Ears-on with the Denon AH-D2000: Audiophilia for £250

By Nate Lanxon on 21 May 2008, 11:48am

We've never made a secret of the fact that Denon's AH-D5000s are our all-time favourite headphones. On sun-drenched evenings, when the air on the beach is as sweet as the sugar in our pink lemonade, it's hard to decide who to take to bed: our girlfriends or the Denon D5000s.

So it was with haste that we opened our latest package from Denon, a package that contained AH-D2000s. The D2000s are based on the tremendous D5000s, but cost half as much at £250, yet still claim to offer sonic excellence.

And they should do -- just because they cost half as much as an explosively post-awesome pair of cans, it's still important to remember that they cost £240 more than a pair that deserve to be abused by a violent husband.

The D2000s rock impressive specs on paper: frequency response of 5-45,000Hz, sensitivity of 106dB, 50mm neodymium magnets, 300cm oxygen-free cabling with gold-plated plugs -- hmm, they're the same as the D5000s. So what's the difference between the two?

Firstly, design. Not present are the mahogany enclosures. Instead, the D2000s are housed in a smooth composite material. This alone will make a subtle difference to sound quality. The second difference is the aforementioned sound quality, but we won't be putting the D2000s up against their older brother until we've given them at least 100 hours of play time to burn themselves in. So watch this space.

But our first impressions are that they're an exceptionally clear headphone, with a wide and open sound. This openness is unusual for closed-back headphones, but something we've become used to after enjoying the D5000s for many months.

Expect our full review very soon for all the gritty detail you can enjoy. Safe to say we're impressed so far, but the real proof will be in the pudding, and that pudding's not quite ready for us to eat yet. Check back soon, audio nuts. -Nate Lanxon

Update: Read our full Denon AH-D2000 headphones review.