⌈ AKG Acoustics was founded in 1947 by RUDOLF GÖRLACH and ERNEST PLÖTZ in Vienna. It is one of the companies whose core business is related to the professional market, but whose headphones have also been targeted at music lovers. In 1947 it set out to produce headphones, and in 1953 it launched the first dynamic microphone, which gained popularity among radio and television broadcasters. AKG is now part of Harman International, which also includes other well-known audio brands, such as JBL, Mark Levinson and Harman Kardon. ⌋

I AM SURE THAT THE AKG LOGO has been seen by all “High Fidelity” readers, AKG – Acoustische und Kino-Geräte Gesellschaft, even if they don't remember it. After all, the brand has established itself not only in recording studios and on stage, but also in home systems. The professional part is known, for example, thanks to the C414 microphones, the famous condenser designs launched in 1971. In the following years, they were improved and used by many well-known sound engineers. We can evaluate the sound of the C414 by listening, for example, to Naim releases prepared by Ken Christianson. When recording sound in a system that he called True Stereo, he used a vintage 1978 model C414 EB; more → HERE.

Equally well-known are this company's headphone projects. Almost every recording studio in the world has one of the K271 variants in its collection, used for sound monitoring by artists. On the other hand, the K701 headphones, which we tested back in 2006 and which have remained in our system to this day, made a significant impact on the audio world once; more → HERE ˻PL˺ (Best Sound Award 2006 → HERE). Similarly to JBL, which is part of the same group, AKG also strongly entered the consumer portable audio market in the early 2010s. One of their nicer representatives was the Y50 model, whose form was designed by Rafal Czarnecki, our man, then chief designer of AKG; interview → HERE ˻PL˺. Mr. Rafał is now the design director at JBL.

▌ The N series

MID 2015 WAS AN EXCEPTIONALLY GOOD TIME for the company. While there were claims that the manufacturing quality of AKG headphones declined after production moved to China in 2009, my experience, with both the Y50 and N60NC models did not confirm that. Perhaps I was just lucky; I did not know the whole range of products on offer.

Late 2016, however, there was unexpected news of something that swept all those rumors off the board: the owner of AKG, Harman/Samsung Group, announced plans to close the Vienna factory the following year. After seventy years, an important element of industry history disappeared from the map and all 131 employees were laid off (several of them then set up the company → AUSTRIAN AUDIO). The research and development department was also closed and the company was moved to Harman's U.S. headquarters in California. This is how that part of the company history ended.

Although no one at the time confirmed the desire to close the company down, I was certain that the brand would disappear from the market. And that is what happened to some extent. It didn't participate in the 2020s boom in portable headphones the way it deserved, which was taken advantage of by JBL instead. And something tells me that this happened thanks to technologies developed by AKG, mainly for the N series. The in-ear headphones belonging to it, the N25, N30 and N40 models, were shown in March 2017. In 2018, the N Series also included all-round models, such as the N700NC.

It seems that the N Hybrid series from the year 2024, with two all-round N9 Hybrid models and the in-ear N5 Hybrid model, is to bring the company onto the market again. Interestingly, the series was presented not at an audiophile fair, but at the IFA exhibition in Berlin, thus returning to the roots of both the brand and the exhibition.

▌ N9 Hybrid

AKG N9 HYBRID are wireless all-round headphones with a closed design and a noise cancellation (ANC) system. One of their most important features is that they transmit signal using a Bluetooth codec with LDAC protocol. They can also be wired, in which case they will represent an impedance of 32 ohms, characteristic of portable headphones. As you can see, they are aimed at those who want to listen to music on the move.

They are based on 40-millimeter dynamic drivers with liquid crystal polymer (LCP) diaphragms. Their frequency response is said to be 10 Hz - 40 kHz, according to company materials. The LDAC audio codec used in them was developed by Sony, and is said to enable the transmission of high-resolution signal, up to 24 bit, 96 kHz. It allows one to transfer three times more data than standard SBC, which is expected to translate into better sound quality. It's a lossy codec, but with a high bit rate, at up to 990 kbit/s, much closer to a CD (1440 kbit/s) than the best aptX Adaptive codec to date, offering a bit rate of 420 kbit/s.

These headphones feature a closed design, which isolates us from our surroundings to a great extent. To deepen this impression, the manufacturer has incorporated the True Adaptive Noise Cancelling Technology. Its effect on sound can be set in the AKG Headphones app. As we read, “With Auto Compensation, six mics automatically detect environmental noise and make real-time adjustments”. In the same app, we can also upscale the stereo signal, as well as select the tone of the sound. It's also possible to turn off all these changes, keeping the signal unchanged (bit-perfect). In fact, this is how the headphones were tested by us.

Using the headphones is very easy. First of all, the buttons are sizable and have a convenient trip point. Secondly, you change the volume by turning the shell dial. After a while, this becomes a natural reflex. I caught myself wanting to change the volume in the same way on other headphones. The N9 Hybrid also fit well on the head. While I would prefer something soft instead of faux leather earcups, AKG is, after all, a pro market company and leather here is one of the things that differentiate it from other brands.

The headphones are charged via a USB-C port. The manufacturer declares that one charge is enough to “satisfy your all-day listening needs.” The AKG N9 Hybrid offer up to 100 hours of playback when connected via Bluetooth, with ANC turned off, and up to 85 hours using the USB-C adapter technology, also with ANC turned off. The adapter in question is slipped into one of the shells. Using it, the headphones can be quickly connected to any computer. It should be added that the N9 Hybrid come in a nice, rigid case.

▌ THE LISTENING SESSION

THE WAY WE LISTENED • The AKG N9 Hybrid headphones were tested with two signal sources: the Samsung A52 smartphone and the Shanling EC Smart CD player. In the first case, I used the USB Audio Player Pro app from eXtream Software Develompment, which allows music playback without changing the sampling rate. I was using the Tidal service at the time. The EC Smart, on the other hand, is a portable CD player equipped with a Bluetooth transmitter.

My point of reference were the following wired and wireless headphones: the Lime Ears Pneuma, review → HERE, and the Final ZE8000 Jibun Dummy Head, review → HERE.

» ALBUMS USED IN THE TEST ⸜ a selection

⸜ FRANK SINATRA, Sinatra Sings Gershwin, Columbia/Legacy/Sony Music Entertainment 507878 2, CD ⸜ 2003.
⸜ NOVIKA, Tricks of Life, Kayax 013 CD ⸜ 2006.
⸜ PAT METHENY, What’s It All About, Nonesuch/Warner Music [Japan] WPCR-14176 ⸜ 2011.
⸜ NIRVANA, In Utero, Geffen Records | Sub Pop GED 24536, CD ⸜ 1993.
⸜ IGGY POP, Après (10th Anniversary Edition), GM Records | Le Rat Des Villes/Tidal, FLAC 16/44,1 ⸜ 2012.
⸜ CHARLI MUSSELWHITE, Look Out Highway,Fotry Below Records/Tidal, FLAC 24/96 ⸜ 2025.
⸜ LANA DEL RAY, Henry, come on, Universal Music Operations Limited/Tidal, SP, FLAC 16/44,1 ⸜ 2025.
⸜ MISS MONIQUE, Magnet, Tomorrowland Music/Tidal, SP, FLAC 24/44,1 ⸜ 2025.

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NOTHING HURTS AS MUCH AS a confrontation with a hero who proves to be an ordinary human being, with all their weaknesses. It is, moreover, often the case that it is a person who is not very interesting, and sometimes even repulsive.

Working at a theater, I experienced this type of feelings many times, more often than I would have liked. My discomfort was so great that I quite quickly stopped interacting with actors, directors, screenwriters, composers, musicians, etc. beyond doing a reliable job. I also stopped collecting autographs on CDs from artists who had concerts at my theatre. That's how I lost, for example, the signatures of polish artists like: Stanisław Sojka, Krzysztof Penderecki, Ewa Demarczyk or the Chłopcy z Placu Broni band. Was I right? In the case of those cited above, rather not. For the most part, what I thought earlier about the heroes of my imagination did not come true, but, overall, I avoided many disappointments.

Returning after years to beloved, respected, idealized audio brands is similar. On the one hand, there is joy, like after returning home from a long trip. On the other hand, we experience uncertainty about whether everything at “home” is as we remember it, if nothing has changed and whether what we find there will be good for us. Such was the case with me and the AKG headphones. As soon as the manufacturer's European representative approached me about their test, I impatiently but anxiously awaited the arrival of a package with the N9 Hybrid headphones.

Interesting, but this approach does not include a reflection on how we change and how we thus modify our approach to the “regained” audio company. And we do change, simply by learning new sounds, revising our ideas and expectations, educating ourselves with theory, i.e., by growing. Therefore, my return to AKG, one of the most important headphone companies in my life, whose products were owned by all my relatives at some point, was a meeting of two unknowns – the company and me.

In the case of the tested N9 Hybrid headphones, the thing went beyond that, as they were the first headphones from this company that I was to listen to that worked with Bluetooth and not with a cable. As it turned out, their sound did not at all resemble what I had remembered and what I still reminisce while listening to the K271 Studio and K701 models. For the most part, it's a much more pleasing sound than from the studio systems of past years, close to what the long-standing top-of-the-line K701s provide.

First of all, the tested headphones have a very nicely set tonal balance: neither too bright, nor too dark. This is not the velvety smoothness of the K701, nor the dark depth of the Final DX6000 headphones. It's not even the resolution and depth of the Final ZE8000 Jibun Dummy Head in-ear headphones. This is something else. The message I got with them was, on the one hand, very resolving, and smooth on the other. It was resolving, as, while listening to FRANK SINATRA recordings from the album Sinatra Sings Gershwin, I could easily follow the changes in sound quality, its class, and even pinpoint precisely what was changing. And it was smooth, because every album I listened to with them sounded in an engaging and very pleasant way.

Soft beats of electronic bass opening the cover of ˻ 8 ˺ California Dreaming, song written by John and Michelle Phillips, and mostly known for its performance by The Mamas & The Papas (1965), were really soft, really deep and really enjoyable. NOVIKA’s version from the album Tricks of Life of which I speak, is dreamlike, ambient, dreamy. It differs completely from the well-known one, as well as from the exuberant, almost disheveled version by jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery from 1967. And that's how it was shown, i.e., without attacking me, though with tangible sound.

This tangibility is not, I repeat, obtrusiveness. The tonal balance of the AKG headphones is more on the warm side, but just a little bit. The sound attack is gently sweetened, causing PAT METHENY's guitar in What’s It All About album opening track, ˻ 1 ˺ The Sound Of Silence, not to have too bright edges, or too hard a beat. It's not that the AKG headphones are hiding something, as also with Sinatra I had moments when I had to turn down the sound (by the way – thanks to the knob, it is very convenient). But it was simply the honesty of the headphones to the source material, not their temperament.

It was similar when I listened to IGGY POP’s Après album from Tidal, in a remaster prepared for the 10th anniversary of its release. The low, dark, husky vocals of a well-aged man were very, very enjoyable, open but smooth. And in 9 ˺ Michelle, the choir positioned in a semi-circle behind the vocalist, humming a tune, had a great perspective. Next to the smooth, almost soft entry into the music, it is the perspective from which we view events that seems to me to be the most interesting aspect of their sound with these headphones.

The headphones show events a little further from us than I've got used to with other closed-back headphones. In the “Ambient Aware” mode, the foreground was a bit distant from me, as if I were listening to music through speakers. But it wasn't too far away – the music played was still tangible. Axial sounds, like CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE's vocals and guitar from ˻ 1 ˺ Look Out Highway, the opening track of his album of the same title, were shown from a distance, while what was on the sides was more “here and now.”

With highly compressed material, sound will be shown closer to us. The classical guitar heard at the beginning of Henry, come on, the new single by LANA DEL RAY, was deep and strong in presence. The vocals had a large and long reverb, but its forefront was also close to us. And it was only the orchestra that was presented further away. I think this is how it was meant to sound, including the acoustic guitar playing rhythmically in the left channel.

One exception to the good feeling was turning on the noise reduction system. It acts powerfully, but in the process it also changes the timbre. It lowers the sound, pumping up the bass. I think a lot of listeners might like it, but for me it was a step towards coloration, or rather classic doping and pumping up of some of the low midrange and bass, synonymous with changing the timbre. So, after trying this option and turning it off, I conducted the entire test without the ANC system turned on.

▌ Conclusions

THE RETURN AFTER YEARS proved to be a return to a new place already, but still with what I would call a “memory” of the old place. The AKG N9 Hybrid headphones have rich sound. They don't exude pumped-up bass, nor do they attack with harsh treble. They are velvety in a way, with the velvet known from the K701. However, they are also very dynamic – both classical, jazz and club music, like MISS MONIQUE’s Magnet I'm listening to right now from the digital single under the same title, will be shown as spirited and full of energy.

However, it will be energy that does not penetrate our head. It's a very well-balanced sound in all respects and nothing is exaggerated in it. On the other hand, the sound is not boring. I listened to a wide variety of recordings, as diverse as the aforementioned Ukrainian DJ, but also a transfer from the transcript of LE SIROTY's radio broadcasts playing Mozart, in a reissue from the Japanese publisher Sakuraphon. It didn't matter what I was listening to, what provenance, all that mattered was that I wanted to listen to just this or that. It was a nice, good comeback. Hopefully, for a longer time. ●

▌ Technical specifications (according to the manufacturer)

Frequency response: 20 Hz – 40 kHz
Impedance: 32 Ω
Sensitivity: 98 dB SPL/1 kHz
Maximum SPL: 95 dB
Microphone sensitivity: -38 dBV/Pa/1 kHz
Max input power: 30 mW
Bluetooth version: 5.3
Power supply: 5 V, 1 A
Weight: 281 g

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THIS TEST HAS BEEN DESIGNED ACCORDING TO THE GUIDELINES adopted by the Association of International Audiophile Publications, an international audio press association concerned with ethical and professional standards in our industry, of which HIGH FIDELITY is a founding member. More about the association and its constituent titles → HERE.

→ www.AIAP-online.org