"I have yet to come across a pair of headphones that can play with such weightlessness and at the same time substance and allow such a deep view into the musical action."
https://www.hifitest.de/test/kopfhoerer-hifi/dan-clark-audio-stealth-21007
For years now, there has been a strong trend in the field of high-quality headphones towards sound conversion with foils instead of classic dynamic transducer systems driven by voice coils. While electrostatic systems are still rare in the headphone sector, the "planar-magnetic" functional principle has found many friends.
In the loudspeaker sector, we know this as magnetostatic transducers, where it is primarily used in the high-frequency range. For headphones, the design is optimal and also works well at low frequencies: here, due to the small distance to the ear, much lower sound pressures and considerably less sound-radiating surface are needed to cover the entire audio frequency range. Both rear-open and rear-closed systems can be realised. Both designs have their advantages and disadvantages. The Stealth is a closed headphone that has all the advantages of an open system, but does not have the problems usually associated with it: with open headphones, for example, you cannot listen to music alone, and the design emits a considerable amount of sound into the room, which can disturb other people present. With closed headphones, on the other hand, this problem hardly exists.
In contrast to the usual designs, the diaphragms of the Stealth are not tightly stretched foils, but V-shaped folded constructions, which are supposed to follow the call of the deflecting magnetic field much more easily than others and also allow larger strokes and thus more maximum level. The closed housing on the rear side of the diaphragm is noticeably less voluminous than what is usually known from loudspeakers of this type. However, a certain volume is desirable to avoid standing waves and to radiate the lowest possible frequencies. Dan Clark uses a trick to get all requirements under one hat: He does not fill his cabinets with air, but uses a complex damper made of so-called "metamaterial". This is an important-sounding term for materials with properties that do not occur in nature. The Stealth's dampers are 3D-printed moulded parts that have both targeted absorbing, diffusing and resonating effects. In other words, many different mechanisms ensure that the sound radiated backwards from the diaphragm is effectively prevented from making its way back to the diaphragm and thus to the ear after reflection. Getting something like this to work in a small space over a wide bandwidth is an extremely complex matter, for which alone the manufacturer deserves the greatest respect. From the outside, you can't see any of this; here, moulded parts made of carbon fibre, framed by a slim matt-black aluminium construction, are used to guide the sound to the outside. The two super-softly padded transducers, which are of course wrapped in fine imitation leather, are suspended on equally filigree aluminium supports with built-in joints. These joints allow the headphones to be folded into an astonishingly small pack size, but care should be taken when doing so: When folded, the rear aluminium support structures of the transducer elements inevitably rub against each other, which is likely to result in scratches. However, this should be easily solved with a small piece as a "rubbing brake". The headband of the Stealth consists of two simple wire brackets that function perfectly in terms of stability, but turn out to be quite a resonance-prone affair: Even slight touches of the bracket are passed on to the ear with imposing volume. This may not be particularly relevant in practice, but I noticed it. The wide headband of the Dan Clark headphones is made of padded leather with striking red stitching. The size adjustment is automatic, which means that the headband is spring-loaded and the head takes the space it needs. This works well in practice, the adjustment range is adequate. At 415 grams, the Stealth is in the lower range of what top headphones tend to weigh. Due to the relatively pronounced "bend" between the transducers and the headband, the headband sits relatively far forward on the skull; I find it quite comfortable that way. Following another current trend, the Stealth is a low impedance headphone, the distributor reports a nominal impedance of 16 ohms. This means that we are already in the loudspeaker range, which requires properly current-potent amplifiers: If, for example, you want to assign the job to the built-in headphone output of your integrated amplifier, it is advisable to try it out first. The built-in headphone amplifier of my "review turntable" Clearaudio Concept Active, for example, worked very well with the Stealth, but could not achieve a satisfactory volume. The Burson DAC/preamplifier Conductor V2+, on the other hand, had no problems at all and did the job with flying colours in every respect.
To cut a long story short: I have clearly never listened to music with foil transducers as convincingly as with the Dan Clark Stealth. Neither with headphones nor with loudspeakers. The transducer principle can be fine, filigree and colourful in any case, which can also be heard elsewhere. The Dan Clark, however, takes the complete weightlessness of the reproduced sound to a new level. The sonically outstanding Nagra sampler "Audiophle Analog Collection Vol. 2" first surprises with numerous extremely low frequency events just above the hearing threshold. The Stealth delivers these things just above the 20 hertz mark completely effortlessly, naturally and almost physically perceptible. And it's not as if the extremely precise imaging of Doreen Smith's voice on "Route 66" would suffer in any way, or that the club acoustics would even for a moment fade into the diffuse. The church organ of the second track, recorded in Montreal, sounds just as threatening, physically tangible and powerful, as the voice of soprano Monique Page clear as a bell and detailed. The whole thing has a lightness perfectly decoupled from the transducers, despite tremendous power and substance; it plays completely non-technical and ethereal. Most impressive. The Stealth also makes a very special event of the Townes Van Zandt album "Documentary", a collection of ten songs by the Texan folk poet recorded under extremely different live conditions. The Stealth extracts the special intimacy of each track with startling clarity, as well as the tragedy behind the musician's persona. Ten journeys through time, each more impressive than the last.
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