Mark Levinson No5909 - Official Thread

I used to love my 5909s. After a month, they began to drop my Bluetooth. While having the strongest connectivity of any Bluetooth I’ve ever had with headphones, they just started to drop the connection. After numerous discussions with MK, and proof of serial # etc., they exchanged them for a new pair. That was a month ago. Today is the first time I brought them on a plane. The new ones immediately dropped over and over again. I can’t believe it since airplanes are my primary target for these. Numerous long international flights where the ANC is perfect. Oh well, back to the wire. It’s just crazy.

I have the same problem. The leather has almost completely separated from the headband itself. Since product is 2.5 years old, the company refuses to do anything about it. For a $1,000 headphone, this is unacceptable. I won’t be buying another Mark Levinson product going forward.

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I have the exact same issue of the Bluetooth dropping randomly. Sometimes 1-2 times in an hour. Sometimes 1-2 times in a minute. It’s infuriating. Did you find a fix?

The supposed fix was they replaced my headphones under the two year warranty. But the same problem exists. They are incredible ANC in planes but maybe that’s why they give us an 8’ wire!

My 50 pence worth on the 5909 s……

Quiet even on full chat they are not loud enough not much cop for a five minuite ear bleed techno blast….

Tried them wired with my mojo 2….well just like austin powers i lost my mojo…. Distortion and even worse sound than using bluetooth….

So great for quiet intimate listening but after that the price tag is somewhat glued to the fit and finish…. Nice phones but i was expecting a whole lot more for the money….. Overpriced and overhyped for sure….

I just troubleshot and fixed this problem. I connected the headphones within the app (which I typically don’t turn on when using Spotify). Then in Settings, I turned the on head detection to “off,” and the auto-off timer to “never.”

Problem solved. I turned off the app and restarted the Headphones. Connection remained solid.

I had a feeling that only one of these two control features was the problem. I decided to reactivate one at a time to test my hypothesis. I reconnected the phone to the app, and turned the auto-off timer back on within the app to 30 minutes. My connection remained continuous.

I am 99.9% certain that if you start just by turning the on head detection off, that will solve the problem. But I did want to recount my exact method – despite my experience and knowledge, I’ve never lost my sense of superstition when it comes to CPU-controlled electronics.

By the way, I tested the real-world strength of the Bluetooth connection with the 9505s. Inside my home (wooden-stud and drywall, ca. 1985), I maintained a solid music connection through numerous walls out to 65 ft. Outdoors with no obstructions it was 125 feet. Of course, your mileage may vary.

I had bought the cans a year ago from Crutchfield as a used item from a 30-day return, at a $250 discount. I am a diehard multichannel physical media guy. But when Spotify launched their high resolution service, I wanted to hear what it was like. I demoed the cans wired to my iPhone (16 pro) - best audio I’ve ever heard from headphones. Even better were my AFLAC files I ripped from my CD collection. But I never tested the 9505s as wireless for any period of time until my return window had closed.

Now I have great sound wherever I am in my house, not just in my listening room - untethered.