DCA's Best Open-Back? - Noire X Open Review

Dan Clark Audio is known for making great closed back headphones, but they just made an open back version of the Noir X. Is it any good? Let's check it out. DCA made an open back planar that's really good. Yes, but there is one caveat. Are you that surprised? I mean, they've always had good closed backs. Some of the open backs were okay, but this is an open back that's actually really good. Listen dude, you're kind of spoiling the video here, okay? Are they finally moving away from like the gamer aesthetic? Eh, kinda. Just watch the video, okay? This is the Noir XO or Noir X Open. It looks a lot like the Noir X with, well, open bits. Let's talk about build quality, then we'll talk about subjective sound and go over the measurements. Build-wise, well, it's really similar to the Closed Noir X. We have the same style of auto-adjusting suspension strap on top. I do wish this had a little bit more padding, but it is pretty dang comfortable still. We have these crazy soft pads, and on the inside of the cup here you can see DCA's AMTS, their system that they use for tuning a lot of their headphones now. The back of the cup is very open. We get a similar glossy black around the edges like you get on the regular clothes version of the Noir X. DCA's signature high-rose connectors on the bottom, and just like the Noir X, this folds up into a compact package. Nice for tossing in my backpack though they do come with a carrying case. It's probably the way to go if you don't want to ever get them scratched up but nice that they can take up a smaller footprint. And the hinge mechanism on the side that folds feels very nice. They still do look a little bit large when sitting on the head because of these nice bass note there where I do that. It's like boom. It's not a bad looking headphone and there's really not a ton else I can say about the Builder Comfort other than that it's built well and it's pretty comfortable. Again, I would do with a little more padding on top, but really that's about it. And it has just enough clamp that the top isn't too much of an issue. I would say this is a little more comfortable than my beloved E3s. Let's talk about sound, then we will get into measurements. The Noir XO sounds a lot like the Noir X. Like a lot like the Noir X. If you watch the video of the Noir X, I said that it was a pretty compelling closeback, especially at its price point. A little bit hot on the super upper treble, depending on how your personal HRTF is. For me, I more prefer the upper treble of things like the E3, and it'll really go one way or the other, depending on your preferences. It is very, very, very close to Harman, with more treble over the 10 kilohertz area. This leads to the headphones sounding very airy. And because I'm a bit more sensitive to that region, I tend to listen at a lower volume with this headphone than I would with something like an E3 or a 6XX. It's also notably less treble-y than something made by, say, Beyerdynamic, or even less treble-y than, say, the Arbus Acoustic Sierra. Something I will say related to that is this is probably the easiest to EQ headphone that I've ever worn. All I have to do is pull the treble above 10 kilohertz down by just a few dB, and it sounds really good. In fact, if you put a low-pass filter on everything under 10 kilohertz and just cut the top off, it sounds almost identical to the E3, just more open. And funny enough, measurements of this headphone on my real human head with an in-ear open canal mic verifies that. Moving on from there, vocal presence is pretty solid. A little bit more recessed in vocal presence than something like a 6XX, but definitely still clear, definitely still there. Let's be honest, not much is as vocally present as a 6XX is. And that could be a good thing depending on what you're going for. I definitely think that the Noir XO sounds notably more technical. It's got pretty tight bass. It sounds very, very controlled, but is still reasonably punchy. I would describe the bass on this as being very similar to the bass, and especially mid-range on the E3, which, I mean, this is a lot cheaper than E3. So that's a good thing in my opinion. I do get a little bit of shoutiness around like the 2kHz region. Not much, but just a little bit. Maybe around 2, 2.5kHz. Separating instruments is very, very easy. That's something that I've just come to expect from a lot of the DCA stuff. I feel like they generally just have a very tight sound overall, and generally border a pretty fine line between being technical and enjoyable. For me, with things like the E3, which I'll refer back to a lot, makes it a perfect headphone for me to live with on a regular basis, and that would be the same with this if I'm using a little bit of EQ on the upper treble. Though I also want to note it takes notably less EQ with this to reach that point than it does with basically almost any open back headphone I've tried in a very long time. So that leaves us an interesting spot. Where do I sit on this subjectively? Well, if I'm not using EQ at all, I do find the upper treble to be a bit spicy. Not crazy, just a little bit more air than I'm used to, especially given my sensitivity in that region. And I do think the average listener will find the treble on this to be just fine. If you really like the closed Noir X or the original Noir, you'll probably like this a whole lot because it's just kind of like a slightly better version of that. And another nice thing is my glasses didn't really affect the sound. Wearing glasses on or off didn't give me a notable change in any way, shape, or form, which is really nice. A lot of times when I am listening at home, I have to take my glasses off with most headphones, and with these, I didn't have to do that. The pads are also soft enough that these are pretty generally comfortable even with glasses on, and I feel like the weight's still evenly distributed, and I don't feel any more pressure right where the frames sit. This pinna pasta sure is delicious. But you know where else I can get my fill of audio science related things? Here on the Headphone Show, thanks to headphones.com, the best place on the internet to buy headphones. They have super fast shipping, 365 day returns, which is insane, and the best customer support in the game. You can check out headphones.com at the link in the video description. I think it's probably time we talk about measurements. Now I have measurements of these from a few different rigs. I have measurements from these on my Bruleincare 4128C. I've got measurements from the KB5001, but I've also got measurements here provided by DCA from their 5128 system, as well as their 45CA system, and then also measurements from my real in-ear human microphone. So that's an open canal microphone that sits in my ear, calibrated to my own diffuse field HRTF. We're not going to primarily rely on that for this video. We're mostly going to talk about the measurements from the 5128 and 4128, but I do want to include those at one point just to illustrate the HRT variation and how this headphone will vary from person to person like most headphones will. Now, first, let's look at the measurements from DCA off their 5128. Good base shelf with a little bit of elevation right there around like 100 to 120 hertz, still within the average listener preference bounds. We come back down into the mid-range. things start to level out dip down a little bit around 800 hertz and stay that way for the most part we get a little bit of elevation back around 2.2 kilohertz dip back down from there and it's mostly level throughout the rest of the treble with a little bit of elevation again back in the above 10 kilohertz region in contrast to that here it is on the bruling care 4128 instead of the 5128 we get a bit less bass response and a bit less lower mid-range and then a bit more treble overall more elevation from basically two kilohertz and up. Now initially I had thought I was getting more trouble in the two kilohertz and up area but really I was more just experiencing especially when doing a manual sweep on my head very slowly and then noting the points where I would experience peaks or depths I would only really get peaks around two two and a half kilohertz and then again in the upper treble. This is a great illustration of how any headphone will be different from person to person depending on your personal HRTF. Just as As a good way to compare these side by side, this is the Bruleon Care 5128 measurement from DCA of the XO versus the measurement of the headphone on my head with the microphone inside my open ear canal calibrated to my diffuse field head related transfer function that is the blue line here. And we see things that kind of closely line up with the exception of where I personally experience a peak on a manual sweep. So if I'm just sitting there listening to headphones and running up the frequency range, I'll hear a peak around 2.2, which is illustrated here, as well as in the upper treble above 10 kilohertz, a little bit before that around 9K, but mostly the treble above 10 kilohertz. If I pull down those two features, this headphone sounds damn near perfect to me. In fact, that makes it sound a lot like E3 to me, just more open. So again, I think this is a good way to illustrate how this is going to change, like most headphones, from person to person based on your personal HRTF. So while I get a bit of spiciness in the treble, you might not. Your head might be closer to that of the 5128 than it is to my open canal microphone. Or your head might be more similar to the 4128 where just kind of everything is more even in the treble but is also universally elevated. You can also tell from an impedance sweep that we are listening to a headphone that has a passive electrical filter in it. That's how it's an open back that gets a bass shelf. Realistically, you don't need to worry about that. Just, I wouldn't run it off of a super high output impedance, output transformerless tube amp or something like that. I think that would be a little bit silly. Most amps it's gonna be fine, especially amps that have an output impedance under one ohm, which is the vast majority of amps on the market. If you're using a super high output impedance, you'll probably get a little bit of a frequency change. Speaking of how hard is this thing to drive? Well, the answer is not very. Even with a passive electrical filter in this, I can plug this thing up to the headphone jack on a 14 inch MacBook and it drives it just fine. I do not need a desktop amplifier to drive this headphone. You can run it off a desktop amp, that's perfectly okay. Something like an Atom would be more than suitable, But honestly, a MacBook will drive this thing to levels way louder than I can personally comfortably listen. Especially considering I listen at lower levels with this headphone already, given how my HRTF is a bit more sensitive in the upper treble regions. So conclusions, this is not a cheap headphone by any means. Is it worth the price? Well, that depends on a few things. It is a headphone that aligns very closely with Harman. It's a headphone that's comfortable. It's an open back, it looks nice, and it's easy to drive, at least relatively for a planar. I do find the upper treble to be a little bit spicy. And if you're a person like me, that might be a deal breaker for you, or it might just be something that you EQ down because this is a good enough headphone. I'm going to EQ it. I'm going to use it. But my recommendation would be try this at a show. See if you like it. You can try DCA stuff at most can jams. I mean, shoot, I've even seen them at High End in Germany, the audio show over there. They've got can jams in London and stuff like that, too. Either way, the point is, I think you should try it. If this is something that you're interested in, you should try it out. Find a place to sit down, listen to it, see how it interacts with your head, because it's a really good headphone in a lot of ways, and it's just going to depend on how it interacts with your ear. And if you like it, I can see this headphone lasting for a long time. Speaking of that, if longevity is interesting to you, I have an upcoming video where we've spoken to a bunch of manufacturers undercover, testing out their customer support and seeing how repairable a lot of their headphones are. If you want to see that video, you should subscribe because it's coming soon. Other than that, I think it's time to wrap up this video on the Noir X Open. If you liked it, leave a like down below. Comment, let me know what you want to see in the future. If you want to get active in the community, can at the Discord or the forum, both available at the link in the video description. As always, don't forget to stick around, subscribe for more videos like this in the future. Until next one, guys. Peace.