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Electronics
The AKG N90Q is a fully active electronic headphone; it can not be used passively when the battery runs out after about 10 hours. That included storage battery will come in handy on trans-oceanic flights.

Documentation for the AKG N90Q is currently very slim; only the Spec Sheet and very basic Quick Start Guide are publicly available. It is quite early on in the introduction of this product at this writing, I expect we'll see a more in-depth manual in the near future.

Fortunately, I was put in contact with Dr. Ulrich Horbach, Engineering Fellow, Harman…

Sound Quality
For the most part I'll be talking about the sound quality of the N90Q in Standard mode with the EQ set to mid-point unless otherwise specified.

Generally speaking, I found the N90Q fundamentally neutral with a tendance toward a dry and lack luster sound. There's an audio truism that an initial impression of "a bit boring" is better than "wow, exciting" as too much of anything can get annoying after a while, and "a bit boring" is often an indicator of simple neutrality that serves the music better in the long run. To a first approximation, I'd put the N90Q in the…

Plots on this page were taken in Standard Stage mode and with EQ set to the middle position. Tru note calibration was done once at the beginning of the first four FR sweeps in various positions around the ear, and once prior to the last center position FR sweep ensuring best case calibration for other response measurements thereafter.

Interestingly the response curve from 10Hz to about 2kHz matches the shape of the Harman target response (HTR) curve but has only about 40% of the amplitude of the HTR.…

[Editor's Note: Through a long and tedious process it was found that the Focal Utopia and Audeze LCD-4 reviewed here at InnerFidelity in numerous articles were found to be not representative of currently manufactured product. This article is therefore not entirely indicative of our current impressions of this product. To get a complete understanding of our evaluation the reader should start with this summary article and work back through the articles leading up to our current understanding.]

It’s nice to hear different…

Aaron Gandia’s Listen/Eval
[Aaron says his tonal bias is to prefer warm and natural presentations. Most of the time he listened without his glasses as I requested (thanks, Tyll for the pointer). These are Aaron’s own words]

Photo 14-1. Aaron Gandia contemplates Nirvana

Alejandra Robles [see Episode 13 for descriptions of these recordings]:

Both headphones have very different qualities, but both in a good hi-fi way. Each headphone is built on a different point of view of how to go about it.

The Utopia is all about the top end. It has a lot of definition…

Matt Davis’s Listen/Eval

Morph The Cat by Donald Fagen:

LCD-4: Fuller and warmer low mids. Lows are definitely rounder than on the Focals.

Utopia: Have a somewhat hyped upper band 7k+. Air frequency transient response is absolutely there.

Both cans have great air bands but the LCD-4 is more natural there. “Punch” is good on both. Both headphones are articulate. Our main distinction is their tonal contour. Both headphones sound incredible.

You Lied by 52nd Street Blues Project (Chesky Records):

Great natural live recording with a “you…

Saturday afternoon was a wake up call. The Oppo HA-2 was completely discharged. I had left it on, figuring it would charge while powered, but I was wrong. Even when fed from a USB splitter with a high current charger connected to the USB A male, the Oppo will not charge when it is turned on. So sadly, we cannot use the Oppo HA-2 as a desktop DAC or it will discharge if left on. It only takes an hour to fully charge it and then it seems to last a day, but I could not take a chance. Since the Deckard DAC’s line output is muted when a headphone is plugged in the front, it cannot be…

Paige Coley Listen/Eval

Donald Fagen, Morph The Cat

Focal Utopia: A little more truthful to me. More smack in the snare. More detail between all the instruments. The warbling in the voice I heard more on the Focals. Compared to the loudspeakers, I hardly hear any tonal difference. [BK note: Paige’s remark that the Focals sound more like the loudspeakers than the Audeze initally took me aback until in discussion I realized that she has downrated the Audeze compared to the speakers because the Audeze have more sub bass and perhaps a bit more mid bass than the…

Veit Renn Listen/Eval

Donald Fagen Morph the Cat. See Episode 13 for full description of these songs.

Focal Utopias:

I hear something in his lead vocal, a slight distortion around 8-9-10k that I didn't hear in the speakers. I like the low end compared to what I remember it on the speakers. [BK: Maybe Veit means something in the 80-100 Hz range, where the Focals may be reproducing at sufficient level.] But something is missing in the kick. The speakers revealed some depth on the kick, but it didn't seem to transfer to the headphones. But it might be…

Conclusion

I notice that five out of six listeners feel the vocals are stronger on the LCD-4 than on the Focal, and the reasons they give are that the percussion and other instruments are emphasized and more forward in the Focal, masking the vocals. Whereas the sixth listener feels that the bass gets in the way of the vocals and consequently the vocals are murkier in the LCD-4s. Clearly different listeners have different listening preferences. But regardless, there is a consensus that the Focals are brighter and more forward: most of the listeners feel they are brighter than…