NightHawk Headphones

Why We Like It

Audioquest is well known for making excellent audiophile-grade cables, as well as creating the category of the "thumb drive" USB DAC with their award-winning DragonFly, so we would expect nothing less from their first foray into the headphone category. The Nighthawk headphone is not only an exceptional headphone but an absolute game-changer at it's sub-$1,000 price point.

This product is on demonstration in our OC Mix location starting July 3rd, 2015.

Description

Named 2015 CES Innovation Winner (Eco-Design & Sustainable Technology) and Honoree (Headphones), NightHawk is an around-the-ear, semi-open headphone—AudioQuest’s full-bore assault on both the state of the headphone art and on the limits to which quality, innovation, and sustainability can be achieved at an affordable cost. Every aspect was carefully optimized for high levels of sonic, ergonomic, and aesthetic performance.

NightHawk’s earcups are made from a remarkable material known as “Liquid Wood,” which offers outstanding acoustic properties and is environmentally friendly. NightHawk’s sophisticated loudspeaker-cabinet inspired earcup enclosures incorporate support beams that enhance structural integrity and minimize unwanted resonances and vibrations. An elastomer coating is carefully applied to the enclosures’ internal surfaces to further reduce harmful vibrations, while a damping material comprising an effective blend of wool and polyester enables an extraordinarily smooth, natural frequency response.

NightHawk is the first completely original production headphone to use a 3D-printed part—a biomimetic grille that uses a complex diamond cubic latticework to diffuse sound and defeat resonances. NightHawk’s 50mm pistonic drivers have a biocellulose diaphragm which takes advantage of the material’s outstanding rigidity and lack of resonances or break-up modes, while its patented split-gap motor significantly reduce intermodulation distortion.

Of course, NightHawk benefits from AudioQuest’s 30+ years of experience in the high performance
cable business, including a headphone cable designed to minimize distortion and to maximize
a deep emotional connection with the music. It uses many of the same ingredients found in our speaker cables and interconnects, including high-purity Solid Perfect-Surface Copper+ conductors, Foamed-PE insulation, Carbon-Loaded Noise-Dissipation System (NDS), and silver plated terminations. We also include a custom 3.5mm-to-1/4” headphone adaptor that also uses thick
Direct-Silver plating over Red Copper base metal, resulting in a part that isn’t merely functional, but up to the standards of NightHawk itself.

Features

• Patent-Pending Ergonomic Elements for Light, Comfortable Fit

• Acoustically Superior Materials, Including Sustainable “Liquid Wood”

• Biocellulose Pistonic Driver: Patented Split-Gap Motor Dramatically Reduces Intermodulation Distortion

• 3D-Printed Biomimetic Sound-Diffusing Grille

• Headphone Cable Based on AudioQuest’s High-Performance Loudspeaker Cables

• High-Performance, Direct-Silver
  Plated 3.5mm-to-1/4” Adaptor

Specifications

• Impedance: 25 ohms

• Sensitivity: 100dBSPL / mW

• Power Handling: 1.5W

• Driver: 50mm Dynamic

• Biocellulose Diaphragm

• 1.2T Split-Gap Motor

• Weight: 346g (12.2 oz.)

• Length: 8’ (2.4m)

• Conductors: Solid Perfect-Surface Copper+ (PSC+)

• Geometry: Symmetric Star-Quad

• Dielectric: Foamed-PE

• NDS: Carbon-Loaded Noise-Dissipation System

• Terminations: 3.5mm Stereo Dual > 2.5mm Mono

• Direct-Silver Plated Pure Red Copper

• 3.5mm-to-1/4” Adaptor