Denon AH-NC732

Summary

The Denon AH-NC732 headphones are a set of noise-cancelling on-ears. With the active noise-cancelling features and a $300 price tag, the AH-NC732s are joining the crowd attempting to dethrone Bose from its pedastel amongst mainstream listeners. Like the Bose headphones, the AH-NC732s are comfortable, don’t move around much when your head does, and come with some good cable and adapter options. Unlike the QuietComfort headphones, however, the AH-NC732s can switch their cancellation on or off, letting you conserve battery life when you don’t need it. Also, audio quality gets a significant boost from shutting off the noise cancellation.

Frequency Response (2.28)

The Denon AH-NC732’s frequency response has some issues towards the higher third of the graph. The bass is emphasized, but not emphasized too much. At around 7kHz, the graph takes a huge plunge. This is the frequency you’d want to equalize up if you like drums, so this dip might take some of the punch out of drum-heavy songs. After that initial downward spike, the graph rescues itself for a very short period of time, only to fall back below the lower limit.

One thing you should look out for on these graphs are sharp lines. That means that an instrument straddling that frequency range can have a dramatically different emphasis for different notes. The sudden dip down around 7kHz and the subsequent zigzagging means that things toward the higher end might seem a bit inconsistently emphasized.

Again, the AH-NC732s have a fine response for the lower frequencies, but tend to fumble higher ones.

The average score for this section is presently 4.01, so the Denon AH-NC732s are a bit worse than average. They aren’t the worst of the headphones below, but that’s not saying much: the QC3s fall off earlier and further.

Looking at the non-QC3 comparison headphones below, it’s obvious why the AH-NC732s underperformed. Those that do stray outside the limits go nowhere near as far off their mark as the AH-NC732s (again, with the exception of the QC3s). The 6isolators have a very flat response and only dip slightly outside the limits in a very small area. It’s interesting to note that most of the active cancellers (the AH-NC732s, MDR-NC500Ds, and QC3s) follow more or less the same trend of a good bass response but an underemphasized higher end. The exception to this rule is the Creative Aurvana X-Fi, so the previous three headphones can’t blame their poor performance on some flaw inherent in active cancellation.

Headphones	Score	Frequency Response
Denon AH-NC732	2.28
Sony MDR-NC500D	4.21
Bose QuietComfort 3	1.66
Creative Aurvana X-Fi	3.32
Grado Labs SR60	5.37

Distortion (15.90)

The Denon AH-NC732 headphones have virtually no distortion when noise cancellation is turned off. As you can see, the line barely ever raises above zero for the entirety of the frequency spectrum.

When it’s turned on, however, it’s an entirely different story. That bump in the middle almost reaches 3%, which is almost distracting. If we were to score based on this performance, it would’ve gotten a 1.16, which would have been the worst distortion score we’ve assigned by a little over half a point.

Unfortunately, this distortion spike is just something you’ll have to deal with if you’re listening to an active-canceller. Sub-par sound quality comes easily when the headphones are injecting soundwaves into your music that doesn’t belong there. What we’d recommend doing is shutting off the noise cancellation when you don’t need it. Chances are, if you do, you’re in a loud enough environment that the distortion will seem like a natural byproduct of the ambient noise.

Of course, this means the AH-NC732 has the distinction of having both the best and worst distortion scores, if only for now.

In our comparisons, the AH-NC732, as our current high score topper, blows away the competition. As good as the other headphones here are, they all have more distortion than the AH-NC732s.

Headphones	Score	Distortion
Denon AH-NC732	15.9
Sony MDR-NC500D	3.33
Bose QuietComfort 3	10.0
Creative Aurvana X-Fi	4.81
Grado Labs SR60	5.59

Tracking (3.22)

The AH-NC732s had a rocky tracking test. It doesn’t have any huge swings throughout the main part, but this is a normalize graph and that short downward spike after 1kHz looks like it might’ve actually plunged down a bit further than this graph shows. Also, towards 10kHz the graph bounds upwards, meaning the volume swings dramatically to the left channel. After that point it gets a bit scribbly, but that’s typically what happens on the high end. While there aren’t any drastic pulls either way on this graph, it’s far from smooth. This being said, even the drastic swings are less than a 10 decibel shift, which isn’t particularly noticeable.

The Denon AH-NC732 has a wobbly tracking graph. Just by eyeballing the tiny little graph thumbnails below it’s apparent it didn’t do too well. Again, we don’t score on the lower or higher end of the graph since the data isn’t 100% accurate. The only pair of headphones that are comparably rocky are the Aurvana X-Fi headphones, but even they don’t jump to the height that the AH-NC732s do.

Headphones	Score	Tracking
Denon AH-NC732	3.22
Sony MDR-NC500D	6.25
Bose QuietComfort 3	2.49
Creative Aurvana X-Fi	5.15
Grado Labs SR60	7.14

Maximum Usable Volume (6.81)

The Denon AH-NC732s are capable of outputting 106.62 decibels, which isn’t great. Most headphones can output 110-120dB, which is what we award maximum points for. Anything louder than that is damaging. Reaching 106dB isn’t bad, but it might not be enough for those who like it loud.

Isolation (7.14)

The main selling point of the AH-NC732s is their active noise cancellation. Denon touts it as capable of cancelling out 99% of external sound, which is a figure vague enough to essentially be meaningless. Interestingly enough, contrary to the norm in such oversteps of marketing, the AH-NC732s aren’t bad. In fact, they have decent cancellation for a set of active-cancellers. They’re currently our second best set of active-cancellers, after the Creative Aurvana X-Fi headphones.

Like other active-cancellers, the AH-NC732 mainly blocks out bass frequencies, and like other active-cancellers, the cancellation actually creates a bit of noise towards the middle frequencies. Again, this isn’t as good as a good set of in-ears, such as the Etymotic Research ER6is, but they represent the current upper crust of active cancellation.

For the majority of those reading this review, this section is the most important one. Exactly how well does the AH-NC732s’ noise cancellation do, compared to other competitors – or, for that matter, how well does active noise cancellation even work to begin with? If you find yourself asking that question, then we certainly have an exciting array of graphs for you. Again, the blue lines are active cancellation, green lines are passive. No blue line means no active cancellation.

First of all, good ol’ earplugs seem to beat noise cancellation in terms of overall isolation, as evidenced by the Etymotic ER6is. If you’re looking for some spot reduction on bass, however, then active cancellation is something to look into. In this regard, the AH-NC732 headphones score between the QuietComfort 2 and 3. The QuietComfort 2s form a poor seal with the head (the padding is fuzzy and about as air-tight as a stuffed bear) so we weren’t surprised to see the AH-NC732s win that match-up. It’s very similar to the QC3s in terms of forming a tight seal with your head (both headphones use similar material on their pads), but the QC3s block out a bit more bass.

While the AH-NC732s and their noise cancellation aren’t the worst out of the headphones we’ve reviewed, they aren’t as good as the Bose QuietComfort 3 headphones, and both underperform versus a pair of in-ear headphones.

Headphones	Score	Isolation
Denon AH-NC732	7.14
Sony MDR-NC500D	5.19
Bose QuietComfort 3	6.28
Creative Aurvana X-Fi	7.97
Grado Labs SR60	0.07

Leakage (5.88)

The AH-NC732 aren’t the quietest headphones ever – on the contrary, they actually leak a bit more that you’d think, given their cancellation abilities. This being said, the AH-NC732 has the second-highest score in this category for a non-in-ear headphone (the Sony MDR-DS6000 currently occupies first place). This achievement doesn’t say all that much for the AH-NC732, but it also doesn’t say much for non-in-ear headphones in general. If you like listening to your music really loud, someone sitting next to you will probably hear it. If you’re in a library or quiet office, everyone will glower at you.