AudioQuest NightHawk Impressions and Discussion Thread

[betula]

Thanks for clarifying that. That was what I thought I remembered ...but my memory has been known to fail .
I can't believe it has been a year and a half since I bought my NH. I will never part with them.

I feel the same way!

 

[MayorDomino]

If anyone in UK or EU wants to buy an original thick nighthawk Cable PM Me.

 

[BubbaJay]

About cables, if anyone has a Sennheiser HD700 you can use its stock cable on the Nighthawk and I feel like it sounds better with the HD700 cable. The highs a more crisp and snappy and I also think the mids come through a bit better as well.

 

[Bitsir]

Many like the Mojo with the NH including myself. Soundstage width is not everything.

You're right, however, detail is not everything either.

What I'm after is not width in particular, rather depth.

What Mojo does: Discards soundstage for detail by shoving the image right in your face (which is why many say the Mojo has an intimate soundstage but is very detailed) so that it feels like you are surrounded or in the music. It really is cramped.

What Dragonfly does: Allows for ambiance and breathability of everything residing in the soundstage which is much, much deeper. You can sonically "watch" the song from afar. What you give up is detail, specifically textural detail.

Any sound that is CLOSER will have more textural detail, like in real life. So you gain detail, but what do you lose? You lose perspective.
If everything is close, nothing is! Because you don't have far!You can't differentiate! It becomes 2D more or less. With the lowly Dragonfly, music seems to travel in a space before it hits your ears and this quality I value higher than anything. You are able to observe the entirety of the performance from afar presented to you in a 3D fashion instead of being in it which just becomes a scrambled and chaotic mess. I can't make out the performance, how it all interacts with itself.. just individual instruments screaming IN MY EAR for my attention. It also doesn't help that Mojo is relaxed in the highs.

This image describes how I hear the soundstages of both.

 

[agnostic1er]

Hello all,

Did someone measure the NH carbon version? Wondering if they modified its fr response vs the old wood version.
Thanks.

 

[Wes S]

agnostic1er - Same headphone with a different paint job, and ear pads.

 

[agnostic1er]

OK Wes S.
To my mind it's a shame they didn't give them a bit more light. Would be very easy technically... In the other hand I understand they want to keep what makes the NH a very special bird.

 

[betula]

You're right, however, detail is not everything either.

What I'm after is not width in particular, rather depth.

What Mojo does: Discards soundstage for detail by shoving the image right in your face (which is why many say the Mojo has an intimate soundstage but is very detailed) so that it feels like you are surrounded or in the music. It really is cramped.

What Dragonfly does: Allows for ambiance and breathability of everything residing in the soundstage which is much, much deeper. You can sonically "watch" the song from afar. What you give up is detail, specifically textural detail.

Any sound that is CLOSER will have more textural detail, like in real life. So you gain detail, but what do you lose? You lose perspective.
If everything is close, nothing is! Because you don't have far!You can't differentiate! It becomes 2D more or less. With the lowly Dragonfly, music seems to travel in a space before it hits your ears and this quality I value higher than anything. You are able to observe the entirety of the performance from afar presented to you in a 3D fashion instead of being in it which just becomes a scrambled and chaotic mess. I can't make out the performance, how it all interacts with itself.. just individual instruments screaming IN MY EAR for my attention. It also doesn't help that Mojo is relaxed in the highs.

This image describes how I hear the soundstages of both.

I respectfully disagree with your observations regarding Mojo.
I haven't heard any of the Dragonflies, but I have a good experience with portable DACs. Owned or tested the followings: idsd nano BL, idsd micro BL, Mojo, Hugo2, FiioQ5, Oppo HA2se.
None of these DACs provide more soundstage depth than Mojo (except Hugo2 obviously.) Mojo is not just detailed, but the most natural and life-like sounding from this group. (Except Hugo2.)
I don't doubt that this is your experience and hearing, but I think many would back me up in Mojo thread. We all hear differently I presume, and there is nothing wrong with that. If dragonfly keeps you happy, you can enjoy some extra cash in your pocket.

Would be interesting to know what headphones you used.

 

[Ishcabible]

Both Fostex and NH drivers are made of biocellulose. NH was designed by Skyler Gray from scratch, it is not a Fostex driver.
I owned both the TH-X00s and Nighthawks. They are very different. It is like saying Volkswagen and Lexus are the same, as both were made of aluminium.

I’d be very, very surprised if these were not a Fostex-made driver considering how expensive it would be to completely design a driver from the ground up, especially a biocellulose design. It would make much more sense to work with a company such as Fostex to make these drivers to a certain specification, much like what ENIGMAcoustics did with the Dharma D1000 with Fostex. The fact that the X00 and Nighthawk sound different does not rule out that they can use similar drivers, since the Nighthawk has a radically different housing and pads, which affects sound significantly. Case in point, I bought TH900 drivers to mess with before Fostex required a serial number to buy a pair. This is how a normal TH900 measured in my system:

And this is how it measured in the different housing, damping, and pads:

I did absolutely nothing to the drivers themselves, but changing almost every other variable led to a completely different sound.

But to go back on topic, I’m getting a pair of Nighthawks from an owner who absolutely hates his and I plan on modding them to bring up the upper mids, tame the mid treble, and bring down the bass. I’ll be posting results and instructions when I’m satisfied with the sound, since I’ve used the Nighthawk a number of times and found them to be both overwhelmingly bassy and harsh.

 

[Bitsir]

I’d be very, very surprised if these were not a Fostex-made driver considering how expensive it would be to completely design a driver from the ground up, especially a biocellulose design. It would make much more sense to work with a company such as Fostex to make these drivers to a certain specification, much like what ENIGMAcoustics did with the Dharma D1000 with Fostex. The fact that the X00 and Nighthawk sound different does not rule out that they can use similar drivers, since the Nighthawk has a radically different housing and pads, which affects sound significantly. Case in point, I bought TH900 drivers to mess with before Fostex required a serial number to buy a pair. This is how a normal TH900 measured in my system:


And this is how it measured in the different housing, damping, and pads:


I did absolutely nothing to the drivers themselves, but changing almost every other variable led to a completely different sound.

But to go back on topic, I’m getting a pair of Nighthawks from an owner who absolutely hates his and I plan on modding them to bring up the upper mids, tame the mid treble, and bring down the bass. I’ll be posting results and instructions when I’m satisfied with the sound, since I’ve used the Nighthawk a number of times and found them to be both overwhelmingly bassy and harsh.

I get overwhelmingly bassy, but harsh? How'd you manage that I feel like you must be accustomed to some insanely silky smooth $2k custom IEM treble to call the Nighthawk treble harsh...

 

[betula]

I’d be very, very surprised if these were not a Fostex-made driver considering how expensive it would be to completely design a driver from the ground up, especially a biocellulose design. It would make much more sense to work with a company such as Fostex to make these drivers to a certain specification, much like what ENIGMAcoustics did with the Dharma D1000 with Fostex. The fact that the X00 and Nighthawk sound different does not rule out that they can use similar drivers, since the Nighthawk has a radically different housing and pads, which affects sound significantly. Case in point, I bought TH900 drivers to mess with before Fostex required a serial number to buy a pair. This is how a normal TH900 measured in my system:


And this is how it measured in the different housing, damping, and pads:


I did absolutely nothing to the drivers themselves, but changing almost every other variable led to a completely different sound.

But to go back on topic, I’m getting a pair of Nighthawks from an owner who absolutely hates his and I plan on modding them to bring up the upper mids, tame the mid treble, and bring down the bass. I’ll be posting results and instructions when I’m satisfied with the sound, since I’ve used the Nighthawk a number of times and found them to be both overwhelmingly bassy and harsh.

I am well aware, that the same drivers can sound completely different in different headphone housings. It might be disappointing to some, but not all biocellulose drivers come from Fostex. There is no cooperation between Audioquest and Fostex. Recommended reading.

Good luck with your mods. To me it sounds like you need to create a pair of completely new headphones.

 

[Ishcabible]

I am well aware, that the same drivers can sound completely different in different headphone housings. It might be disappointing to some, but not all biocellulose drivers come from Fostex. There is no cooperation between Audioquest and Fostex. Recommended reading.

Good luck with your mods. To me it sounds like you need to create a pair of completely new headphones.

I’ve read that before but I think it’d be incredibly cost prohibitive to not only design a driver, but manufacture it, only for it to look physically like a Fostex driver. It makes much more sense that they’d collaborate with Fostex with their own tunings and slight changes to the typical Fostex driver.

Fostex:

Nighthawk:

I tried looking up the patent they made for the Nighthawk to maybe gain insight either way but I can’t seem to find it.

I get overwhelmingly bassy, but harsh? How'd you manage that I feel like you must be accustomed to some insanely silky smooth $2k custom IEM treble to call the Nighthawk treble harsh...

They have an upper midrange/low treble dip into a mid treble spike. It even shows up in measurements:

 

[Mark Up]

And this is how it measured in the different housing, damping, and pads

Can you very briefly describe the mods? I've never seen any Fostex with a measurement like that, particularly the peaky bright and boomy, recessed midrange TH-600 and TH-900 series.

 

[Ishcabible]

Can you very briefly describe the mods? I've never seen any Fostex with a measurement like that, particularly the peaky bright and boomy, recessed midrange TH-600 and TH-900 series.

Yup! So I took a random chinese wooden headphone I bought from a friend (looks like this but not nearly as expensive), and carefully tuned the inside with varying amounts of cotton and tuned a filter behind the driver with medical tape and felt. In front, I used craft felt as a treble filter. The pads I used are J$ Denon pads. It was actually much simpler than I thought it’d have to be; it only took a couple hours to get that. The recessed low midrange is, according to a friend, largely due to the pads. Tyll measured a TH900 with TH610 pads and it looked remarkably like a TH610.

 

[Mark Up]

Thanks for the great info.