I would rather leave that price point to McIntosh and others... I think Audioquest is on a roll, especially for a cable company, in bringing out quality products for rational budgets. With their manufacturing reach and volume something at $999 or $1299 should give Skylar and the team plenty of room to create a masterpiece.
I have the nighthawks on my noggin as I type this, T Swift 1989 at 24bit/44khz at around the 50-60 hour mark of my break-in program. My HD700 and EL-8 are feeling a bit jealous at this point. The balance and tonal signature is the best I have yet heard through headphones. The bass is strong but not bloated in any way IMHO though I agree with
@SearchOfSub in terms of the new pads and any fine tuning here... just a slight reduction in bass and the subsequent slight perception of elevated treble would be interesting though I still might prefer what I am hearing right now with stock pads. So what would I be looking for if a new and higher priced model were introduced? Just a slightly more open sound with a little bit broader soundstage, and if that brought with it a little more definition and separation of instruments in that space then so be it, but I found the Nighthawk to sound very realistic in this regard. Then there is that final frontier of resolution, that is often mistaken for exaggerated treble or select peaks... but what I think it is for me is this sense of an electric charge delivering the music like a super collider with a lower noise floor and a sense of dynamic excitement that is broadband in nature and does not take away from the whole of the music. This is what I occasionally heard from really good speaker based hifi systems, and for me is the final element. I do not crave super resolution and other qualities that I think bring an artificial quality to many recordings.
I am looking forward to hearing the HD800S and perhaps the HE-1000 at the Minneapolis meet up this Saturday to see if I can hear some qualities that strike me as real and musically important that I am not getting from the Nighthawks. One this for sure, for me the Nighthawks have already pushed the HD600 and the HD0700 out of my mind and they are going up for sale. The EL-8 Open just barely hangs in there for it's different but not better presentation. I am a very happy camper thus far. Thanks audioquest, still love the dragonfly, still get pissed off when I look at your cables and their ridiculous prices, but the Nighthawks are keeping me focused on what I think is a class leading, innovative and honest product that serves the music rather than a house sound or special pet tricks approach to impressing a neurotic audiophile.
