Denon AHD-7100 Headphones - The Sound of Mahogany

Are You a Music Maniac?

Towards the end of 2012, Denon launched a new series of headphones as part of a concerted effort to gain greater relevance in today’s audio market. The new range of products was classified into four different categories intended to appeal to different demographics. Denon presented us with the Urban Raver for bass-heads, the Globe Cruiser for business professionals, the Exercise Freak for the fitness minded and the Music Maniac for the audiophiles. The AHD-7100 is the premium offering from the Music Maniac series and is intended to provide the highest levels of performance.

Design and Hardware

Before we even begin to delve into the design, hardware and features of the Denon AHD-7100, the most important fact to keep in mind is its price. The headphones cost a bomb and have a price-tag of S$1699. Obviously this fact will be taken into consideration when evaluating, analyzing and passing judgment on the various aspects of the product.

With regards to aesthetics, the AHD-7100 doesn't look like its asking price. We have previously indulged in expensive, high end headphones like the Audio Technica ATH-W3000ANV and the Beyerdynamic T90 which both give a premium feel with their design and their appearances. Unfortunately this Denon competitor is unable to match their lofty standards. In our opinion, the silver finish and brown accents of the headphones are thoroughly blasé.

Denon has used hand-carved mahogany for the construction of the ear-cups. It is a shame that the wooden textures are hidden away under the housing body of the headphones. Perhaps if Denon had followed Audio Technica’s lead and made the wooden ear-cups the main design aesthetic of the headphones, the AHD-7100 would not have received such a low score for design, of which aesthetics are a part. That being said, mahogany has bright and warm tonal characteristics. It is an excellent wood to incorporate into audio products and a personal favorite of ours for its tone, but does this implementation from Denon please us? Find out more in the next page as we describe the outcome from our listening tests.

Driver size for the AHD-7100 is 50mm which is on the larger side, even for high end headphones. But the most interesting specification is the impedance which is just 25 Ohms. This level is actually comparable to IEMs (in-ear monitors) as opposed to other high-end headphones. To put it in perspective the Sennhesier HD700 and the Beyerdynamic T90 have an impedance of 150 Ohms and 250 Ohms respectively. The low impedance of the AHD-7100, in conjunction with the 3.5mm jack, makes it so that the Denon headphones can be used with portable music players and notebooks without the need of extra amplification. However, on the flipside we will have to see how the choice of low impedance affects the audio performance of the product. To further boost the usability of the headphones with portable players, an in-line control pod is also provided.

Comfort Levels

As high end headphones are intended for dedicated listening over long duration, comfort is an integral part of the product. While our personal preference is skewed towards a loose fit, the AHD-7100 was too loose even by our standards. We almost felt as if turning our head too fast would send the headphones flying off. This obviously resulted in an uneasy wearing experience.

The cushioning for the ear-cups is made from memory foam and the ear-cups themselves have a ball and socket design which makes them very gentle on the ears.  It must also be stated that the ear-cups are nice and roomy. While overheating is a problem after extended use, it was not extreme and fell within an acceptable range after taking into account the duration of time spent wearing the headphones.

Quality Audio?

As always, we thoroughly tested out the audio capabilities of the Denon AHD-7100 with the help of our MP3 and CD lossless test tracks. At an earlier launch event, we were somewhat impressed by the product's initial impressions it made upon us. Now that we've had time, we will be delving into every minute detail with regards to the sound reproduction of the headphones.

Please note that all files were played from a computer. While the low impedance of the product does not necessitate an amplifier, we tested the headphones both with and without an amplifier (Audinst HUD-MX1).

MP3 Testing

Adele’s Melt My Heart To Stone has become the default starting track for our testing procedures at HardwareZone. The pop hit is an excellent track to determine the treble and mid performance of an audio product thanks to the lead, female vocals and the reverb drenched instruments. The Denon AHD-7100 gets off to a good start and accurately captures the warmth of the song, which other headphones such as the Audio Technica ATH-W3000ANV failed to deliver. The overall melody is beautifully rendered, although if we nitpick, the organ parts could do with a bit more definition. Trebles could also have been rendered with more clarity.

Moving on to Sail On Soothsayer, the lack of definition for mids and treble we experienced with the previous track mars the performance for this song. Distortion sounded sluggish and we expected better clarity. Additionally the highs also sounded slightly muted. Finally, the soundstage for the headphones was a bit constricted making the delivery have a strong central channel. This led to listening fatigue being a problem after repeated play throughs. Don’t get us wrong, performance on the whole with this Buckethead track was good enough to merit a high score thanks to solid overall audio. But taking into consideration that the product is intended to be a high-end headphone, it failed to wow us. From our prior experiences, both the Audio Technica ATH-W3000ANV with its bright tonal characteristics and the Beyerdynamic T90 with its fidelity to sound performed better on this track.

Seeing that the AHD-7100 is fitted with 50mm drivers, bass performance should be solid. For Elements Of Life by Tiesto, the headphones perform well with the lower registers. The bass lacks a smidgen of definition, but this characteristic actually helps deliver the atmosphere of the track. Where the Denon headphones falter is in terms of soundstage. Like with Sail On Soothsayer, the constricted soundstage takes away from the enjoyment of the song. 

The last stop on our MP3 testing track list is Hotel California by The Eagles. The song was rendered with good warmth, but it did not possess the brightness required to make the intricate acoustic guitar really shine through. Instead, this brightness was delivered perfectly in an balanced manner by the Beyerdynamic T90. The Denon's loose definition for bass, while good for Elements Of Life, detracts from an overall balanced mix in this case. A good transient response helps dutifully represent the tone of the alternate percussions, which sounded adequately lifelike. 

CD Lossless Testing

While all our MP3s are encoded as 320Kbps bitrate versions and are thorough enough to determine the worth of regular audio products, high end headphones get a more extensive examination. For this purpose, we bring out our CD Lossless suite.

Fanfare For Louis was rendered well. The natural characteristics of the mahogany wood probably helped replicate the warm tone required for this track. The melody of the piece was done justice and the headphones handled the volume swells with some ease. The good pacing for this track along with the tonal characteristics of the Denon AHD-7100 suited this track well and made this the high point of our CD loseless suite testing session.

We followed up Fanfare For Louis with the theme from Cutthroat Island. The headphones continued with their impressive performance by ensuring the rhythm of the track was done justice. However, on this particular piece we found some of the delicate, overlying melodies to sound subdued and lost in the overall mix. Some of the highs lacked the required sparkle which led us to mark the performance down slightly.

Performance continued its downward trajectory on the last track from our CD testing suite in the shape of Romeo & Juliet No:13, Dance of the Knights by Prokofiev. The loose bass experienced during our MP3 testing segment reared its ugly head once more and decreased the enjoyment of the low registers for this composition. The violin pieces of the composition also lacked brightness, which the AHD-7100 was unable to reproduce with its warm tonal characteristics. 

Final Thoughts

A warm tone, which is a characteristic of mahogany wood, was the defining feature of the Denon AHD-7100’s performance. This particular nuance colored all the rendering of audio through both our MP3 and CD testing suites. For tracks such as Adele’s Melt My Heart To Stone and Fanfare For Louis, the warmth helped to deliver quality sound, staying faithful to the mix as well as capturing the emotions and essence of the tracks.

However when the headphones were tasked with handling bright highs, they faltered. The sparkling treble melodies of Hotel California lacked verve. In the same vein, bass lacked that extra bit of definition which resulted in the low registers failing to impress fully.

While the performance of the AHD-7100 may not have been flawless, nonetheless it is still a good sounding product. Unfortunately the rendering of sound does not match up to the headphone’s status as a premium headphone. Denon has positioned the AHD-7100 as the flagship product from their Music Maniac series targeted at serious audiophiles. The headphones also have a correspondingly high price-tag of S$1699 to match this billing. Taking these facts into account, the blemishes and stutters in performance have added weightage and take on extra relevance.

As mentioned during our earlier breakdown of the features and design of the product, the AHD-7100 has a relatively low impedance of 25 Ohms. This implies that the headphones can be adequately powered by portable music players and smartphones. However, audiophiles generally prefer to plug their headphones in to dedicated amplifiers making this design feature redundant. Perhaps Denon was trying to make the headphones a plausible option to be paired with your iPod or iPhone and used on your daily commute? The fact that an in-line control pod was included in the design further lends credibility to this notion. If that is truly the case, the AHD-7100 severely lacks 'portability' making it ill suited for the task. The fit of the Denon unit is extremely loose and it cannot be folded into a smaller bundle for transport.

The idea of a pair of top quality cans which can be carried around in your bag has not really been implemented before and perhaps if Denon had explored this avenue fully, the AHD-7100 would be a more exciting prospect. At present though, the AHD-7100 neither meets the standards expected of a high-end headphone, nor does it seem like a smart option to pair with your portable music player.

We generally judge top-tier headphones on their premium feel with respect to design, pristine audio quality and great comfort. The bottom line is that the Denon AHD-7100 fails to deliver to satisfaction for some of the individual categories and hence, is unable to justify is S$1699 price-tag. But since evaluation of headphones and audio is an extremely subjective process, you are free to try out the headphones yourself and see if they are up your alley.

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