Advanced Sound is on a warpath to claim a top spot in every audiophile category, and at every price point. With previous hits such as the M4 and Model 3 under their belt, Advanced Sound launched themselves into the messy market of planar-magnetic headphones with the Alpha.

You can find the Alpha for sale here, on Advanced Sound’s official website, for $500.

Disclaimer: This unit was provided to me free of charge for review purposes. I am not affiliated with Advanced Sound beyond this review. These words reflect my true, unaltered, opinion about the product.

Preference and Bias: Before reading a review, it is worth mentioning that there is no way for a reviewer to objectively pass judgment on the enjoyability of a product: such a thing is inherently subjective. Therefore, I find it necessary for you to read and understand what I take a natural liking to and how that might affect my rating of a product.

My ideal sound signature would be an extended sub-bass with a leveled, but textured, mid-bass. The mids should be slightly less pronounced than the treble, but still ahead of the bass. I prefer a more bright upper range.

Source: The Alpha was powered like so:

Hidizs AP100 3.5mm out -> FiiO A5 3.5mm out -> headphones

or

HiFiMAN SuperMini ->FiiO A5 3.5mm -> headphones

or

PC optical out -> HiFiMe SPDIF 9018 Sabre DAC 3.5mm out -> headphones

or

HiFiMe SPDIF 9018 Sabre DAC -> Sherwood AD230B -> headphones

All music was served as MP3 @320Kbps or as FLAC.

Sound Signature

Initial Impressions:

I find that it usually takes my peasently ears a bit of time to adjust to the highly detailed profiles of high-end headphones like planars. My experience with Alpha was no different. At first, the treble felt sharp and grainy. There was some that just didn’t seem right and I could never put my finger on it. But after a day or so of listening that feeling had completely disappeared. My ears had adjusted to the expanded frequency range offered by the Alpha.

Post aural adjustment the sound signature became more clear to me. The Alpha makes use of a relatively even sound signature with some boosting to the upper mids and treble for an added sense of clarity and articulation. The mids are uncolored and the bass is solid, linear, and highly extended.

Treble: Songs used: In One Ear, Midnight City, Outlands, Satisfy

Treble has traditionally been the strong suit of Advanced Sound’s audio products. The Alpha does not deviate from its heritage and is clear and articulate. You can hear every little detail all the way down to the tiny modulation in the synths of Midnight City, all without every feeling overblown or too aggressive.

The sheer speed of the treble also makes for a great sense of spatial placement in songs like Outlands. I could make out distinct groupings of string-based instrumentation very easily in ways that I have previously only been able to with headphones like the AudioQuest NightOwl Carbon.

Satisfy also proved to be a workable experience. While I can’t say that the treble was totally inert, it was definitely calm enough to not distract me from the song or put me in any level of discomfort.

Mids: Songs used: Flagpole Sitta, Jacked Up, I Am The Highway, Dreams

It’s no secret the Harvey Danger didn’t master Flagpole Sitta very well. On lower-tier headphones and earphones its common for the upper mids to devolve into a mess. That being said, the Alpha marks the third entry into my very short list of earphones and headphones that can articulate it correctly (after the NightOwl Carbon and Earnine EN120). As it turns out the opening riff has both guitars actually playing more than one note, So that’s pretty neat!

The Alpha just kept eating all my test songs for breakfast. It never missed a beat when working with any of the mid-bound instrumentation in any song. The many keyboards from Jacked Up and the long sonorous vocal runs of I Am The Highway sounded wonderful, carrying with them a phenomenal timbre and clarity.

The Alpha does well with both male and female vocals but does display some form of preference towards female ones. They sound sweet and full in a way that just makes you want to listen more and more. Vocalists like La Roux sound especially good.

Bass: Songs used: Moth, Gold Dust, In For The Kill (Skream Remix), War Pigs (Celldweller Remix)

Bass is very level and mature but never feels stingy or flat. The bass guitar in Moth had lots of depth and character to it throughout the whole song.

The Alpha provided just enough bass for Gold Dust to feel like a worthwhile experience. While I could have definitely used more rumble and higher impact, I get that this isn’t designed to be a basshead product. That said I was definitely able to get more bass quantity out of my Alpha by abusing my Sherwood AD230B’s analog equalizer, raising everything from 10Hz–250Hz by about 3.5dB.

In For The Kill’s bass-line in tough for most transducers to accurately reproduce as it reaches very far down into the sonic spectrum, requiring lots of extension to actually sound good. The Alpha performs strikingly well, bringing the oft-messy bass-line into existence with great clarity and solidity.

Packaging / Unboxing