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AudioQuest Announces NightHawk Headphones

btarunr

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AudioQuest NightHawk headphones are now available from authorized AudioQuest dealers worldwide. In the increasingly crowded high-performance headphone market, NightHawk redefines luxury, beauty, comfort, sustainability, construction quality, sound quality, and overall value. Accompanying NightHawk's release, a comprehensive website details its development, innovative technologies, and bold design goals.

Said NightHawk designer, Skylar Gray: "We reevaluated and reimagined every aspect of headphone design to create a product that might serve to advance the state of headphone art-one that we hope inspires music lovers, headphone enthusiasts, thinkers, engineers, and creators of all kinds."



Designed for low distortion and maximum performance, NightHawk features a number of alternatives to typical headphone design.
  • Unlike the overwhelming majority of headphones that use driver diaphragms made of Mylar, NightHawk's cone drivers are constructed from bio-cellulose, an all-natural material largely incapable of creating the harshness and ringing that so often plagues Mylar.
  • NightHawk's bio-cellulose driver is equipped with a compliant rubber surround. This enables pistonic motion of the cone and provides a proper energy-killing termination to preserve the coherence of timing information.
  • Unlike most headphone driver baskets, NightHawk's basket is designed for perfectly even distribution of its air vents, thus avoiding distortion-causing rocking of the voice-coil, enabling improved low-frequency control and extension.
  • NightHawk's patented split-gap motor precisely focuses the magnetic field toward the extremes of the voice-coil's travel, resulting in lower intermodulation distortion and a cleaner, more balanced overall presentation.
  • NightHawk comes equipped with two headphone cables: one designed for minimum distortion and maximum sound quality, and a second cable designed for outstanding durability.
Early critical response has been very positive. In the September 2015 issue of HiFi News, Ken Kessler decided, "The NightHawk isn't merely a superb 'first effort,' it is a superlative headphone, period."

DigitalTrends' Ryan Waniata noted "a gorgeous balance of warmth below and precision above." PC World's Elias Plastiras added, "The headphones gave us a glimpse of every single note being played, from the softest strum to the harshest thrash, and the bass was neither left behind nor overdone." Stereophile's Herbert Reichert reported, "The NightHawks had me choking back tears of musical appreciation."

AudioQuest's NightHawk headphones are available now at a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $599 US/$699 CAD/€599/£499/$895 AUD (EU and UK, VAT included).

View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 
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Wasn't that announced quite a few months ago? I heard it in May-ish already. :confused:
 
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wonder how much sound is leaked from these (considering the open back)
 
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in case your interested in spending 75% of the cost of a decent custom PC, on a headset....here ya go.
 
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in case your interested in spending 75% of the cost of a decent custom PC, on a headset....here ya go.
These are one of the cheaper headphones in the market already. ;)

Aimed at different markets.
 

evulmunk33

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Design wise they dont look very premium imo...
Not sure what theyre focusing on, listening to music at home?

Im pretty sceptical about headphones above 150E since my 399 euro parrot zik 2.0 started falling apart only weeks after i got it, and support refusing to RMA it pointing me to the shop I got them from instead... -_-
I got a feeling if youre really into audio and ready to spend big, its better to go for an established brand...

Looking forward to discussions on head-fi tho, maybe these new leather(?) drivers are really a nice improvement :)
 

Rojan

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A bit too late for PR... and its reception is pretty much mixed at best.

in case your interested in spending 75% of the cost of a decent custom PC, on a headset....here ya go.

This type comment is just too stupid. Every time $300+ headphones is a topic, there's always one guy saying "why spend $500 on headphones when you can buy a 980?", etc.
 
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Design wise they dont look very premium imo...
Not sure what theyre focusing on, listening to music at home?

Im pretty sceptical about headphones above 150E since my 399 euro parrot zik 2.0 started falling apart only weeks after i got it, and support refusing to RMA it pointing me to the shop I got them from instead... -_-
I got a feeling if youre really into audio and ready to spend big, its better to go for an established brand...

Looking forward to discussions on head-fi tho, maybe these new leather(?) drivers are really a nice improvement :)

Bio-cellulose drivers are not leather. They are used in a few of the headphones for quite some time already, Fostex TH900, Denon D1001 for example.

I am not personally fond of the sound, don't think that many heard it are either.
 
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Aren't audioquest those clowns who release ridiculously priced "audiophile" ethernet cables? With directional arrows to boot?

Why should anyone trust them?
 
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