Introduction

Of the many, many audio brands that exist today, very few have impressed me like Dan Clark Audio has. The DCA CORINA is an electrostatic set of open-back headphones which, when paired with my Headamp BHSE amplifier, has given me hundreds of hours of joy listening to music while I work. It’s still the set I reach out to most today and earned my Editor’s Choice award for a reason. Then there’s the DCA STEALTH which changed my mind on how closed-back planar magnetic headphones can sound. It was the first from the brand, and indeed in any headphones from anyone, to use an acoustic metamaterial tuning system (AMTS) to enable an accurate reproduction of sound similar to speakers in a well-treated room. There was no planar magnetic driver timbre or treble peaking and I even appreciated the bass shelf despite my general preference for slightly less bass. Both of these are flagship headphones that cost $4000 or more though, so there was clearly some room for DCA’s patent-pending technology to trickle down into a more affordable product.

Before the STEALTH, the ETHER C Flow was Dan Clark Audio’s flagship closed-back set of headphones which was analogous to the ETHER 2 open-back set. I want to say that the ETHER 2, or E2 perhaps, was what Dan and his team was aiming to update, but the R&D process led to something closer to the STEALTH to where the latest from DCA is simply called E3 to not cause any confusion. A single look at the image above confirms the DCA E3 goes for the same D-shaped ear cup design that I liked from the STEALTH as well as the Aeon Closed X. This is a closed-back set that continues the use of the AMTS technology for fine-tuning the frequency response, has the same excellent headband system and, more importantly, costs half as much as the STEALTH. The Dan Clark Audio E3 has the potential to be a real winner thus, so let’s thank Headphones.com for providing a review sample to TechPowerUp as we put it to the test today in our review which begins with a look at the product specifications in the table below.

Specifications

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