Sony and Bose, look out! AKG is back in the wireless headphones space and from what we can tell, it may just be a triumphant return from the storied brand. Unveiled at IFA 2024, the new AKG N9 Hybrid over-ears are trumpeted as sporting "industry-leading hybrid adaptive noise cancellation", not to mention some handy features that will be giving the class-leading Sony WH-1000XM5 and Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones a run for their money.
We were intensely excited when we heard that AKG was unveiling a pair of new headphones at IFA (the other being the AKG N5 Hybrid wireless earbuds). The brand has been rather quiet of late since Samsung acquired parent company Harman International back in 2016, but we're pleased to see AKG return, as it has given us some of the best headphone experiences in the past.
We managed to get hands-on with the new AKG N9 Hybrid noise-cancelling over-ears and here are our first impressions from the IFA show floor.
Price
The AKG N9 Hybrid are priced at £329 / €349, a figure that inevitably puts them on a collision course with some very fine pairs of premium wireless headphones. The Award-winning Sony WH-1000XM5 originally launched at £380 / $399 but have since dropped to around £279 / $300 in recent months, whereas the five-star Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones are currently sitting at around £379 / €339 / $429. Choppy waters, then.
Build and design
AKG doesn't always go in for fancy frills and adornments, but what you usually get from the brand's products is a strong focus on user-friendly functionality. With circular earcups adorned with a tasteful metallic trim (reminding us of the AKG Y500), the AKGs come with a minimalist look (and two finishes, as seen in the photos here) that strikes a neat balance between restraint and flair.
We weren't bold enough to start bending and flexing the cans in front of AKG's representatives to test their tensile strength and general capacity to handle a lot of wear and tear and stress (you need such qualities if you're going to survive IFA), but having the cans in our hands at least gave us the chance to feel a product that seemed well-made, functional and surprisingly lightweight.
We wouldn't miss the chance to slip them on, either. IFA this year has been one large sauna of oppressive heat, so it's best to avoid passing judgment on heat radiation and the sweat generated from a half-hour listen – most of that likely came from the wearer rather than the nature of the headphones. That aside, a short listening session made for a comfortable experience. The N9 Hybrid fit well to the contours of the skull, while the padding on the headband and earcups provided a soft, gentle cushion as we listened. Some users might want a little more robustness and density, especially from the headband, but it's too early to make a proper assessment at this point.
There are also some design and usability aspects that we can get on board with. The new over-ears follow the standard procedure of placing most of their buttons at the base of the cans' earcups, with a play/pause button and a power slider on the right cup and an ANC button sitting on the left. What we really like is how you adjust the volume: swivel the right ear cup up or down and, when you feel a pleasing little kick of resistance, the loudness will increase or increase depending on the direction. We could've done it all day...
Features
For better or worse, you need your premium headphones to have a pretty full stable of features if you're going to tempt prospective buyers away from the heavy hitters in this weight class. The AKG N9's party piece is a USB-C dongle that can be plugged into devices – which offers 2.4GHz streaming for better quality and lower latency over native Bluteooth 5.3 – and this dongle can be snazzily stored in a sliding compartment in one of the headphones' ear cups (again, a lovely mechanism).
If the USB-C dongle is the party piece, the cans' battery life is the even-better afterparty. The N9 Hybrid feature up to 100 hours of playtime with ANC switched off, with up to 85 hours using the USB-C dongle (again, ANC turned off). Those are belting numbers that match the figures of the new Cambridge Audio Melomania P100 (also 100 hours with ANC off) and trounce the class-leading Sony XM5's respectable 40 hours.
Noise cancelling is on board, and from our brief experience, it's an impressive effort from the Austrian brand. The N9 Hybrid offer three customisable noise-cancelling modes: standard ANC, an ambient aware mode and a talkthrough setting. We enjoyed a brief demo using the pretty nifty AKG headphones app, noting not only how effectively chattering voices came through as we listened but also how effective the customisable slider was in adjusting how much chatter ended up making it into our ears.
Spatial audio support is on board courtesy of AKG's take on "Immersive Spatial Audio". AKG also promises "superior" call quality thanks to a total of four virtual adaptive beamforming microphones which monitor your environment and, with the help of our good friend AI, suppress ambient noise while highlighting human speech. We didn't make any calls, obviously.
Sound quality
The AKG N9 Hybrid house 40mm dynamic drivers equipped with bespoke liquid crystal polymer diaphragms to deliver what the maker describes as "wide-range detail and brilliant dynamic sound". AKG has teased a rich and precise bass alongside clear and accurate vocals, blending with "vividly lifelike" high notes from its new premium cans.
We're always wary of marketing bluster, but even so, it's easy to at least see what AKG are talking about when they describe the sonic credentials of the company's latest headphones. From the first notes of Rebecka Törnqvist's Nothing Ever we're struck by just how controlled and revealing the N9 Hybrid seem to be, even during our demo listen on a busy show floor. These are clearly cans that honour AKG's studio legacy, so that you can clearly hear individual fingerstrums from the track's tender, intimate guitar.
The AKG headphones sounded poised and controlled in our brief listen, and while the idea of a pair of cans sounding "controlled" might not have your pulse racing and your fingers hurriedly tapping at your keyboard to secure yourself a pair, it's an adjective we think that is to H9's credit here. Nero's dubby, pulsating Won't be There is the sort of offering that could sound unwieldy and unfocused, especially at the lower ranges, but we found the AKG's fairly precise, in-check bass reproduction gives the belting tune a solid platform from which to build.
A live rendition of The Eagles' Hotel California is even better served. We find that the N9 Hybrid seems to have enough of the space, detail and insight needed to bring that performance to life. It's a rendition that melds the intimacy of the track's core vocal with the breadth and scale needed to evoke the sense of a performance happening in a large space – for a moment, we're no longer in Berlin listening to headphones, but somewhere else entirely.
They feel like rhythmically competent cans, too, at least as far as we can tell from our limited testing time. Sabrina Carpenter's Espresso benefits from the snap and tautness of the cans' clean, almost springy bass reproduction, leading to those small, slightly hesitant head bops evidenced by so many tech journalists when they're asked to listen to something poppy in front of a room full of total strangers. There's enough bounce and life to the track's playful underpinnings, and we think Carpenter's alluring, confident vocal performance is communicated with appreciable personality and life.
Verdict
Another competitor strides into the arena ready to do battle for supremacy in the premium wireless headphones space. It's too early to tell if the AKG N9 Hybrid have what it takes to gain the raised thumb of the metaphorical emperor, but even from our brief listen on a busy show floor – never a good place to draw concrete conclusions, mind – we feel optimistic that AKG could make quite the comeback.
While we've heard elements of good detail, spaciousness, clarity and control in our demo, we need our own review sample and dedicated testing time to see if the new N9 Hybrid can play with the class leaders in this highly competitive market, and whether their true rhythmic and musical capabilities can compete with the best offered by Sony and Bose.
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