Build

When they first arrived, my reaction was – “Oh my god, they’re gorgeous!”. This was immediately followed by – “sh*t, they be big!”. The D1001’s are a decent size headphone but compared to them, the D5000 just looks massive.
The build quality and design really is excellent. The headband is generously padded and is mounted on a ball-bearing system which glides really smoothly when adjusting for size. The frame is constructed from magnesium which not only makes it very robust, but also surprisingly light-weight.
The enclosures are crafted from real mahogany wood and have the characteristic, deep red, rich mahogany colour, and printed gold lettering. Apparently, the mahogany provides superior acoustic characteristics with a broader, natural sound and I certainly can’t argue with that. The extremely well-padded enclosures are generous size and completely envelope the ears instead of sitting on top of them. The padding is nice and very comfortable, which when combined with the enclosure size, makes these headphones extremely comfortable to wear. After a certain period of wearing the D1001’s, my ears used to get a bit hot and sweaty. However I can easily wear the D5000’s for much longer periods without feeling any discomfort. In fact these are the most comfortable headphones I’ve ever worn. They are deceptively light due to the magnesium construction and don’t grip the head too tightly.

The cable is very high quality 7N-OFC (oxygen free copper) construction, covered with a mesh cloth jacket and has an aluminium cover connected to a gold plated headphone jack. The L/R channel cables connect to a generous 3 meter cable which is about 3 times thicker than the individual channel cables. If I have one gripe, it’s that the cable is just too long. If you plan to use these while on the move or at an office desk then the cable length can be a bit of a nuisance. Others may appreciate the generous length and I can imagine it’s perfect for home use, hooked up to a high quality amplifier.

Performance

When I put these on the first time, it was with feelings of much excitement mixed with doubt. I had this feeling that I would not hear much or any difference compared to the D1001 or that I’d just be plain disappointed. So I hooked the headphones to my iPhone and nervously searched for the album I always use to test any audio equipment – Radiohead’s OK Computer.
I immediately went for my all-time favourite song, Paranoid Android and hit play. Within 3 seconds, any doubts that I had about the capabilities of these headphones, totally and completely vanished. Straight out of the box, they sound amazing and noticeably superior to the D1001. There is just a huge amount of separation and ’space’ to the sound and I could really easily pick up more individual instruments than before. Not only that, each of those instruments were now exhibiting more depth and significant clarity. I was hearing and feeling the instruments spaced out at different distances and depths, with each instrument’s sound delivered with the utmost clarity and accuracy. When Thom Yorke’s haunting vocals kicked in, they sounded crystal clear and did not get muddled up with the music. The vocals just seemed to float above the music. I then briefly tried the remaining tracks in the album and they all sounded as breathtaking as the first.
I spent the next hour or so playing more of my favourite tracks from various artists such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Muse and genres ranging from dance, chillout to classical and movie soundtracks. They all sounded excellent and left a big grin on my face. I knew I was going to have a great time testing these over the next few weeks.

If you are going to use these with a portable digital music player, then make sure your music is encoded at as high a quality level as possible. At least 256kbps but preferably at 320kbps or lossless cos that’s when they sound at their best. I’ve found that with lower quality encodes, they still sound good but you just don’t get that high quality of separation and clarity as you do with higher quality encodes. And they do expose poorly encoded music for all it’s ugliness, which some people may mistake as the fault of the headphones. It’s not the headphones, they just reveal the quality of the music as it is. They are not designed to make badly encoded music sound better.
One stand out feature is the bass – it goes really deep and does stand out, adding extra depth to the music than before.
They are quite sensitive, rated at 25ohms, so most portable digital players shouldn’t have too much trouble driving them. But being a high-end, full range headphones, they will obviously sound better the more power you supply to them. I have contemplated getting a portable headphone amp in the future, to supply more power without resorting to cranking up the volume to full, but I’d like to try one out first so I can decide if it’s worth the extra cost.
My only grumble is that I’m a little bit disappointed that Denon have been too stingy to provide a holder or a pouch. The D1001’s came with a cloth pouch which proved quite useful and at this premium price point, they should have provided something similar for the D5000’s too.

Conclusion

I’ve been using the D5000’s for almost a month now and I can honestly that these are really something special. They produce such levels of clarity and depth from sound which, I did not think was possible with headphones. They are beautifuly designed and sound incredible.
They are very expensive but the sound quality is of a level you would expect at this price. You WILL definitely hear a clear difference between these and cheaper headphones.
Should you buy them? If you are a hi-fi enthusiast, willing and able to pay the asking price (though shop around for significant savings, especially online) then you should most definitely audition them. I’m sure once you’ve heard them you will be suitably impressed. If you are a budget conscience consumer however, I wouldn’t really expect you to pay this sort of price, even though I’m certain they are worth the money. My cheaper recommendation would be the D1001.