LATEST ADDITIONS

PRICE $999

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Reference-quality sound
Excellent connectivity options
Exceptional ANC

Minus
Annoying voice confirmation
Short On-Head detection setting
Audio disabled while charging

THE VERDICT
The first headphones from legendary audio specialist Mark Levinson, tuned precisely to the Harman Curve, the No. 5909 are both exceptional sounding and have excellent ANC properties.

They say money can’t buy happiness. Without a doubt, it can buy the $999 Mark Levinson No. 5909 headphones, and without a doubt, these make me happy. The Mark Levinson No. 5909 headphones are the first headphones from this elite division of Harman. These over-ear headphones feature adaptive Active Noise Cancellation, USB-C wired connections and wireless Bluetooth.

We don't like to think about it, or perhaps we've never thought to, but from parts to finished products our AV products come largely from China. Yes, there are other players, but China with its cheap labor dominates the AV space.

For eight months, I've had a Kaleidescape Strato-C and 48TB Terra server in my system and the user experience has been outstanding. At the time my initial review posted many readers argued that the system offered poor value compared to ripping discs onto local storage solutions and playing them through an Nvidia Shield or similar front-end device.

2023 marks the 10th anniversary of both consumer OLED TVs and Ultra HD TVs. In those ten short years we have seen the demise of plasma and 3D and curved screens. We witnessed the rise of HDR and high frame rates and the dawn of the gaming TV era. 4K has become dominant and 8K exists for those who want it. The focus of what makes a great TV has shifted from home theater to a broader spectrum of streaming, gaming, displaying art and other applications, but the fundamentals of what makes a great TV are largely the same: Color accuracy, gamut, contrast, and motion rendering need to be top-notch.