As touched on earlier, planarmagnetics seem to have sucked up most of the headphone-space oxygen. Is it easier to design a thin-film driver from scratch than a classic dynamic? Is public perception soft on pistonic diaphragms—passé 20th century's tech? Whatever the answer, from my more remote seat I don't often come across new dynamic models with serious ambitions. Now that I have with aune's AR9000, this very mature tech still has lots to give. It may lack exotic status but between diaphragm and ear removes the airflow obstruction of stave magnets that balanced-drive planars insert. When those work like drum skins excited by signal voltage not mallets, I always wonder how prolonged use doesn't stretch them out. Unlike drum skins which get retightened to maintain correct pitch, planar diaphragms have no adjustments. Unlike the AR9000's super-stiff carbon-fibre sandwich cone, thin-film membranes would seem prone to flex and ripple. Unlike planars which move very little to not hit their magnets, a dynamic suspension allows far higher excursions. Its driver can be far smaller yet still move more air. Our ear-canal aperture averages 7mm across. A 95x86mm planar is 10 x larger. This has most its emissions miss and reflect off us—rather ineffective. All things considered, perhaps dynamic headphones aren't as antiquated as the planar renaissance could suggest? Wearing and hearing this aune did trigger such musings to look up history. In 1921 Edward Kellogg and Chester Rice developed the first working prototype of a moving-coil speaker cone for General Electric in Schenectady, New York. Its patent filed in 1924. By 1926, RCA released it commercially as the Radiola Model 104. In impressive fashion, the AR9000 seems to say, "Happy 100th dynamic birthday!" Meanwhile Jim Winey of Magnepan is credited with creating the world's first planarmagnetic speaker driver in 1969. By 1972 Wharfedale adapted it to headphone use shortly followed by Yamaha's 'orthodynamic' models. If wisdom comes with age and experience, the dynamic driver would seem to pack rather more.

With the sliders fully extended, I can even wear my woollen baker's boy cap to keep those grey cells warm and turning over.

The full forty-seven inches. That's a reference to aune as an old French unit of fabric length like the English ell. In Paris of the time it meant 46.79", in Belgium and Switzerland 47.24". If your musical diet is rich in bass fibre and dynamic volatility, you'll call the AR9000 great fun; which it unapologetically is. Check. Yet extrapolating a 'fun tuning' misses big if it implies a bass head. Cue up highbrow conservatory fare like classical string quartet; or in my case, Vivaldi-styled clarinet concertos with Baroque period ensemble commissioned by Martin Fröst. Suddenly this aune is all seriousness as in, not in any gratuitous makeover biz. Admitting that we wouldn't recognize textbook neutrality if it pecked us on the posterior, subjectively I pegged our aune on the slightly dark side of neutral. I italicize the s-word because minor softening concerns the air and brilliance regions. Below the treble's sibilance range, output actually turns up a bit. This craftily nixes extra degrees of darkness and counterbalances the linear LF lift into true sub bass. Another potent anti-dark measure are lack of chamber resonances and their distortions. There's no standing bass to cloud visibility. Extreme venting secures proper breathing. It's air of a different kind—not the high treble's champers fizz but airflow from compression freedom. Staging is more intimate than HifiMan's more laterally expansive planars; tone density the antithesis of e-stat leanness. Comfort squares because it goes for both wear and sonic tuning. Neither fatigues or becomes wearing. Value gets somewhat more ambiguous. Shop at Final or HifiMan and spend more on parity. Yet shop the aune portfolio and it's the tunings which alter, not much else. Here the AR9000's tariff feels more ploy to raise the brand's overall market position than build in grand distance over the stablemates. If we invert that math, those now express even greater value.

My sample AR9000 already took off big leashed to a budget €349 Audalytic DR70. It maintained profile on €700-€1'700 Shanling/Topping equivalents. It's once I auditioned for idiot reviewer with a $6'500 Enleum that I heard more HF elucidation and upper-harmonic energies. I'm not implying that this type amp is needed; or remotely sensible. It simply happened to be what I had which refined said aspect. You might have a €500 amp which does. My bleeding-edge AMP-23R simply showed how even in illustrious company the AR9000 doesn't bottleneck but rather, acts rubberneck magnet as in, whoa. If that's how we define 'scaling up', this very much does. Implicit is wondering why anyone would feel the need to spend more on an open-backed headphone of any persuasion. Only time shall show whether aune's new flagship resets public perception of the brand's standing within the established hifi hierarchy. Already the companion A17 amp has first reviewers call it an unconditional top-tier arrival. I'll call the AR9000 likewise. The end.