Country of Origin
As good as it gets? Not the Jack Nickolson romcom but a sonic query. aune's €209 AC55 was the first clip-on headphone I ever reviewed to introduce me to an entire breed whose existence had eluded me. As it turns out, it's a blessed alternative for those who hate on 500g hifi helmets aka big over-ears and nozzle jammers aka IEM which clog up our ear canals to achieve the tight seal their MO relies on. These weigh 70g the pair, contain a long-throw soft-suspension 40mm dynamic cellulose driver and terminate in 3.5mm or 4.4mm amp/DAP ends. Their long soft-touch curved hangers keep them securely fixed without any lateral clamping pressure. This avoids EMS aka ear-muff syndrome whereby over-ear headphones behave as popular winter warmers for toasty pink bits whilst adding chamber resonances like miniature rooms bolted to our skull; and potentially a slightly claustrophobic wear sensation. Being my fist clip-ons, I can't drop names on what they vanquish or fall short of. My short review compared them to €299 dynamic on-ears so you can read up on that comparison. For the purposes of this list, the AC55 represents an entire on-head category my 23 years on this beat still had me ignorant about until November of this year. If that miss includes you as well, now you've got a quick read to fill that gap. You or someone you love might just thank me.
FiiO's €749 FT7 open-backed planarmagnetic headphone this year proved to be a hammer of Thor calibre. Its build quality and posh factor eclipsed my original €6K HifiMan Susvara with whom it shares gold voice-coil traces though mirrors them with silver traces on the other side of the balanced N52 neodymium-drive 1µm thin PET diaphragm. That creates lower electrical resistance and moving mass than the infamous piggish load of Susvara. Zebra-wood grills and carbon-fibre enclosures dress up this upscale sub-thou contender whilst two different pads that simply snap on/off cause instant very noticeable tuning changes. In my collection the FT7 now sits right below my Raal 1995 ribbon earspeakers of Immanis and Magna yet is a far easier load. Whilst housing a very large 106mm driver, I find the 427g FT7 very comfortable to wear. Even the 3m 4.4mm cryo-treated cable is two cuts above the norm. As BYD cars have already shown to Tesla and Luckin Coffee franchises are demonstrating to Starbucks, Chinese know-how and can-do are creating quite a competitive advantage and imbalance on the global scene. In the upscale planarmagnetic headphone sector, FiiO have just released a cat amongst the pigeons. And you know what pigeons do all over Venice. It rhymes with rap.
Virtual Hifi's Polish Viper was another of this year's hard-hitting hammers but of the relative jeweller's not sledge kind. That's because despite its hulking bandwidth and SPL stability, it's a compact 2-way stand mount. Beyond that designation all normalcy stops. First, Viper's monolithic cab is 3D printed and textured in mini pyramids inside and out. Multiple solid colours are available. Second, it uses a carbon-fibre Dayton Epique miniature subwoofer as classic widebander out to 5kHz whilst the other direction reaches toward 30Hz compliments of two matching sidefiring Epique passive radiators. Third, above 5kHz a small Mundorf dipole AMT crowns it like a rakish Mohawk. 83dB efficiency is the tariff for gnarly bandwidth which even in my 6x8m room didn't require completion with my usual 2×15" sound|kaos subwoofer. There's far too much to still say on Viper. To keep this page terse, I point you at the embedded link to go full hog. Even more porcine should be the companion Cobra model. It basically doubles up everything: twice-sized Mundorf tweeter, twin-paralleled slightly larger widebanders, six mooning radiators per channel. To save our collective sanity, I strategically wrote this prior to Cobra's arrival. Sometimes ignorance is bliss not miss; or a warning hiss in these serpentine matters. Pick your poison. Bit by Viper or Cobra?
With designer Grzegorz Rulka's Größenwahn unchecked—he already confessed to such megalomania by dreaming of something still more potent than Cobra—can a floorstanding Python or Anaconda be far behind?
46 or 10Y? Tube fanciers have many rare options; transistor freaks far fewer. Aside from Alexey Syomin in Moscow and Dragan Domanovich in Belgrade for example, who commercially still works with germanium devices? For static induction transistors, Nelson Pass has our number and with his pure class A no-feedback 40-watt SIT5 monos, authored the equivalent of a rare triode amp with solid-state drive virtues. It's the most powerful of all FirstWatt models so the one best suited to standard rather than special-ops speakers. Managing that without betraying this brand's existing aural aesthetic is the special achievement. In valve amps it's often said that the pursuit of power and paralleled output devices entails sacrifices. Hence triode extremists embrace speakers of unusual sensitivity, filter simplicity and high impedance to best accommodate their favoured low-power zero NFB circuits. For high power and unconditional drive, Nelson has the Pass Labs catalogue of beefy transistor amplifiers. He created FirstWatt for SET-type speakers. With the 60w/4Ω SIT5, that focus relaxed a lot. It's no longer ultra-efficient horns, single-driver widebanders and other exotica groomed for SET drive that make up its target audience. The SIT5 with its industrial static-induction transistor opened the door to classic 87dB multi-way speakers of big woofers. That makes the SIT5 a bit of a unicorn proposition. It's powerful enough to feature in the Pass Labs catalogue yet tuned to continue the FirstWatt legacy.
What's Zu's Method sub gotta do with music? Everything. Rather than for infrasonic pursuit of submarine torpedo hits and interstellar explosions at THX levels, it's groomed for smart stereo 2.1/2.2 systems. The Hypex Fusion amp's DSP crossover with negligible latency comes pre-programmed for the Method monitor but its three presets are easily accessed and altered by connecting to a PC via USB, downloading the Hypex software then changing settings for input sensitivity/gain, filter point and slope, even EQ. Unlike designer subs tweaked for shrinkage, Method is as big as it must be to house a proper hard-hung 15-inch Eminence pro-audio cellulose woofer. Barely moving for music purposes, it's very quick, clean and perfectly silent during intermission. Unlike the majority competition, it goes through Zu's custom paint shop so needn't be the usual white or black. Veneers too are an option. Adventurous 'philes already know that without the bottom octave, the foundation for proper scale, saturated black levels, dynamic profundity and uncorked spatial perception is amiss. They also appreciate that adjustable active bass beats fixed passive bass by definition so why pursue beasty tower speakers when good monitors plus one or two subs generate more bandwidth, control, room adaptation and as a set usually cost far less? That's why the Method sub features on this list. It's a smart find all around and reminder that subs for music are perfectly legit.
With another 3½ weeks to go before Year's End fireworks, I'll hedge my bets on the final entry…
… to be continued…
