For some reason, I was particularly eager for these headphones. The Moondrop team has been training in making planars for only the second year, but they seem to be doing it quite consciously. Therefore, my personal expectations were high, especially because Laputa has become the ‘second most expensive’ model, leaving Cosmo in the first place.
Sometimes I just want a little audiophile miracle.
Noire X are relatively new closed-back headphones from Dan Clark Audio, about which there is actually nothing to read on the Russian Internet. I looked at them, tested them, and decided that this slip-up needs to be fixed ASAP.
Aune released AR5000, its first over-ear headphones, about a year ago, and these headphones were great, which I honestly wrote about. Now SR700, a new model, have appeared. Aune remembered about me and sent them to me for a review.
I’ve been familiar with Focal headphones for a long time, but in a one-track manner: for 5 years now, I’ve had amazing Focal Utopia in my personal use, which I haven’t wanted to change for anything over all this time. But the old Utopia are one thing, and the new Hadenys are a totally different thing.
It’s impossible to take no notice of headphones, which are highly praised in all reviews without exception and about which everyone to a man is raving about. Today we’ll talk about FT1 by Fiio, another attempt to make it both good and cheap, for some $160, and even in a difficult class of closed-back models.
Immediately after I had published my review of Kennerton Arkona, stormy comments like “It’s just because you’ve never tried E3!!!11” rained down. I wondered what the matter was, so I went and bought them.
I dropped into the Kennerton office, and they’ve got some specialties: closed-back Arkona and open-back Vinneta. Both headphones models use a new driver. I immediately dragged them home to write a review. Today we’ll talk about Arkona, closed-back planar headphones for $3,277.
I didn’t have a chance to use any of the Aune products until recently, although I’ve read a lot of good reviews: their amplifiers usually have nice ratings on the Internet. That’s why I got curious when their first AR5000 headphones were announced in November 2023, and not just headphones but over-ear full-sized ones!
