Mark Levinson No. 5909 - High Resolution Wireless Headphones with Active Noise Cancellation (Red)

Product Information

The first thing you notice is that the volume is in a way subdued. At first, you might experience their sound as a little flat, on the quiet side. But after you continue to listen for long periods, you get a feel for what’s in store. A fantastic articulation of sound. Throughout my listening experience, the 5909s got better and better. The Harman target curve is a sound curve that both trained and untrained listeners preferred for headphone listening. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this response curve closely resembles the in-room response of an accurate loudspeaker in a semi-reflective room, as shown from Dr. Toole’s research. The Levinson loved to play big and bold with orchestral works, such as Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C-Sharp Minor, conducted by Leopold Stokowski, delivered the grand staging, transparency, detail, and dynamics that makes classical works shine. ANC works very well and is on par with Sony and Bose for noise reduction and extremely good when it comes to not changing the sonic signature when engaged. Like most models, it works more effectively with lower pitched droning noises and I found that the low or adaptive settings were quite sufficient for most listening environments.

You can specify the sort of noise-cancellation you’d like (‘off’, ‘on’ or ‘awareness’) in the Mark Levinson Headphones app (free for iOS and Android), and then choose between ‘low’, ‘high’ and ‘adaptive’ for noise-cancelling, and ‘ambient’ or ‘voice pass’ for awareness. The app also lets you select between three Levinson-approved EQ settings (or ‘bass contours’), and decide how long the headphones will remain powered up when they’re not playing. That’s about your lot – so while the app is clean, stable and useful as far as it goes, it doesn’t really go all that far. Driving for massive staging can sometimes ruin the density factor of the entire headphone and make it sound thin and stretched. The No. 5909 is quite dense and hefty for a dynamic driver. The No. 5909 performs admirably for a Bluetooth model. On wired mode, you can hear the difference in quality across the board, of course. On wireless, you get a bit of a drop-off but that is normal for this type of headphone. We’ll cover off whether I believe the 5909 itself has actual worth in the course of the review but the concept of why nobody has built such a device until now is an interesting one and one that I suspect has more to do with our perception of Bluetooth as it does anything else. My theory on Bluetooth audio (and that’s all it is, I have neither data nor much in the way of usable anecdotes to support it) is that it was made available to the public a generation too early. The technical idea was too appealing to wait but it meant that for many of us, our first experience of Bluetooth audio sounded pretty grim and wasn’t actually that stable into the bargain.

Exclusive construction, including beryllium-plated diaphragms (Photo: Mark Levinson) The Harman Curve That an unremarkable button is the first and last of our criticisms gives you a strong hint at the answer to the question we posed at the beginning of our review: can wireless performance ever be so good as to justify such an expense? Again, the No. 5909 need to perform substantially better than the class-leading crop of cheaper competition – and they do. The soundstage here is reasonably expansive, rigorously organised and simplicity itself to follow. Dynamic potency – both where big volume shifts and minor, transient variations are concerned – is never in doubt. Even when asked to properly rough it with a compressed file of Slaughter & The Dogs’ Cranked Up Really High, the Mark Levinson are willing and not in any way judgmental.

I’ve been testing noise cancelling and wireless headphones for a number of years now. In that time, they’ve made huge progress and much of it has been evolutionary; model year on model year, some aspects of the performance have moved on. At the same time, there have been points that have to be seen as evolutionary leaps. The PSB M4U2 (so venerable, it wasn’t wireless) had noise cancelling that both worked and was conducive to listening to music at the same time. The Sennheiser PXC550 had wireless that was functionally bulletproof and sounded good when you used it. The Bowers & Wilkins PX was equipped with a battery life that could cover any scheduled international flight on Earth and was the first outing for the dark magic that is voice passthrough. Then, more recently, the Philips Fidelio L3 was the first of these headphones that delivers a better music performance with the ANC on than off. The Mark Levinson No. 5909 is a middle ground vocal presentation experience, one that is not forward, but not recessed either. It plays it safe and apparently was tuned to the Harman Curve, specifically. So, if you want more, you can get it through the app. If not, that’s fine too. Of course, it is available for Apple and Android users. Battery Life & Calls As for headphones used for comparing the Levinson 5909s: Sony WH1000-XM5, Bang & Olufsen Beoplay HX, Focal Bathys (review forthcoming) and Bowers & Wilkins PX-8. Also wired headphones, the Focal Clear and Hifiman Arya. Streaming was done through Qobuz, Tidal, and Apple Music.The second mode is active USB digital audio. Starting with the headphone turned on, you use the USB-C-to-USB-C cable and listen digitally direct from your computer or digital source. The EQ will use the last setting in the Mark Levinson mobile app. The ANC button will cycle through the modes, and the headphone will charge its battery while you listen. I prefer musicality in tone to clinical on this headphone, but you can get more of either depending on your rig, so rig-pair carefully with your preferences. The No. 5909 is only 32Ω, so it will mesh with any source for power needs. You don’t really need an amp, but I have found the extra power in some portable amps will drive the wired connection even more smoothly than without. I tried a second filter at 12 kHz and was not sure if I liked it better. It seemed to be more "accurate" but made the sound more closed. Speaking of which, that is a major problem with this headphone. It has almost no spatial effects. With the small drivers, the sound is coupled claustrophobically inside your head. I switched to my DC Stealth headphone and what a revelation that was in this front. Instead don’t focus at all and sort of end up turning your brain off to the sound staging qualities. I tend to do that with my Beyerdynamic T5, which also has a very coherent sound. Coherency

The Mark Levinson No. 5909 is outfitted with microphones inside and outside of each ear cup, four for phone calls and four for active noise cancellation. The second is the prowess of the noise cancelling itself. Switch the ANC on and the Mark Levinson is a veritable iso-tank. It can handle truly enormous levels of outside noise (my customary standing on a footpath under the M1 elicits the same response from fellow pedestrians as it always does but it’s a hell of a test) and you can listen to the delicate Interlude 1 by Sarah Jarosz while you do so. There is very little I’ve tested that can get close to it; again PSB and Yamaha run it close but they exert more effect on the material being played than the 5909 does. There is nothing I have ever tested that keeps delivering a performance that warrants the term ‘Hi-Fi’ in the conditions that the Mark Levinson can. Yes, I used an absolute and used it deliberately. Along with a high-resolution wireless sound, the 5909s also are equipped with Active Noise Cancellation (ANC). ANC has climbed the audiophile ladder as one of the more important qualities in the wireless headphone world, so this aspect of the 5909s would have to compete with some of the best ANC cans today, like the Sony new generation WH1000-XM5 (I also reviewed these headphones at length for Audiophilia). Suffice it to say I had pretty high expectations.The additional degree of impact is certainly noticeable but each listener will have a different preference in that regard and it can be turned on/off without any other issues. The very first fence the No. 5909 face is a tall one. After all, what’s to be done about the design of over-ear headphones? They all look basically the same, and for good reason. So be as discerning and judicious as you like about the materials you use - your over-ear headphones are going to end up looking just like everybody else’s. The bass impact level is wonderfully easy-going and not harsh. This could have easily been another trash pile slam fest on the low end, but the No. 5909 stays elegant throughout. The entire low end is very soft and very easy to listen to. This is a chill headphone on the low end. Even when boosted, the impact levels are still less than moderate. Mids