I see. Yeah I heard the $150 price from a video from 2016, too bad they are discontinued. Iāll still look for used ones though, these look like theyād be perfect for me.
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I see some on Ebay. Asking is around $300 from one of them I see. Just got a pair myself and wow, I thought id need to acclimate to these at first when I hear people calling them dark or muffled but not my experience. I like them a LOT. Currently have dekoni beyerdynamic sheepskins on them and they elevate the highs and you lose the bass slam but still very nice. Very smooth and very happy to have them.
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They are quite a nice headphone and extremely comfortable. Keep in mind that MSRP was $700 at one point, not that it was worth that. If you can find a mint condition one, it is absolutely worth $300 and could have been my end game at a point.
I picked these up for $235 + $15 shipping. Includes cables and adapters.
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I also had sheepskin pads in em absolutely loved it. Indeed removes some bass slam but sounds more holographic, fast and much more treble
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Nice, Im enjoying this combo very much. Cant wait to do some more pad swapping.
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So I love my nighthawk carbons. Got them yesterday and I didnāt need a good burn in to get used to the sound. I feel like I need more.
I read the nightowls are different with more forward mids and highs. Are they still worth it at around $300 if I can find them or are there alternatives that share that special sound that the nighthawks have? Do the nightowls share that same sound as the nighthawks but with itās own differences?
I might just end up hunting for the og nighthawks as well.
soā¦what are some of the songs you like to listen to on your NHC?
mine are my go-to headphones currently, so itās everything, LoL!
This performance wowed me with NHC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1w-hDiJ4dM&t=810s&ab_channel=NPRMusic
not my kind of music, but glad you enjoyed it as thatās what matters.
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Iām kinda with you. Iāve been listening to the hawks for a few days now and Iām reminded again why I love these things so much. I think I can still say they are my favorite headphone.
I recently got to do a hawk vs hawk comparison and that was interesting. I own the carbon and I borrowed the OG so I could listen to them side by side. The short story is I still prefer my carbons with the suede pads BUT it may have been because the OG had not been fully burned in yet. The sound of the OG felt a little darker and warmer to me with the bass being a touch more in quantity. Still very close though. All in all I felt like my carbons had a bit more even sound while still maintaining all the qualities that make the hawks unique and fun. And believe it or not Iāve kinda gotten used to the much maligned cable on my carbons and I very much prefer it to the two cables that come packaged with the OG.
Carbon cable on left, 2 OG cables on right.
Overall takeaway is I love these headphones! And I would be very happy owning either one but Iām going to stick to my carbons even though I personally love the seductive look of that liquid wood.
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So do you still have the opportunity to compare the carbons with protein pads to the og nighthawk?
Iāve owned my Nighthawk Carbon pair for about 6 months now and have taken a short sabbatical from using them due to the purchase of the Sivga Phoenix which shares some similarities but is more of a brighter sounding headphone.
Anyhow, I decided to pull on the NHās a couple of nights ago and to my horror the sound was dreadful, terrible bloat in the bass region was sucking the fun out of listening. No amount pad swapping changed it, even resorted to trying different varieties of Brainwavz angled and flat pads but to no avail.
Tonight I returned to them, stuck on the stock leather pads and listened to the whole of The Beatles (White Album). Gone was the bloated bass and sounded exactly like they did before and how they should.
If I was to give these headphones a name I would call them āPatienceā. This is because thatās exactly what you need to BE with them. From the moment I got them I had to be patient based on the advice I was given on this very forum!
Patience is not a term usually associated with this hobby. We want an instant result and seek critical acclaim and are disappointed and discouraged by critique. This leads to sale or return of many, many headphones.
My wife doesnāt get it. She is right when she says I am obsessed with headphones. She also thinks that the reason for my constant desire to acquire more and more headphones is to seek utopia. Now I learnt along time ago utopia doesnāt exist, it is only a vision on what we think.
But if there was a utopia then I think it will be called āPatience,ā, which are currently situated on my head listening to Talk Talkās Colour of Spring, both a thing of divine beauty and creativity.
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So, i think you should just buy the Focal Utopia then.
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How do the NH sound on the Little Bear tube amp? How does the Little Bear compare to the Ifi Hip Dac?
Hey Nighthawkersā¦ I thought Iād drop by here with a question. I donāt own Nighthawks (yet), haha.
I have the Elegia and I really love them. Iāve managed to get them to sound really amazing for āfunā listening (thanks to EQ and DAC) yet they can be very flat and analytical if I turn all that stuff off. So, really versatile for different purposes. I have this suspicion that Iāve EQāed my Elegias to sound a little like Nighthawks for my fun listening. Spatial, dark, powerful bassā¦ the only thing about the Elegia that I DONāT like is that, without EQ and DAC I donāt have as much fun listening to them. That makes them more of a āat the deskā headphone for me. I imagine Nighthawks might be more of a āon the goā headphone that gives the bassy loud fun-ness I enjoy. My question isnāt really if the Nighthawks would sound better than an Elegia, but rather if they might sound more fun plugged directly into my phone.
Can anyone here weigh in? Do you guys enjoy Nighthawks when they are plugged straight into something simple like a phone with no EQ or do you find that they need more hardware to be enjoyable? Or, if need be, does anyone recommend another headphone entirely?
Thanks for any responses, have a good night!
The Elegia and Nighthawks are my two favorite headphones. (As I think I mentioned earlier in the thread.) It sounds like we might have similar feelings about the Elegia. I love them for some genres (acoustic, orchestra, vocals, etc.) and they are still a good all-rounder in my opinion, but for the more bass heavy genres I sometimes find myself wanting a little more meat to the sound. That is exactly where the hawks come in for me. For the wide variety of music I listen to, they make a great complement to the Elegia and they honestly play pretty great with almost every kind of music I throw at them. They do like a little bit of power to open up and tighten the bass a little bit, but they also work fairly well straight off a phone or a computer. I just got in the Lotoo PAW S1 which is a small USB C dongle dac / amp and Iām going to be testing it with the Hawks to see if that makes a nice on-the-go pairing. If I had to guess I think itās going to be pretty sweet. Iām going to be trying single ended performance first, but I have a balanced cable on the way to try out after that.
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Thank for the response! It does seem like these two headphones would be very good compliments to each other which is why Iāve been considering the Nighthawk as my next headphone adventure, haha. I use the Elegia to mix also, which is why I really like its capability to have a flatter sound. I figure something like a Nighthawk would be terrible for that, but perfect for other uses like a bus ride or chilling in bed with some music, etc. Iāll be interested to hear how it goes with the PAW S1, I hope you update!
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Just started listening to my pair. Too sibilant for me. Ordered some suede pads.
Iām sorry wut? lol wait, nighthawk? sibilant? which pads caused that? To my ear both were fairly under neutral. Kinda caught me off guard there