optimized

That said, many find the sound of the Denons otherwise marred by a loose, out-of-proportion, and overpowering bass that interferes with and muddies up the midrange, making it sound a bit recessed and indistinct, overpowered by the low-end. As has been well documented, at times the thunderous bass can sound almost flatulent, like a whoopie cushion deflating into your eardrum. This tremendous bass force that can be summoned by the powerful driver transfers a lot of vibrational energy to the frame/assembly of the phones, seemingly causing it to shake, rattle and roll on your skull. Many find these effects distracting, taking them out of the illusion of the music, and resulting in bass headaches over longer listening sessions. This effect may be fun and appeal to a rowdy teenager who likes to cruise the streets with 10 subwoofers in the trunk of their car pumping at full volume, not so great for serious music listeners.

 

Better Bass, Not Zero Bass

It is sometimes misunderstood by those who have not heard our phones that our basic markl Mod that damps the chassis somehow truncates, rolls off, or otherwise castrates the Denon’s bass; this is just not so. The point of the mod is to reduce the excess vibrations generated by the powerful driver throughout the assembly that creates the illusion of flabby, loose bass. The loose assembly can pump, flex and vibrate in time with the bass, and the psycho-acoustic effect of this is the illusion that your head has been surrounded by a sort of “bass cloud” thundering away. Amid this, bass sounds can become non-directional, tuneless, and loose. All your great speaker designs go to tremendous lengths to control resonances throughout the cabinet, and that is the principle behind the markl Mod. The stiffer the baffles on a speaker, the tighter the bass can become. You are no longer aware of the sound of the cabinet localizing all sounds and echoing away inside, but can focus on the music itself. Our phones deliver rock solid slabs of bass that hit with exciting force when asked to by the recording. But that’s all natural bass, real bass information, not excess vibrations in the assembly. Not only is the bass tighter on our modified phones, but the different tones of the mid and upper bass can now be heard; it’s no longer so “one-note” and indistinct.

 

Stop Shouting In My Ear!

Sadly, bloated bass energy is not their only imperfection. In addition, thanks to the thin padding they provide, Denon has placed the drivers very close to the eardrum. This can mae them seem somewhat obnoxious and overblown on some material, creating a "wall of sound", where everything seems to come at the listener at once. This cacophony prevents any real depth, layering or separation to develop within the soundstage with everything competing for your attention, and struggling to be heard over all the other instruments.  With an aggressive driver placed so close to the ear, the illusion and intimacy of the music can be spoiled, with the listener always reminded that they have to two tiny speakers strapped to their ears pumping and piercing away that refuse to disappear as they should. All this can lead sensitive ears to be fatigued even after relatively short listening sessions.

 

Our solution is a fatter ear pad that not only puts the driver at a more comfortable distance from the ear drum, the tapered design helps angle the drivers to create the illusion of the soundstage being more in from of the listener than at the sides. More info can be found HERE.

 

Small Cups = Small Soundstage

The ear cups also seem to have been designed with the priority of creating a slim and sleek profile for the headphones rather than optimizing them for sound quality and soundstage size. We correct this with our beautiful custom wood cups. The result of many prototypes, we have perfected the correct size and shape for our custom cups. Larger than the stock cups (but not so big as to introduce any potential colorations), our woodies put more air behind the driver. As a result, our phones can produce a more “out-of-head” listening experience, with more image depth and layering. Check out our custom cups HERE.

 

Great Driver In A Flawed Housing

In sum, the engineers at Foster, Japan (the OEM responsible for producing the AH series phones for Denon), did an absolutely superb job designing the outstanding and very capable driver unit, but have chosen to house it within a seemingly carelessly conceived structure that restricts it from showing off its many inherent strengths. It appears that after having triumphed on the design of the driver, for whatever reason, they failed put as much thought into the remainder of the headphone. Rather than developing a robust frame that optimizes performance, it seems the priority was to develop an inexpensive housing and frame assembly that could be quickly recycled and re-used on all the AH series phones. That means the inexpensive D2000 has the exact same frame and assembly as the top-of-the-line D7000, the build quality does not increase as you move up the line. Thus, they all end up riddled with the same basic issues outlined above.

 

Click HERE to see for yourself the inside story of the new Denon AH-D7000 flagship, which we have de-constructed and reviewed.

 

What a shame such an otherwise excellent series of phones with so much potential have so many nagging faults. If only something could be done to remedy this....

 

Enter Lawton Audio and the Original “markl Mod”

Fortunately, all of these issues have been addressed and eliminated by Lawton Audio. We have spent many months perfecting a series of special modifications for the Denon headphones that not only correct these known issues, they unveil and unleash all the hidden potential locked inside.

 

Even if you are a fan of the stock Denons and do not feel they are flawed in any way, we are confident our modified Denons will provide an eye and ear-opening experience, truly improving upon the original and delivering world-class performance never before available in headphones at these prices… or possibly at any price!