Dan Clark Audio AEON 2 Open

Pros: Tastefully balanced with a more emotive and lively sound signature than the Aeon Flow; Fantastic value for money.

Cons: Maybe they could make the headband easier to adjust? I don’t know. I might be in a forgiving mood today, but I’m hard-pressed to find the Aeon 2’s con at this price point. (That being said, this is the kind of sound signature that speaks to me, so I may be biased).

Elegantly balanced and multidimensional, with a classy level of warmth and color, as well a lot more charisma than its predecessor, there’s no question that the Aeon 2 is a tough competitor at this price point. In fact, I think this red baby deserves the MajorHiFi Gold Award.

I have been a big fan of the Ether C since I first heard it. For a closed back headphone it had such an open signature that it was hard to forget. The Aeon 2 does share a similar experience, given you have the right source paired with it. To me, it does really enjoy a high quality desktop DAC/AMP that unleashes its full potential.

The Aeon 2 has a nice slightly warm sound, that makes a lot of tunes very enjoyable. It puts realism first and gives a very strong impression of naturalness. It does sound good with portable players, but certainly enjoys higher quality desktop gear and scales very well with them. On top it comes with a very clever folding mechanism that transforms them into a very small and compact package. It’s a portable package through and through.