UPDATE 6/30/2015
Yesterday I received a message from Kennerton on Head-Fi thanking me for the review. They believe that customs must have opened the package and damaged the cup, and offered to send me a replacement cup in the mail. I definitely appreciate them being proactive about reaching out to contact me about this and rectify the problem.
Intro & Disclaimer
Some while back I first saw the Kennerton Magister as a possible option on Massdrop, and I was instantly interested. I really do have a thing for closed-back headphones, and the only information I could find on this pair was extremely positive, placing it at or above the level of the Fostex TH900. So, I went ahead and cast my vote and proceeded to forget about it.
It was a couple months later that Kennerton offered a promotion here on Head-Fi to buy the Magister at a discounted price in exchange for writing a review. I jumped on the chance, and here we are!
For those of you who don't know, Kennerton is the "upscale" brand for products by Fischer Audio. The Kennerton Magister is actually based on the Fischer FA-003 Ti. From what I understand, the differences include the wood cups, higher quality cable, real lambskin leather for the pads, and a driver revision.
Ordering Experience
I wanted to put in a bit about the ordering experience just because it ended up being a little convoluted. Kennerton/Fischer is based out of Russia, so while everyone was courteous and gracious, I feel like there was a bit of a language barrier at times.
After initially contacting Kennerton through the forums here and getting a very quick response, I hadn't heard anything for a few days so I messaged back. I was then given the contact email for the person who would take my order, a lady named Alla. She instructed me to send the payment via PayPal to a mail.com account, which to be honest kind of concerned me. I replied back and asked if I could have an invoice, as I had been hoping to use PayPal Credit (initially because I was waiting on a check, but at this point as an extra level of security for myself). She replied that she could send me an invoice and just needed my address to do so. At this point I breathed a sigh of relief, which dissipated a bit after I received a PDF invoice in the next email. After I clarified that I would like a PayPal invoice, she said she would see if it was possible and sent it to me shortly after.
Overall, all of this turned out fine, but it was just a little odd. Alla and the other people involved were very accommodating. I do think most of the issue was due to the language barrier, or it could be that these processes are a little different in Russia. Shipping did take a couple weeks, and I began to hope pretty quickly that there was no reason I would have to send the headphones back.
Design & Comfort
The cups are made of ancient bog oak, which as I understand is basically semi-fossilized wood that has been in a peat bog for a long time, in this case over 2000 years. Two things here: First, it's kind of cool owning something that is literally older than the holy grail. Second, it really is beautiful. The finish is very minimal; a friend who works with wood for a living noted that it might only be a coat of linseed oil, and the aesthetic definitely works. Unfortunately, my particular pair does have an imperfection on one cup.
From what I understand this kind of flaw is not uncommon in bog oak and can be caused by the forming process. It also doesn't seem to affect the sound. Still, it is unfortunate to see something like this in such a high end product, especially when a lot of the luxury quality comes from the cups itself. However, as this was an aesthetic problem (and possibly even within Kennerton's QA tolerance) I didn't want to go through the trouble of sending them all the way back to Russia. (UPDATE: As mentioned above, Kennerton contacted me proactively and offered to send me a new cup free of charge. Definitely get some solid customer service points for that!)
Upon taking them out of the box, I was immediately surprised by how light in weight these are. I believe the bog oak must be fairly light (or fairly thin), because in spite of the large wood cups, the Kennerton weighs barely more than my Ultrasone Signature Pros.
One thing I don't particularly like is the cable. It seems to be high quality and has plenty of length, but the coating reminds me of those big "snake" cables they use for professional A/V setups. In addition it's rather thick and there are some microphonics if the upper part of the cable rubs your shirt. Honestly it's not really a big issue, but I am glad it's easily replaceable. It does have a nice 1/8" termination and includes a screw-on 1/4" adapter.
Out of the box, clamp is somewhat high, but if you stretch out the headband comfort is very good. The pads fully enclose your ears and have enough thickness for long listening sessions. Having real leather is definitely a nice touch. The headband could use a little more cushion for my preference, but it's thin enough to buy a cheap aftermarket pilot pad, so I wouldn't consider it a major issue.
Sound
Sound impressions are from my personal setup, a Mousai MSD192 DAC and a Purity Audio K.I.C.A.S. Caliente headphone amp. I also want to point out that I let the Magister burn in on pink noise for about 20 hours due to my experience with titanium drivers. It definitely improved the sound from out of the box, particularly the first 5 hours. It could be that more burn in would improve the sound further, but I think 20 hours is a fair amount of time to spend.
Okay... I'm really kind of divided here. Let's touch on the good stuff first.
Soundstage and imaging are phenomenal, and I would say THE major strength of the Magister. I had the chance to directly compare them to the ZMF Omni prototype, Fostex TH600, and my own Ultrasone Sig Pros, and the Kennerton was not beaten by any of them. I won't say it was unequivocally "better" than these, but it certainly held its own and then some.
Bass is nice and punchy. My amp definitely contributes to this, but the bass was perfectly acceptable on other setups as well. Highs are a little hot for my taste, but detail is extremely high. I don't generally pay attention to cymbals in recordings, but percussion in general is very noticeable. For example, I just heard a tambourine right now in a recording that I've listened to for years and never noticed. These seem to be quite neutral for better or worse. I like to listen to my music fairly loud, but with this pair I find I have to turn it down or I get fatigued.
There is something about the overall tonality of these headphones that just doesn't seem right to me. This is especially prevalent in the mids when listening to male vocals and electric guitar, but seems to be present in the overall sound signature. It could actually well be related to the open nature of the sound, as I feel a distinct lack of weight and texture that I'm used to in my other closed headphones. There's a lot of attack and detail, but that's about it. It actually reminds me of the aspects of the HD 800 that I don't particularly like.
It could be that a darker setup with a tube amp would help the Magister quite a bit. But my concern here is that while my setup is fairly detail oriented, it definitely isn't particularly bright.
Isolation is excellent. I think it might even be better than my Sig Pros, which is high praise indeed. Sensitivity is also fairly high, and it uses the same volume range as the Sig Pros on my amp. When music isn't playing, there's a very pleasant blackness in the silence.
Actually, just as a quick experiment, I turned down the volume knob, and I definitely prefer these on lower volumes. The tonality doesn't sound off anymore, and the mids are fine. It's not really either exciting or relaxing, but just clear. I think this may be the ideal way to listen to these.
Conclusion
The Kennerton Magister definitely isn't for me, and it's likely that my pair will be going up on the classifieds soon. If you're looking to be immersed in the music, I don't think this is where you want to end up. Compared to other high end closed headphones, they don't have the visceral, impactful, engaging quality that I love.
That being said, I can understand how some people would like these. They're extremely open and neutral while still having excellent isolation. If you prefer the sound of open headphones but have a situation that won't allow for sound leakage, these definitely might hold some appeal for you.
In terms of price and the value proposition, I think it really depends on which perspective you hold. If you really can't stand the "closed headphone" sound but need the isolation, I could definitely see you paying MSRP for these. On the other hand, I couldn't really put a value on them as for my personal taste there are a lot of better alternatives at or below this price range.