[sixelannif]

Hello everybody. I just purchased a pair of Nighthawks refurbished from a high-end audio shop (was used as a demo unit) at the unbeatable price of 250€. Anyway, I plan on using them on the go more often than not and I have some worries about the diaphragm technology, seen as it's bio-cellulose (so basically paper) as opposed to mylar (basically plastic) I'm wondering if these will be overly sensitive to humidity. Like what if i get caught in the rain. Also the liquid wood as I uderstand it is somewhat similar to agglomerated wood (the stuff IKEA uses everywhere) so once again I would suppose that I should carefully inspect the headphones to spot any cracks/scracthes in the finish and re-apply a bit of varnish if I see anything as otherwise the humidity will seep in and cause the wood to expand ultimately ruinning the headphones.
Or am I worrying for nothing. Note mine will be the old "wood" finish ones, not the newer Carbon.

 

[betula]

Hello everybody. I just purchased a pair of Nighthawks refurbished from a high-end audio shop (was used as a demo unit) at the unbeatable price of 250€. Anyway, I plan on using them on the go more often than not and I have some worries about the diaphragm technology, seen as it's bio-cellulose (so basically paper) as opposed to mylar (basically plastic) I'm wondering if these will be overly sensitive to humidity. Like what if i get caught in the rain. Also the liquid wood as I uderstand it is somewhat similar to agglomerated wood (the stuff IKEA uses everywhere) so once again I would suppose that I should carefully inspect the headphones to spot any cracks/scracthes in the finish and re-apply a bit of varnish if I see anything as otherwise the humidity will seep in and cause the wood to expand ultimately ruinning the headphones.
Or am I worrying for nothing. Note mine will be the old "wood" finish ones, not the newer Carbon.

Regardless what finish your NHs are, these were not designed for outdoor use.

 

[sixelannif]

Regardless what finish your NHs are, these were not designed for outdoor use.

Bummer. Then again does anyone have any experience with outdoor use, mind you I don't plan to go trekking with them and I would definitely stick them under my coat if it's actually raining, but I'll mainly be commuting wich entails a daily 10~15mn actual outdoor walk/waiting for the train + ~ 2h train/subway/bus travel, and I'd like to know if anyone has been using them in this way and how well they hold up.

 

[betula]

Bummer. Then again does anyone have any experience with outdoor use, mind you I don't plan to go trekking with them and I would definitely stick them under my coat if it's actually raining, but I'll mainly be commuting wich entails a daily 10~15mn actual outdoor walk/waiting for the train + ~ 2h train/subway/bus travel, and I'd like to know if anyone has been using them in this way and how well they hold up.

I think your biggest problem will be sound isolation, as Nighthawks are semi-open. They just won't isolate the noise from public transport enough. Also I would worry about damaging the finish, not to mention they are a bit big for portable use. I use IEMs when I need portability. There are a lot of options (IEMs, closed back headphones or even some noise cancelling hps). Nighthawks beat all of them in its price range when it comes to sound quality, but simply you won't be able to enjoy this sq on the go due to lack of isolation. I would walk around with them in the garden, but never on a subway. This is just my opinion though, so do as you please and see it yourself.

 

[zachgraz]

+1 They are not made to be used on the go. Cups, headband, rubber bands that connect headband and cups are kind of fragile and they are semi open.

 

[waynes world]

I think your biggest problem will be sound isolation, as Nighthawks are semi-open. They just won't isolate the noise from public transport enough.

+1. Also, they leak sound out quite a bit.

 

[sixelannif]

Thank you all, i'm not really worried about sound leakage as I did try them on briefly at a store and they actually seemed to isolate pretty well, as for leakage yes the person next to me would be able to hear a bit of my music but I don't feel it would be enough to actually bother anyone (I mean we are talking about already noisy environments here), and of course more often than not I find that everybody else is also wearing headphones anyway.
I currently have some isine10's that I use at work because it allows me to remain somewhat aware of my environment so I know when someone is talking to me and can just pause my music and pick up on the conversation (as opposed to looking up and finding someone jumping up and down and waving his arms at me trying to get my attention).
For commuting I'm using a HD598cs (Amazon exclusive, not to be confused with the HD598 as mine are close-back and definitely not the same driver, the name is just about marketing) and while they sound good, coming from my isines they do sound a bit dull and veiled.
I was seriously eyeing the Meze99 Classics as a replacement when I came across this great deal on the nighthawks and jumped on it seeing as I would be getting a better headphone for cheaper.
But maybe I'll leave my NH at work and cart around my isines instead... although they offer pretty much no isolation.
Anyway as I was saying I am more worried about damaging them than isolation problems as I figure that if I can get away with ejoying the iSines while commuting the NH shouldn't pose a problem, and even if I wouldn't be getting the full listening experience out of them they would still be a huge step up from my current HD598cs

 

[betula]

Thank you all, i'm not really worried about sound leakage as I did try them on briefly at a store and they actually seemed to isolate pretty well, as for leakage yes the person next to me would be able to hear a bit of my music but I don't feel it would be enough to actually bother anyone (I mean we are talking about already noisy environments here), and of course more often than not I find that everybody else is also wearing headphones anyway.
I currently have some isine10's that I use at work because it allows me to remain somewhat aware of my environment so I know when someone is talking to me and can just pause my music and pick up on the conversation (as opposed to looking up and finding someone jumping up and down and waving his arms at me trying to get my attention).
For commuting I'm using a HD598cs (Amazon exclusive, not to be confused with the HD598 as mine are close-back and definitely not the same driver, the name is just about marketing) and while they sound good, coming from my isines they do sound a bit dull and veiled.
I was seriously eyeing the Meze99 Classics as a replacement when I came across this great deal on the nighthawks and jumped on it seeing as I would be getting a better headphone for cheaper.
But maybe I'll leave my NH at work and cart around my isines instead... although they offer pretty much no isolation.
Anyway as I was saying I am more worried about damaging them than isolation problems as I figure that if I can get away with ejoying the iSines while commuting the NH shouldn't pose a problem, and even if I wouldn't be getting the full listening experience out of them they would still be a huge step up from my current HD598cs

You did have a bargain, no question about that. Good decision there. Imo NHs sound a class above everything else you mentioned (including Meze). It is just very uncommon to use them on the go. Let us know how it works out for you.

 

[SHAMuuu]

You did have a bargain, no question about that. Good decision there. Imo NHs sound a class above everything else you mentioned (including Meze). It is just very uncommon to use them on the go. Let us know how it works out for you.

I contacted Audioquest about their drivers as ofc sony r10 used the "biocellulose" from microbial means. It seems Foster somehow acquired the rights and their drivers are found in all sorts of headphones. Anyway, Audioquest responded that their drivers are bacteria derived. In one forum they said it was not foster/denon drivers, but built from scratch. So, that i thought was interesting. I inquired into ZMF drivers, and was told its "biocellulose + poylurethane." with 2 N50magnets. I tried to get info for the specific fibre twice, but to no avail.

Audioquest told me in email from designer"

"
The designer of our headphones wrote:


The cellulose is derived from bacteria excretion as you recalled. Thickness...don’t recall exactly. Stiffness...not really important by itself. The metric you need to know for audio is stiffness to density ratio. And this biocellulose has a stiffness to weight ratio exceeding titanium BUT it’s totally self-damped and doesn’t ring—unlike titanium or other very stiff materials. The field strength in the magnetic gap is 1.2T.


I hope this helps."

Props to Audioquest team for the helpful info. Though i had to dig deeper for specs on internet.

http://www.tonepublications.com/review/the-audioquest-nighthawk-headphones/
quote from ^
"
However, AudioQuest remains tightlipped about the source of the NightHawk’s driver material for which Gray refused to go with off the shelf materials. “It’s not in my or AudioQuest’s DNA,” he says. “The norm.” as Gray describes it “is a Mylar film that works well in small sizes but is constantly flexing and changing shape.” The latter reportedly causes low frequency distortion adding colouration above 3kHz. Gray calls this the “easy, cheap route”.

After dismantling numerous similarly priced rival models Gray, like all good designers, asked, “How can I do this better?”. Sony’s long gone but much vaunted MDRR10 headphones take the inspirational credit for the NightHawk’s biocellulose driver, a material made from bacteria feces reportedly costing twelve times that of your average dynamic driver to make. This material comes to life by feeding bacteria cultures carbohydrates, causing them to excrete a fiber, cultivated after several weeks, then dried and cleaned before being pressed into 50 micron thick sheets. The 42mm NightHawk driver diagphragms are cookie cut from the sheets. An 8mm driver surround keeps the drivers pistonic motion from distorting the shape."

Any thoughts? I thought this info would come easy but it did not I'm just interested in the engineering/ specs bit for knowledge really

So these 50mm is actually 42+ 8mm surround which is new to me. WOnder how it is for other 50mm biocellies including the 52mm Klipsch. IIRC the Sony was compressed to 20 microns. had very high density to stiffness rating (one guy mentioned 18Gpa+ on Sony r10 owners thread)

Just wondering if anyone has any info to add, help me in my quest to collect specs. It (for me anyway) took a while to obtain some of this info (probably due to my dumb'a$$'d'ness) but hey i find this stuff interesting. Might have something to do with sound i don't know.

 

[sixelannif]

You did have a bargain, no question about that. Good decision there. Imo NHs sound a class above everything else you mentioned (including Meze). It is just very uncommon to use them on the go. Let us know how it works out for you.

Thank you, I don't know if I would say they sound better then the isine as they are going to be just verry different sounding as I understand it, anyway I'll update here after spending some time commuting with them, from my experience most of the time when people say a headphone leaks sound it should be taken with a grain of salt as I've yet to hear a headphone that leaks sound anywhere near a normal speaking volume, most of the time the environmental backgound noise (as in your computer fan and your keyboard) is at least as loud as any sound leakage (not to mention not nearly as pleasant).

 

[sixelannif]

This material comes to life by feeding bacteria cultures carbohydrates, causing them to excrete a fiber

When Audioquest were talking about environmental friendly materials I didn't realize they had gone that far, bacteria poop drivers... wonder what shiit would have to say about that (And why AQ don't advertise this stuff more as that's really interesting and AQ are real marketing freaks).

 

[SHAMuuu]

When Audioquest were talking about environmental friendly materials I didn't realize they had gone that far, bacteria poop drivers... wonder what shiit would have to say about that (And why AQ don't advertise this stuff more as that's really interesting and AQ are real marketing freaks).

Yeah I guess Audioquest/Schiit could do something together. And bacteria poop drivers lmao, never thought of it like that. But not all of them are bacteria poop drivers. Some apparently use plant cellulose/ (or some fibers from plants), and others like Denon in their 7200 have shifted away from Foster Drivers and use (paper (fiber) composite and carbon) in their mm400, and some nano-fiber (not microbial like previous iterations in their d2k/5k/7k). In one thread (dt150) it was mentioned the beyer uses some plant cellulose technolgy, but i am still not clear on that. And they all have different properties (velocity, stiffness and damping ability), thickness differences in diaphragm + surround along with voice coil and magneting flux rating resulting in varying speeds. Ofc please do your own research. Don't take what i say for anything. I've been roasted a few times bringing things like this up. Ofc when the r10 is KING, and all these new cans with this driver material come up, i'm curious. And i was surprised to see how different they all are even though the term biocellulose/biodyna is used. I am just on quest to get closest thing to r10, then i walk away Or if i get lucky and get the actual R10

 

[sixelannif]

Yeah I guess Audioquest/Schiit could do something together. And bacteria poop drivers lmao, never thought of it like that. But not all of them are bacteria poop drivers. Some apparently use plant cellulose/ (or some fibers from plants), and others like Denon in their 7200 have shifted away from Foster Drivers and use (paper (fiber) composite and carbon) in their mm400, and some nano-fiber (not microbial like previous iterations in their d2k/5k/7k). In one thread (dt150) it was mentioned the beyer uses some plant cellulose technolgy, but i am still not clear on that. And they all have different properties (velocity, stiffness and damping ability), thickness differences in diaphragm + surround along with voice coil and magneting flux rating resulting in varying speeds. Ofc please do your own research. Don't take what i say for anything. I've been roasted a few times bringing things like this up. Ofc when the r10 is KING, and all these new cans with this driver material come up, i'm curious. And i was surprised to see how different they all are even though the term biocellulose/biodyna is used. I am just on quest to get closest thing to r10, then i walk away Or if i get lucky and get the actual R10

Can't say I'm really all that interested in the history of who did what with which material and how it had better properties and such, or even getting my hands on some legendary headphones or anything like that. I just want to listen to music, but this stuff about actually growing the drivers with the help of bacteria just blows my mind, forget about boring old planar or electrostats, that's just the coolest thing ever.

 

[sixelannif]

Okay, so as a quick update, I received my NH yesterday. So first of all they do leak sound more than I expected/remembered so everyone knows what you are listening to, and my wife last night said I should be carefull because she thought I was listening to my music too loud, but once she tried them and decided it actually wasn't loud at all then end of story. I actually asked her if it was bothering and what she thought about me commuting with them, and appart from me looking silly (she's pretty much gotten used to that) she didn't imagine anyone would be bothered by a tad bit of music in such an already noisy environnment, so my thought exactly.
Therefore I tried commuting with them this morning:

1. At first I thought Hu-Ho as i was hearing a clicking sound in the left ear-cup while walking, so maybe something loose, crap was I gonna have to take these appart and hope I see what's wrong and tighten it, it definitely seemed to go away when I held the outer grid... turned out it was my glasses so that's a relief and easily solved as I don't really need glasses they're just for preventing eye-fatigue and headaches, I can certainly do without them until I sit down in front of my computer at work.
2. No complaints in the train or subway and no funny looks or anything to indicate I was inconveniencing anyone, and my colleague at work doesn't mind. Also it's supprising how much better these are at keeping sound out than at keeping it in, so the isolation is actually quite good and appart from a few short particularily noisy moments I didn't feel any inconvenience from outside noises.
3. They are sooo comfortable and relaxed that I actually found myself to be more relaxed on what is a pretty unrelaxed commuting experience. Also in the cold weather they do seem to do a pretty good job of keeping my ears warm, as that is an appreciable side-feature of over-the-ear headphones during winter.

So all is good as far as i'm concerned.

--------------
Also while they look to be in pretty good condition while closely inspecting them I did see a few scratches/cracks in the finish, but apparently this isn't your everyday varnish/lacker or whatnot, so not sure what do do about it to keep it from getting worse (while of course not making it worse myself). Has anyone tried to re-coat them yet ? If so with what and with what results ?

--------------

Finally on the sound side of things these are simply awesome, although I can see how they can dissapoint (especially at the full 700€ retail price), they are so relaxed, I feel they even force relaxation on you, every time I try to listen in on them to see how much detail I can pick up and how is the sound signature in the whatever range etc... I get the impression they are just immediately pushing me back into my comfy arm-chair and telling me to just relax and stop worrying about stuff.

To put it another way, its a bit like if you'd spent your time eating at gourmet restaurants getting your taste buds blown away by swirling new flavors and spices, but then you catch a cold and when you get home there's a big bowl of your grandma's good old-fashioned home-made chicken soup waiting for you and Oooo that's just so soothing that screw gourmet, just give some more chicken soup please.
That's what these are to me: soul-food for the ears.

Just a few tracks I tested:

Run to the hills (Hellsongs): This is a sibilant ****fest, whowever did the mastering on this one deserves a whack bedind the head, but here it's fine, you can still tell someone did a sloppy job but it's no longer trying to put needles through your ears.

No milk today (Rerecorded version) By Herman's Hermits : This one definitely doesn't do well with these cans, here you get as close to sibilance and listening fatigue as I feel you'll ever get with these, not a very pleasant experience.

Concerto pour une voix (Saint-Preux): .... holy c..

Libertango (by Astor Piazzolla), form albums "Soul of Tango" and "The sound of Piazzola": Two very different version, Sound stage ? Imaging ? no just music man, just music...


EDIT: Ok so this wasn't exactly a "quick update".

 

[earChasm]

Finally on the sound side of things these are simply awesome, although I can see how they can dissapoint (especially at the full 700€ retail price).

Yeah, like many things they must match with the rest of your gear and your taste. The dark sound when paired with the iDSD Black 4 example is nowhere to be found with a Schiit spread (wood & hybrid pads). So much so I bought the Loki to pump up the base a tiny bit . Since then no other HP (sub 1K) I tried interests me. Next target is the LCD2...

I don’t know which version I got of “No Milk today” (I like the song) but I can’t hear any sibilance. I do agree that it sounds terrible tho. Oh crap, you made me sit at my listening spot. Now I have no choice than to listen to a couple of albums and order pizza for dinner.

(After ordering a quattro stagionie) he fires up “Speak Sofly Love” (Yao Si Ting) and gets warped into the same room as the Godfather ...