[paulchiu]

  It's not awful, but it's visible:
 

 
 
No big deal, but that's what happens when you have no carpets.

 
 
Maybe a little lacquered glossy paint at a hobby shop?  It's near the bottom.  Hardly noticeable.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

yeah like I said it's nothing serious. Just enough to make me grumpy, y'know?
 
Also, holy crap acoustic music sounds good with these. Listening to The Builders and the Butchers now.

 

[Loquah]

That sucks, man - happened to my HD800s so I feel your pain. Lucky the Hawks sound good enough to ease the pain

 

[adpo]

Usually, I use my k553's at work since I'm not too afraid of accidentally dropping them during a video shoot, along with the fact that they're closed. Once in a while, I'll bring my nighthawks on edit-only days and it's super trippy when i go from editing mono tracks for voiceovers to stereo sound from the ambient mic or for background music. I usually end up having to double check if I accidentally left the speakers on, which says a lot to me about the nighthawk's frequency response, imaging and soundstage.

On a different note, I went to canjam socal over the weekend and got to listen to the violectric v281 at the audioquest booth. Looks like I've found what endgame amp I need to save up for my girlfriend was there with me and she absolutely fell in love with the nighthawks running via the v281, definitely our favorite amp pairing we heard with them all day.

 

[betula]

Hello Nighthawk owners.
I am picking up my Nighthawks tomorrow. Great second hand deal.
Originally I am waiting for my TH-X00s which will arrive in May.
But I need something in the meantime, so I decided to try this very exciting Nighthawks. (Even though reviews are very controversial.)
I will use it with Mojo, and I am coming from Fidelio X2.

 

[knowhatimean]

Picked up my Nighhawk Monday,& between my Auraliti DF player & my CD player have had music running through them non-stop 2 & a half days.. I was pretty sure they were going sound pretty nice with the almost $10k of playback system equipment in front of them,

They have'nt presented me with anything (in the several short listens I've taken) I would call even slightly objectionable.Well, I did notice a slightly closed in sound that I could tell immediately from the fact they're not an open-back design headphone , so I decided the 3D grilles were completely unnecessary for the music I listen to,so I now have 2 nic nacs I'll find another use for.

The difference coming from using a headphone that you can't actually call open back (simply because they don't have earcups; The drivers are mounted on baffles that sit iin an open basket type frame) to a headphone that does use earcups is huge. It's pretty interesting what the NH has been pointing out about this 2 & 1/2x $ headphone . I'll get into that at some other time .

These headphones are ones to listen to if you appreciate subtle tonal colors in acoustic music. (My 21/2 x heavily modified headphone have some trouble pulling this off as their sonic emphasis is on imaging)

 

[SomeGuyDude]

I have to say... removing the back grill is going to present a rather significant alteration in the sound, man. That's not like a normal open-back where all it's doing is keeping the drivers from getting hit with anything, those grills are very carefully engineered to affect the sound. You pop them off and that's like punching holes in the ear-cup of a closed headphone.

 

[knowhatimean]

I have to say... removing the back grill is going to present a rather significant alteration in the sound, man. That's not like a normal open-back where all it's doing is keeping the drivers from getting hit with anything, those grills are very carefully engineered to affect the sound. You pop them off and that's like punching holes in the ear-cup of a closed headphone.
[/quote

Thanks for the concern , but I only use the headphones in my dedicated listening room (which needless to say is a controlled listening enviornment at all times.

I can't agree completely that the grilles main engineering focus was'nt 1rst & foremost designed to isolate how the surrounding environment intrudes upon the SQ of the headphones. I didn't notice any adverse effect on thesound , but I wouldn't suggest that anyone who isn't completely confident that they can reverse whatever physical changes they make to a headphone to the same stock condition is was when they "reverse engineered" something that was made to be more universal in use then they will ever need to be for what your intended use will be (If anything the "Acoustic" of any recordings I've listened to have a more relaxed decay of transients; This is the only change of the sound I've detected & for myself it moved the sound in the direction I'd hoped it would). I'm sure I've mentioned on numerous times on "HF" that I have next to no interest in non- acoustic music .

Once again, thanks for the concern, but I don't ever just "shoot from the hip" when I try things ! Not to sound "cocky", I've been at this hobby for awhile ! (Well, that may sound like I am ,but that wasn't my intention) . I knew I should have left mentioning this detail out as I'm not the typical headphone listener !

 

[SomeGuyDude]

 

I have to say... removing the back grill is going to present a rather significant alteration in the sound, man. That's not like a normal open-back where all it's doing is keeping the drivers from getting hit with anything, those grills are very carefully engineered to affect the sound. You pop them off and that's like punching holes in the ear-cup of a closed headphone.
[/quote

Thanks for the concern , but I only use the headphones in my dedicated listening room (which needless to say is a controlled listening enviornment at all times.

I can't agree completely that the grilles main engineering focus was'nt 1rst & foremost designed to isolate how the surrounding environment intrudes upon the SQ of the headphones. I didn't notice any adverse effect on thesound , but I wouldn't suggest that anyone who isn't completely confident that they can reverse whatever physical changes they make to a headphone to the same stock condition is was when they "reverse engineered" something that was made to be more universal in use then they will ever need to be for what your intended use will be (If anything the "Acoustic" of any recordings I've listened to have a more relaxed decay of transients; This is the only change of the sound I've detected & for myself it moved the sound in the direction I'd hoped it would). I'm sure I've mentioned on numerous times on "HF" that I have next to no interest in non- acoustic music .

Once again, thanks for the concern, but I don't ever just "shoot from the hip" when I try things ! Not to sound "cocky", I've been at this hobby for awhile ! (Well, that may sound like I am ,but that wasn't my intention) . I knew I should have left mentioning this detail out as I'm not the typical headphone listener !

That's great that you "can't completely agree" but Audioquest's friggin webpage explains why the grill is made how it is and its very specific affect on the performance: http://personal.audioquest.com/nighthawk-biomimetics
 
Maybe you should have read up on them a little before making declarations like that you don't "shoot from the hip".
 
EDIT: And yes, I do realize that the issue with the design was reflection from the standard grill design so having it completely open would, in fact, not make them subject to the issue that the grill was designed to alleviate, but I'm sticking by my guns here that before you do ANY modification on something you actually research the product and don't start speaking on behalf of the engineers before finding out their actual design process.

 

[Loquah]

Further to the above, I asked Skylar a while back about the open vs semi open design and he explained that a fully open design presents pros and cons. They specifically designed the Nighthawks to be semi open (he didn't elaborate on the fine details - trade secrets etc.) and as I understand it there would be things done quite differently if the Hawks were meant to be fully open.

Of course, in the end it all comes back to personal preference, but I expect that removing the grills might be introducing some acoustic challenges even if they're not immediately audible.

 

[knowhatimean]

Further to the above, I asked Skylar a while back about the open vs semi open design and he explained that a fully open design presents pros and cons. They specifically designed the Nighthawks to be semi open (he didn't elaborate on the fine details - trade secrets etc.) and as I understand it there would be things done quite differently if the Hawks were meant to be fully open.

Of course, in the end it all comes back to personal preference, but I expect that removing the grills might be introducing some acoustic challenges even if they're not immediately audible.

I don't disagree that this headphone is not an open back design, but being a semi-open back design there are options as to how much of the "ports" effect will be inline with how you want the headphone's voicing to sound like.

I tend to think that the mechanical challenges of non-acoustical music playback present to drivers have to be accounted for during the voicing process. The "acoustic challenges" on non acoustic music may not even be challenges that present themselves in Acoustic music playback.

You are correct in stating that at some point my alternate voicing of how my NH is being "ported" may show up to be something to where I'll say "You know... I think I prefer the sound with the 3D grilles in place" . For the time being however, I prefer the change in "Tonality" I'm hearing from the NH.(I just changed the Voicing of a very nice sounding headphone)

(Given the responses I've received I better add ... IMHO, YMMV & most importantly DTTYKUYHACIOWYDi which translates to Don't Try This Yourselves Kids Unless You Have A Clear Idea Of Why Your Doing It)

 

[knowhatimean]

Not to be a "thread hog", I think I might prefer the sound of the NH semi-open design (w/ my voicing for the time being) over the completely open back design I've been using.

I've been noticing a better sense of a fuller continuation of the harmonic devopment of notes before a note transient from the next note begin. (You won't normally hear me talking about how "songs" sound as they're not that big on my source material playback list) (Unless we're talking about a live perspective concert recording of a Singer/Songwriter or other type of Acoustic group performance)

I have some velour earpads arriving today so we'll see what that brings to the table. I think that will increase the amount of dynamic contrast a bit further . He,he,he .. now to figure out a way to change the pads & keep listening at the same time .

 

[paulchiu]

  Does anyone else feel that Audioquest should of broken in the rubber surrounds before shipping? I feel people are getting robbed of this fantastic sound. The driver is so clean, fast, I can literally hear silence between the instruments it's quite impressive. Before they softened up I could really see why people thought they sounded muddy, narrow and slow but the difference is really noticeable. 
 
They have a really good, if I was going to nit pick, I'd say I could do with a slightly smoother treble but I'm really picking nits. This really does feel like a Denon D7000 with every issue fixed. 

 
By rubber surrounds, you mean the cushioning foam for transport?
The Nighthawk does have some of D7000 feel, but Denon has more impactful low end.

 

[Hapster]

Not to be a "thread hog", I think I might prefer the sound of the NH semi-open design (w/ my voicing for the time being) over the completely open back design I've been using.

I've been noticing a better sense of a fuller continuation of the harmonic devopment of notes before a note transient from the next note begin. (You won't normally hear me talking about how "songs" sound as they're not that big on my source material playback list) (Unless we're talking about a live perspective concert recording of a Singer/Songwriter or other type of Acoustic group performance)

Here, you dropped your fedora while typing that. *hands back*

 

[betula]

After 5 hrs of A/B listening with Mojo and X2 I am not convinced. NH definitely has better bass and slightly more details. But sounds more closed, less natural, often too forward and the upper half of frequencies are just too weird, unnatural.