Mark Levinson No. 5909 - High Resolution Wireless Headphones with Active Noise Cancellation (Red)

Product Information

But for those who have the wherewithal, who value exclusivity and (let’s not be coy) one-upmanship, you can rest assured all that money isn’t just going on a high-end logo. The No. 5909 is only 32Ω, so it will mesh with any source for power needs. You don’t really need an amp, but I have found the extra power in some portable amps will drive the wired connection even more smoothly than without. The 6.3mm headphone output is a good one. It retains the pleasing character of the speaker outputs and manages to drive our Beyerdynamics T1 to high levels with ease. The sound through our headphones is spacious, informative and entertaining. Verdict The Nº5101 combines decades of superlative audio engineering with the latest acoustic and technological advancements to deliver unmatched performance and value. With a bold new industrial design, the Nº5101 delivers luxurious fidelity with premium features and flexibility.

The No.5805's fully discrete, direct-coupled, class-AB-biased amplifier section is claimed capable of 125Wpc into an 8-ohm loudspeaker load and almost twice that into a 4-ohm load. The single mains transformer, with separate output windings for each channel, is rated at 500+VA, enough current to make the amplifier "stable" into 2 ohms, according to the manufacturer. The voltage-gain topology, which the manufacturer says is "descended from" Levinson's midlevel No.534 power amplifier, is mated to an output stage featuring eight transistors, two of them operating in class-A. Output-stage bias is autocorrected in response to temperature, which I think is important. Claimed output impedance is low, about a tenth of an ohm across the audio band. Records the default button state of the corresponding category & the status of CCPA. It works only in coordination with the primary cookie. Second, ANC matters; this was a surprise. Turning ANC on and off significantly impacted sound, mostly in the lower registers. With ANC off, some of that glorious bass just disappears. The same is true when you use the cans with the power turned off via either analog or digital cables.The headphone though, I want to actively thank this company for listening to my rants in the past about bad headphone headband design and making sure their model doesn’t have these problems. Those digital inputs accept PCM up to DXD level (32/384) and DSD up to 11.4MHz (4xDSD)—the latter via PCM (DOP) or native DSD. PCM processing allows a choice of filters: seven for PCM and four for DSD. For PCM, upsampling is offered to 352.8/384kHz, but it's user-defeatable. Upsampling is available for DSD, too, to 4x. The No.5805 can decode and render Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) encoded audio.

It hardly holds a candle to the exemplary battery life of the Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless at 60 hours of ANC-enabled play time, but it’ll get you through a full day (or flight) with ease, and for most folks, that’s enough. High-level dynamic swings are punched out with confidence, with the amplifier sounding impressively composed even when pushed hard. We can’t fault its organisation or its ability to float an expansive sound stage and populate it with solidly focused and carefully layered instrumentation. a b Willis, Barry. "Music Man: A Brief Biography of Mark Levinson" (PDF). Daniel Hertz SA. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-01-16 . Retrieved 2015-02-05.

Features

The No. 5105 turntable was initially promised for summer 2020, but most plans went a little awry between January and March 2020. Now, it's finally crossing the pond – and it's quite a beauty to look at. The Nº 5101 utilizes proprietary Mark Levinson PurePath circuitry. Fully discrete, direct-coupled, dual-monaural line-level output circuit provides exceptional reproduction of the analog signal, which is delivered to the balanced XLR stereo outputs as well as the single-ended RCA connectors. A linear power supply with an oversized toroidal transformer is employed to ensure the widest bandwidth and dynamic range possible. Control Unfortunately, the 5909’s ANC doesn’t handle high frequencies too well. Trying to avoid ambulance sirens on walks or infant cries around the house wasn’t an option. That means wireless connectivity via Bluetooth 5.1 with support for SBC, AAC, aptX Adaptive and LDAC codecs. It means a pair of 40mm beryllium-coated full-range dynamic drivers. It means adaptive active noise-cancellation (ANC) and a battery life of 30 hours or so if you leave ANC switched on, which rises to 35 hours if you switch it off. It means six hours of power after just 15 minutes of charging.

Such is not the case here. The No. 5909 is wildly coherent in every direction. And when everything meshes just right like this, the experience feels broad and engaging. It feels interesting, and you don’t focus on one part of it like you would the HD800, for example. Footnote 1: There's no separate headphone amp—just a robust preamplifier that shares duty driving headphones. System integration and communication ports include IP (Ethernet), RS-232, IR input, and 12V trigger input. A newly designed, aluminum IR remote is included with the Nº 5101. In addition, drivers are available for major control systems. Industrial Design Dynamic headroom is considerable, rhythmic certainty is absolute, and momentum can be taken as a given. If a recording is supposed to soothe, it will do so; if it’s meant to startle and unsettle, then it will. The No. 5909 paint a complete picture, and they use all the colours.The Mark Levinson No. 5909 headphones are, for those who can afford them, the real deal. Mark Levinson No. 5909: Also consider