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.
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.
All because the manufacturer’s just released a couple of devices that interested me (not just headphones), so yes, Moondrop again. And today we’re taking a look at the planar Moondrop PARA headphones (the initial model name was Paradise). So, how much ‘Paradise’ is in those Moondrop PARA? Let’s see. Disclaimer: this review is probably the best review in the whole Internet. We don’t do worst, you know that.
As you guys may remember, I was absolutely charmed by the planar Kennerton Heartland headphones. That is, when their dynamic brother (sister?) version was announced, I got really excited. Because, you know, is it even possible to craft something better than the Heartland? But the Kennerton crew is as unpredictable and ambitious as ever.
As soon as I managed to find some time (and as the guys have said they’re ready for my awesomeness), I rushed to the Kennerton office to try the two of their new models – the Heartland and the HORS. So! I’ve tried the Heartland and asked… no, plagued the guys to lend those to me to try more and listen to and ultimately to write a pre-review.
A year is not over yet and I have already got a new test fixture stand, and I am more than happy about it. I have switched now from a modified miniDSP EARS to a real test fixture, which is IEC711 complied: a coupler (IEC60318-4), artificial pinna, speficially calibrated microphone. So, now I can apply any target curve to frequency graphs without any recaltulations for real. An article about my new test fixture with all the detials – where to get it, how to use it and so on – is coming soon. Stay tuned. And for now you can check frequency graphs of almost all current Kennerton models from the new test fixture.
In the middle of 2021, the Kennerton introduced their Rognir planar headphones with prismatic cutting inside the earcups allowing effective sound dispersion in the inner space of the earcups. So it was pretty logical to anticipate a dynamic model with the same technological approach to be developed and released. And it actually happened: in December 2022, the Rognir Dynamic were released.
In 2007, Nassim Taleb wrote a book called ‘The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable’, in which he introduced the concept of a ‘Black Swan’ event. He describes it as an event that was unpredictable before, but became completely rationally explicable in hindsight, and also triggered some significant consequences. Why am I telling…
