[bart]

Originally Posted by JemHadar

I wish I could say, as some have, that the Dan Clark Audio Stealth offers a transformative experience in audio. In my case it didn’t. As a matter of fact I’m quite conflicted about this headphone and the substantial void it made in my audio-toys budget.

So why these ramblings? Apparently I’m not alone in my findings.

For a 4.000$ headphone the execution should be flawless, even for a boutique product like the Stealth. Unfortunately my specimen isn’t. One cup has what looks like a haze of glue residue only the size of a few mm; the other cup has some indentations like from a gripping mechanism or pincer. Very minor defects, probably too minor to make a case about them, but for an OCD inclined person expecting perfection, no easy thing and definitely not helping the experience. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

So what about first impressions:

For a planar magnetic it is relatively light. For a closed back it sounds surprisingly open. The tonal balance is very natural from the midrange all the way up the treble; no funny stuff with cymbals or sibilance. Isolation is better than the LCD XC. Bass goes low but is very recessed. Detail retrieval and instrument separation are excellent. However no slam or any hint of dynamics whatsoever and this is sorely missed in the bass and sub bass region.

The Stealth sounds very un-headphone like and comes closer to a loudspeaker experience, but once again the lack of bass is a killjoy.

Where the LCD XC is rock ‘n roll, the Stealth is very polite, maybe too polite in its presentation.

The Stealth is not a bad headphone, far from it. The tuning alone makes it king of the hill as far as closed back headphones go. However the bass thing is completely unexpected.

I’m hoping that using a balanced cable (on order but not yet received) will elevate the performance to a level worthy of its high-end SOTA aspirations and matching price tag.

A little card in the box tells me the headphone needs 50 up to 100 hours of use to settle and I’m not there yet by a long shot. So the jury is still out and the final verdict will be rendered at a later date.

As always, try to audition first if you can. If that is not possible and if one is a bass head or expecting slam, impact and macro dynamics, the Stealth is most likely not for you. Voila, I saved you a lot of money.

On a side note, totally unexpected and in an almost wry kind of way I appreciate my Audeze LCD XC (2020) even more now. In combination with the Audeze Roon DSP plugin it offers incredible value for the buck. It is heavy, but that really doesn’t bother me.

It would seem, when scouring the interwebs, that right now, the Audeze LCD XC 2021 edition offers one of the best value propositions as far as closed back planars go today. So I can only recommend comparing the LCD XC 2021 to the Stealth side by side if you are in the market for a closed back HP.

Jacques, could the imperfections be a reason to turn it back?