The Nighthawk is one of those headphones that benefit from a cable swapping. I STRONGLY recommend a good silver cable with it. Silver lowers bass and highlights high frequencies which is exactly what the Nighthawk needs. It increases sense of transparency, increases sense of stage and makes it easier to enjoy what makes the Nighthawk special imo which is the solidity and shaping of the imaging.
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I have been experimenting with the pads and have been using the Brainwavz velours for over a week now and I am just loving the sound.
They donât sound as âdarkâ as the stock leathers and although the bass is not as powerful, it is certainly there and more âwarmâ. Treble is notably better as well, it is brighter but not in a bad way.
The stock suedes are too neutral for me so at the moment I am swapping between the leathers and velours and loving the latter. I think the imaging is even better albeit with a tad less impact and âslamâ in the lower bass region than the leathers.
I second the comment about the cable - I managed to get a custom made balanced cable and it definitely opens up the sound of the NHs!
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What cable did you get?
It was custom made for me by a seller on eBay in the UK - I just checked and it doesnât look like he is currently selling anything 
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It looks the cable is available to purchase again on eBay: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Balanced-Upgrade-Headphone-Cable-for-Audioquest-Nighthawk-Nightowl-2-x-2-5mm-/193775624121?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49292
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Fucking hell man! I seriously have no idea how I ever fell out of love with the hawks. Itâs like dang dude. These things are so good they could be endgame. And to an extent they are. They just hit all the right spots and bring SOUL to music at a great price range
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Itâs when you put on another pair of headphones and they are âbrightâ and you think the Hawks are veiled. You come back later and react like that. Been there, done that
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Welcome back to the gang. I hope youâve learned your lesson and never fly the coop again. You canât escape. Youâre one of us.
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I switched to the leather pads last night to see how they change the sound. I think Iâve just gotten used to the Meze 99âs too much because i really didnât like the NHâs at all. Even with the leather pads, I still found everything felt that veil that I remember when I first tried these headphones.
To me it seems hard to keep these around and switch between these and other headphones because it takes so long to get used to the NH sound again, at least for me personally.
I skipped through a few tracks to see how the new pads sounded and one of the tracks was Jimmy Eat Worldâs âA Praise Chorusâ which sounded terrible to me on the NHâs. The vocals sounded like they were behind a stack of veil, let alone one sheet. It really sounded so distant and like something was broken.
Iâll switch back to the suede pads again today but I donât feel like Iâll keep these around. As much as I appreciate theyâre an acquired taste to some, and are increasingly hard to get, I donât think I can justify keeping these around knowing they wouldnât get used.
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just got these in today. here are my very disorganized thoughts on it
been swapping pads, I think I prefer the leather ones. I get more bass impact and mid definition. it tends to aggree more with a lot more music I find. I fail am having isues finidng the âveilâ many seem to find even just pluggin them into my LS which has a noticeable treble roll off I can still hear pretty much most of the detail in my music. looking at measurements I am weirdly not enjoying the songs I thought I would here. I was expecting to put on hip hop and really bop. but aside from the well produced jazz hop that injury reserve makes most hip hop Iâ m not quite enjoying.
-OSTâs sound great especially big orchestral ones. the soundstage and imaging is great thanks to that angled driver, definitely speaker like.
female vocals sound great lack of anything shouty.
-the initial impressions of mine with things southing smooth led me to think these would be great for badly produced music I feel quite the opposite right now. something in the tuning just exposes badly balanced and produced tracks and I canât quite put a finger on it.
-acoustic tracks sound great
- tracks featuring big bass impact is super fun and is a definite strength of the headphone. Bassy but tight enough to not bleed and be muddy.
Here is a list of tracks I found to be quite good on this headphone so far
-1612 vulfpeck
-Ttktv injury reserve
-Japanese Denim Daniel Ceasar
-M79 Vampire weekend
-Turf Amine
-Tanfgerine Glass animals
-Let it pass Jakob ogawa
My definite big WOW moment is single player gaming explosions, gunshots, weapons from bows to grenades have a very cool immersiive amount of definition even reloading oor Aloy pulling her arrows back in her bow prepping a shot in Horizon or the the pin dropping from a nade that Iâm cooking has a insane amount of detail just that sound of wood sliding accross wood combined with that presentation, make this a awesome single player headphone.Multiplayer though Iâm finding myself wanting more even sound sig, less bass and more upper treble/
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also forgot to mention Childish Gambinoâs awaken my love album is pretty great
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Iâve been listening to these babes for the last hour. They do what they are supposed to, connect me to my music. Itâs crazy how good an experience it is
Itâs just so luscious and rich sounding with maybe strange but loving tonality and great timbre. Most important thing tho, it has soul which not everything has
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I took a break from my nighthawks because somehow I fell out of love with them, so for almost a month I was using my 990s, and thought âhey this is pretty good!â, but the second I put my nighthawk back on I was telling myself âhow tf did I think the shitty ass 990s sounded goodâ
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I am rocking Disturbed tonight. The bass, imaging, and clarity is awesome. The comfort and lack of fatigue in long listening sessions is a great change of pace from my Sivga P-ii.
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These Headphones are so underrated and get so much hate only because of the Audioquest branding.
But Audioquest did not design them, they just gave cable money to Skylar Gray.
I have some great Headphones, like Stax L700 and ZMF Eikon, but the Nighthawks are so relaxing. 
I take them when i am not in the mood for details getting hammered into my head.
They are quite detailed, but they are not force-feeding detail into your ears.
I admit it may take some time to adjust and grow on them. They are quite contrasting to some bright and detailed Headphones and that is exactly the reason i kept them.
They are very low distortion and have a lot of EQ potential.
I prefer to keep their signature and just swap pads to my likings.
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Interesting, didnât know that. I always thought that the Nighthawks were never really good headphones, especially at retail price. We only like them because they are kinda âweirdâ, and their current asking price makes it worth having.
Their retail was maybe a little too high, but i would still pay 500-600$ today.
They are IMHO technically better performing Headphones than HD650.
Build quality is good, the suspension design is great and the comfort is off the charts.
The sound signature is not for everyone, i acknowledge that, but they are technically
really good headphones indeed.
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Easily the comfiest headphone Iâve ever put on my head. I am not looking forward to the day when I need to get a new set of pads though
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This is a bit of a long post, sorry about that.
TL;DR: I am considering Nighthawk Carbon, but want to know how it does compared to other similar options (especially T50RP Mk 3 Argons). The rest is basically me going into detail about what I like and my setup so that people who are interested to read and reply have sufficient context and info.
After some exchanges with @Falenkor some months back in the TYGR thread, I understand that Nighthawk Carbon may be what I am looking for since I seem to favour the warm sound signature of the TYRG. Though, the TYGR is almost hitting my threshold for âtoo brightâ while being a bit too mid-recessed for my tastes without any EQ.
The more I listen to my TYGR since my last exchange with Falenkor, the more I realise how much I appreciate the sound signature and really want a step up in this direction. I especially value the huge soundstage, amazing imagining, and clean/tight/punchy bass. @M0N has also said some pretty nice things about Carbons in various posts which make me feel like they could be for me. So, yesterday I started to search for used Carbons.
That being said, even used Carbons (it seems they go for ÂŁ160 to ÂŁ200+ here) are on the threshold of âexpensiveâ for me since I am a not earning a ton as a graduate student. I want to make sure I am looking at all possible options and getting the most bang for my buck. So, Nighthawk Carbon owners, I have some questions for you if you have the experience to answer them:
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I get the impression that T50RP Mk 3 Argons are similar in sound signature to what I am looking for (being that it has lots of quality bass, wide soundstage, good imaging, and is slightly treble-recessed). I think used ones do come up here for about ÂŁ300 or a little less. How similar and how different are Argons to the Carbons? Which is a âbetter valueâ buy?
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Are there other headphones which have this âwarm, wide soundstage, excellent imagining, slightly dark, punchy/tight bass in good quantitiesâ signature without being too mid-recessed?
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Iâve read briefly that pads for Carbons are hard to come by and are extremely expensive. How fast do they wear out, and what alternatives are there that donât change the sound too much?
I did do some searches on this forum before asking these, but I may have missed some useful posts/resources. Please feel free to direct me to those. Thanks for your time!
Some useful info(?):
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My signal chain for music is Tidal or iTunes on computer to Topping E30 DAC to Asgard 3 headphone amp. I also game on Nintendo Switch and watch movies through the same setup sometimes.
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I have tried the X2HR but disliked how the soundstage seemed small and closed in compared to TYGR, and the separation wasnât as good. Plus I found the sound grainy with respect to the treble. I value quality of bass a lot more than quantity, which is why it wasnât a hard decision for me to return the X2HR despite it having more bass. The bass of the X2HR didnât seem to have a ton of punch/impact although it wasnât really muddy as I had expected.
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I do own brighter headphones like DT880 250 (Black) but I reduce highs and bump up mids, again using EQ). I love this headphone as my âgive me detailsâ headphones but basically I want something more for enjoyment rather than critical listening.
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They are perhaps kind of similar, but the way they stage, their impact, their organicness, and tonality differ a bit. The carbonâs stage is more artificially placing things in a set room, but itâs decently accurate and pretty immersive and to me thatâs more preferable than the argonâs wide but lackluster depth and placement. Regarding the bass, the argon does have a lot of bass, but it lacks texture to me and I think the carbon hits harder as well but is a bit less prominent than the argon (the carbon is also a bit more rounded in the bass but still good extension, although argonâs might extend a bit lower). I think the hawk is more organic overall if you can adjust to their tonality. Generally I think the hawks could possibly hit what you are looking for as long as you donât mind something a bit more relaxed than the argonâs. I would personally take the hawks over the argonâs most of the time, but I also am not the biggest fan of the argonâs lol
Audeze lcd 2 pre fazor come to mind for sure, but thatâs out of your budget (and imagining isnât excellent). I would say verum 1 does indeed perhaps meet what you are looking for, but I would do your research on the maker of them before deciding to commit to one (as heâs said some controversial things to say the least)
They arenât extremely expensive, just hard to come by at this point
The leathers you donât have to worry about as much, but for the suede if you daily them and have letâs say really greasy hair it could be like a year perhaps, but it depends on other things, if you take care of them you could probably get a few years out of them before they become unusable
That I canât tell you since I havenât tried many aftermarket pads on it, but others have
Perfect that chain should be very nice for the hawks or the argonâs
Yeah honestly feel similar about the x2hr
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