DAN CLARK STEALTH

By K. E. Heartsong

It was Dan Clark’s VOCE electrostatic headphone that sent my mind into the past, reeling with my experiences with the Quad ESL-57s and then the Martin Logan CLS electrostatic speakers. These are experiences neatly frozen in time, that granted me my first peek into the beauty of electrostatics, their transparency, resolution, nearlight-speed transients, and sublime midrange recreation. They certainly had their limitations—deep bass response, treble acrophobia— the fear of great treble heights—and the VOCE mirrored them in this manner as well, but what was there was beyond glorious. Since then the VOCEs are ever-present beside the electrostatic headphone amplifier that is up for enjoyment or contemplation or review. And while I have not listened to or reviewed the breadth of the Dan Clark line, I could not imagine another headphone that would ‘bring’ an equal measure of the midrange magic. And then one fine day, the

Dan Clark STEALTH planar headphones happened along.

This review then is about the Dan Clark STEALTH, and how often that which is not expected, can so casually show up to prove us, well, quite and demonstrably wrong. Let me count the ways.

REFRAIN: Unlike most reviews, this review will be non-sequential, as it will start with how the headphones actually sound and not the process of physically “undressing” them and/or laying out their various parts, specifications, etc. Think of this review then, as a non-linear movie— Memento, Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, Transcendence, In the Shadow of the Moon, etc—that, likewise, starts at the end and winds its way to the beginning.

The Sound

The Dan Clark STEALTH is a chameleon with regard to the various headphone technologies that it embraces. Unlike the Dan Clark VOCE which was a mid-centric focused headphone, and beautifully so, the STEALTH is quite a bit more.