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

Product Information

There are three distinct wired modes, which is a unique feature of the No. 5909. The first is active analog audio mode, which works with the USB-C-to-3.5mm cable. It processes the audio signal through the No. 5909’s internal EQ and allows you to cycle through ANC and transparency modes. The headphones must be powered up before you plug in the cable to enable this mode. The earpads are leather and very soft, and due to the closed design, things do tend to get a little warm but that is to be expected and is totally normal for a design such as this. They also have a metal mesh material over the bass port.

The Mark Levinson No. 5909 is a magnificent choice. In fact, it is one of the best wireless all-rounder headphones I’ve come across lately. The wireless features are just a bonus for me. Mark Levinson has been one of the leading brands in high-end audio for almost 50 years and its transition under the stewardship of Harman International has been rather interesting to watch. Harman is now owned by Samsung and part of a much larger group of companies that includes Harman Kardon, JBL, Lexicon, Infinity, Revel, and AKG. The growth of wireless headphones and the connection to Samsung and AKG is not a coincidence in regard to the Mark Levinson No. 5909 Wireless Headphones. Analog input oddly, is provided via a special USB to 3.5mm cable. I appreciated that it was there, not forcing me to use Bluetooth. Plug in an ordinary USB-C cable and the headphone acts like a DAC which is very nice. What is not so nice is that it turns off Bluetooth so the accompanied app no longer works. The app is where you change the EQ settings and such. Why or why is this done? Worse yet, at least on Windows, the volume buttons did not work. I had to use the sound control panel in Windows which made me quite grumpy. 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 headphone though, I want to actively thank this company for listening to my rants in the past about bad headphone headband design and making sure their model doesn’t have these problems.When Mark Levinson announced that they were coming out with a headphone, I expected it to be a high-end product. I was surprised to see that it was a wireless model as most reference level headphone makers still eschew wireless. I made a number of assumptions that proved to be wrong. The headphones have a clarity of sound that few have, and the bass quality is among the best we’ve heard. If you need more fullness, it’s also possible to pull up a bit here. Conversely, the bass can be muted in case the recordings have too much of a good thing. Such is not the case here. The No. 5909 is wildly coherent in every direction. And when everything meshes just right like this, the experience feels broad and engaging. It feels interesting, and you don’t focus on one part of it like you would the HD800, for example.

Another app feature is the “Ambient Aware Mode” for situational awareness (same as other ANC cans like the already mentioned Sony). You can choose to listen to the ambient around you or shut it off completely. The 5909s also have a “four-microphone voice array with Smart Wind Adaption”. For Noise-Canceling they have three modes: High, Adaptive, and Low, which you can control through the app but also on the left ear cup (power On/Off in the left ear cup as well, while the right ear cup is for the up-down volume and pauses feature). The ANC functions on the 5909s are fantastic, I tried phone calls on busy streets and coffee shops, and they did put up a good fight against the best on the market, the Sony flagship wireless WH1000-XM-5. I had no issues with this feature throughout my listening. The No. 5909 can swing both ways slightly to the left and right depending on what your rig is composed of. But again, focus on tone and bass/treble qualities, and not power. Power is not needed here and only really helped make the headphone sound smoother overall. The choice of using the Mark Levinson name to adorn the 5909 is not an accident and it makes a great deal of sense when viewed objectively. First up, the brand itself has two key advantages. It has an indisputable high end cache (and in recent years has turned out some of the best components in the company’s history which hasn’t hurt matters) which is going to help when you’re tearing up the conventions on wireless headphone pricing. The second is that, as the company has no tradition of making headphones, the 5909 doesn’t provoke any form of existential crisis with other models in the range. It is why I suspect the 5909 isn’t an AKG product, even though it’s another member of the Harman Luxury Audio family. Multipoint technology is available to pair the No. 5909 with two devices simultaneously, but it is a mess. Several times, the headphones crashed, producing this unbearably loud static noise, and powering off when attempting to pair them with a secondary device. When the feature did work, lag was present on my secondary device, or nothing would play at all. Mark Levinson No. 5909 review: Verdict 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.

Features

Many brands will be including the Mark Levinson No. 5909 in their R&D testing in the future when it comes to design, build quality, and wireless performance. Vocals were pristine with near perfect timbral accuracy. Vocals were rendered with the clarity, detail, and the flat-out hair-raising purity that you’ll experience from a high-end loudspeaker. For example, Elaine Paige’s iconic rendition of “Memory,” from Cats, played through the No. 5909 was intimate, energetic, and intoxicating.

Controls: buttons of above average tactile quality. Only 16 volume steps (with iOs). A big negative, but the 3-4 usable (to me) steps are of reasonable volume yet I cannot usually dial in a 'perfect' listening volume. Cars on the road went nearly totally silent, the wind is inaudible, and my fan nearby is also inaudible. Overall, the ANC capabilities of these headphones are very, very good. Ambient Aware mode disables all of this and lets you hear what is ongoing around you without taking the headphone off. Bluetooth The wireless world was thrilled by the news of these headphones, not just because of the big-name company (it’s Mark Levinson’s first headphones) but also because the assumption was the build and sound quality would perhaps rival some high-end wired headphones. If this wasn’t enough as a selling point, the 5909s would offer a wired setup (USB-C to 3.5mm). So, wireless or wired, it looked like the Mark Levinson headphones were ready to make their presence known. Mark Levinson No. 5909 are very exclusive headphones, which elevate wireless sound to completely new heights. The noise reduction itself is good, but still not among the best. The sound, however, is top notch.

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Considering all the other features in this model and for this price, I would rate the fidelity factor for its low-end as very good for the performance involved. Driver materials are incredibly important to a speaker or headphone’s performance. Beryllium is prized for its combination of lightness, rigidity, and superior pistonic performance. Beryllium drivers typically don’t have breakup in the audible frequency range. Mark Levinson’s high end loudspeaker sibling, Revel Speakers, reserves Beryllium for its top-of-the-line models. Disclaimer: our company Madrona Digital is a dealer for Harman products in custom install industry. So while we theoretically could source this headphone, it is not something we remotely sell. Still, if you want to read bias into this review, by all means, do so. Mark Levinson and Harman swung for the fences with the Mark Levinson No. 5909 and while it isn’t a grand slam — it comes very close. Remarkably close for a first generation wireless headphone.

They live in an equally tactile travel-case, and are supplied with three cables that, thanks to their braiding and expensive-looking terminations, seem almost as upmarket as the headphones they accompany. Two lengths of 3.5mm to USB-C (1.25m and 4m) are provided, along with a USB-C to USB-C charging cable too. Features Harman has developed its own frequency curve for headphones. The Harman curve is well known in the industry, and one that many headphone manufacturers aim to follow. It is not frequency linear, but instead attempts to mimic the frequency response of a pair of linear speakers playing in a room. By taking the room’s influence into account, the headphones will be perceived more as frequency linear, rather than actually being so. And should you get those thoughts – then yes, Mark Levinson also seeks to follow that curve as best as possible. Photo: Mark Levinson Three levels of noise reduction Samsung, JBL, and AKG have a strong focus on the headphone and wireless categories and it was only a matter of time before a brand like Mark Levinson ventured into the space.LDAC is purportedly better than aptX Adaptive, and at times the codec appears more pleasant and with a slightly airier sound. At the same time, I don’t feel you get quite the same power and rhythm. Anne-Sophie Mutter and Pablo Ferrández’s interpretation of Clara Schumann’s Piano Trio in G minor (opus 17) sounds more authentic to me with aptX Adaptive, even though the bitstream is actually a bit smaller and even though it ‘only’ supports 48 kHz. There’s something that makes the music feel more alive to me with aptX Adaptive. That said, both sound great. Noise is attenuated in three different settings: low, high or adaptive. The latter tries to adapt as best as possible to the situation you’re in. I must admit that I always choose high or none at all. But also Awareness mode, which lets ambient sound through instead. And it works fine. High power doesn’t add fidelity or more bass, so look to smoother-sounding sources and amplifiers instead. For example, I prefer the XRK portable amp here over my CEntrance HiFi-M8 V2, which is 4x the price. Why? Because it is buttery smooth and has a musical flare, while the M8v2 is more clinical in tone. The No. 5909 comes equipped with 40mm beryllium coated drivers, a metal mesh bass port, and Bluetooth 5.1 with Hi-Res Audio certification for aptX and LDAC streaming. Most of my time was spent listening to Spotify on mobile devices and my Apple Music library via MacBook Pro. In addition, I kept the No. 5909 set to its default EQ.