DCA Aeon Noire X Measurements & Official Discussion

This is the place to discuss all things to do with the DCA Aeon Noire X. DCA were kind enough to send us some units for testing.

Check out DMS’s Aeon Noire X review:

Here are the measurements:

DCA Aeon Noire X Frequency Response (HpTF Variation)

Resolve Unit (GRAS KB50XX & B&K 5128)

DMS Unit (GRAS GRAS KB50XX & B&K 4128c)

What is this? This indicates the headphone’s behavior variation across different heads and ears, providing a better indication of how they are likely to vary across human heads as well - absent other factors like leakage effects from glasses for example.

Why is this? We have a video on the channel explaining why this type of visualization is likely necessary for headphone measurements. This should ideally evolve the more heads and ears we can test these products on, but the older paradigm of showing a single line on a graph to indicate headphone performance is insufficient.

Raw

:point_right: :point_right: :point_right:LESS IMPORTANT DATA BELOW :point_left: :point_left: :point_left: :point_left:

The following is not perceptually relevant unless things are awful. In the majority of cases, none of this matters.

Harmonic Distortion

94dB

104dB

110dB

Good performance for harmonic distortion, nothing will be perceptually relevant here with music, even at high volumes. Above 110dB you see trace amounts of higher order products but this really isn’t anything to worry about since that’s absurdly loud.

Driver damping (Driver Fs in the presence of an intentional leak)

Notable driver damping and a fairly high driver resonance frequency, both are to be expected for these types of headphones. In practice this won’t matter if you get any decent seal.

But if you break the seal, the bass will drop out to some degree. It likely won’t drop out as much as shown here since this is caused by an intentional leak but it’s something to consider if you wear glasses with thick arms.

Excess Group Delay (test for internal resonances)

No reason to care about time domain information here as it’s clearly minimum phase (behaving well) and therefore it’s all proportional to the FR.

Notes:

Performance is very good across the board here, with a hint of forwardness around 2.3khz. Not really anything to complain about.

Bass quality seems to be quite a bit better on these than most of the other DCA headphones I’ve evaluated, and I expect this actually could be due to the redesigned pads and it having a better in-situ response for that sense of impact. Like the pad surface area has a more uniform contact with the side of the face - at least from what I can tell.

One consideration for people looking into this headphone is that HpTF variation above 3khz may be more substantial on this one due to the nature of the AMTS (the sophisticated waveguide system in front of the driver). I expect it to perform well for people generally, but perceptually I do not hear it the way it measures, and this is similar to how I hear the other models that use this system. But for anyone for whom it does work, this is bound to be a great sounding headphone.

The one quirk around 2.3khz may be more consistent, but I wanted to note that actually this feature wasn’t unenjoyable to me. Like it added a touch of flare but I kind of liked it at times. Overall I find it to enhance certain tones from the midrange a bit more than on the Closed X for example.

Other aspects like design and comfort are all top notch, as we might expect. I do personally prefer the other headband because I find the leather on this one to dig into my head a bit, but I also have a particularly large head.

In general, I recommend this headphone because it performs quite well, but I do recommend trying it if you can, just to be sure the AMTS works for you. Is it an upgrade over the others in the series like the Aeon 2 Noire and the Closed X? If the AMTS works for you then I expect it will be. If not, then that’s a much tougher choice.

6 Likes

Love the new HpTF representation on the FR graphs!
Interested to see what you all do in the future, always nice to see new approaches. :two_hearts:

4 Likes

I’ve seen a few people asking for individual raw measurements as well as individual DF-compensated measurements, so here they are.

DMS Unit

4128 DF-Compensated

4128 Raw

GRAS 43AG-7 DF-Compensated

GRAS 43AG-7 Raw

Resolve Unit

GRAS 43AG-7 DF-Compensated

GRAS 43AG-7 Raw

5128 DF-Compensated

5128 Raw

4 Likes

Are there comparisons with the previous Aeon Noire? DMS barely mentioned that. It would be great to see what is different here in the tests.

1 Like

I’m going to see if we can dig out a comparison here shortly. But one thing to keep in mind with these is that the original Noire did not use the waveguide system, so a lot of how it sounds is going to come down to how that actually works for people. I have friends for whom some of the other ones with the waveguide are nearly perfect, but for myself and others, we hear them quite differently from how they measure. So this may be one folks just need to hear to really get a sense of.

1 Like

Anything for you :slight_smile:


7 Likes

Thanks Griffin! Even spicier in the 6-8k, but it may not come across as such given the 1.5-5k shift.

I’m really happy with my Noires. I do put in a bit of the initial ear gain centered on 2k, but it’s really just hitting the rise there and is done by 3.5k. I think I have an aversion to the latter half of the ear gain region. I wonder if your measurement there of the Noires had more than the basic black foam tuning material as the felt ones knock things down a good bit on the high end.

2 Likes

That’s a good question - I believe he pulled this from a review I did a while back so it could be. But seemingly it resembles the result Oratory got as well.

Having a hard time finding basis information on DCA web page:

sensitivity ? dBspl/V
impedance ? Ω

What would be needed to drive them? ??? mW@32 Ω

Torben

Dan doesn’t like to list specs but he did say sensitivity sits around 94dB/mw. From testing, it is more efficient than the E3 or original Aeon / Aeon 2 Noire but you’re still only going to get low to moderate volumes straight from something like an apple dongle.

THX @taronlissimore - I am not going to use an Apple Dongle.

But who can one buy Noire X, if they don’t know what is needed to drive them in a good way.

Torben

13 Ω impedance, 94 dB/mW sensitivity

4 Likes

Thanks for the review. I really enjoyed the E3 after trying it a few times at Canjam. Since I EQ everything I own, what in your opinion (@Resolve or whoever heard them both) would the difference between the Noire X and E3 be after EQing?

I’m probably not the right person to weigh in on this because of how the AMTS propagates sound for me. I also don’t have them both on hand, but I will say I find the E3 much more comfortable given it has less clamp on my head for whatever reason.

Fair enough, thank you!