Review: AKG N90Q

Introduction and design

AKG wants to push professional audio equipment to the masses with a little help from Quincy Jones. The over-ear N90Q is the result of that fruitful collaboration with the famed producer, with the goal to create an advanced and stylish set of headphones.

And, oh how advanced they are. The sound capabilities deliver, as well. But golly, are these expensive: AKG is selling its N90Q for $1,499 (about £974, AU$2,101, though there's no word on a global release at the time of writing).

But there's much more to this set of headphones than its celebrity endorsement. For the money, you're getting a heck of a lot. The headphones alone are jam-packed full of features. And its bundle of included accessories goes the distance to make you feel like the purchase was worth it. But at the end of the day, are they?

For the average listener, nope. Even for the serious listener, there are much, much cheaper alternatives that can get you arguably similar results, albeit without the fancy accessories. Even so, aside from a few design issues that impact comfort, there's a lot to enjoy if you're in the market for a set of headphones that goes all out in every way imaginable.

Design

The design of a set of headphones has to sell you even before you try listening to them for the first time. To that end, the AKG N90Q has a lot of work to do if they want to help you swallow its enormous price tag.

These headphones make a killer first impression, with a masterful mixture of build materials and a forward-thinking design that houses a bunch of cool features. First off, its headband is tasked with being the support system for the heavy cans. It looks the part, coated in leather and capped on each end with gold-painted aluminum.

AKG's headband offers ten points of size adjustment, so finding a fit with these headphones on most, if not all, heads will be easy. Its sidearms are comprised of polycarbonate with a matte-textured coating. It's a look that compliments its aluminum and leather accents.

The N90Q's earcups are the main attraction here. Designed with just as much pizzazz as the rest of the unit, what's most impressive here is how much functionality AKG packs into such a small space. Each earcup is attached to the sidearms with strong, aluminum hinges that offer 90 degrees of swivel, just enough to rest the pads on your chest. Also located on both earcups are the circular sections that jut out with slick, gold-painted aluminum detailing.

On the left earcup in particular, there isn't much to see, just an etched dial that can be rotated to adjust the bass and treble presence. Moving over to the right earcup introduces us to the gamut of its features.

There is another rotating dial over here, but this one on the right increases and decreases the volume with an intuitive twist motion. Facing the rear, there's a power button, the calibration button, which I'll go into more detail about below, and a microUSB charging port nestled together in a line.

I'd be remiss to not go into detail about the sheer amount of goodies included with the AKG N90Q. The headphones come shipped in a luxurious, albeit huge, hard carrying case. The case itself can actually be charged up to give the N90Q a boost when it's loaded inside. We've reached out to AKG for the exact mAh capacity of the case and will update when we hear back.

Opened up, there's a spot for the headphones and a capped compartment inside its head space, which contains a 3-foot cable with full inline controls and microphone, an extra 9-foot cable, a 3.5mm to 1.5mm adapter, a dual-pronged flight adapter and microUSB cable. Also included is a 2,400mAh power bank for charging the headphones on the go. Phew.

There's more yet. AKG has included a soft, leather carrying case for the N90Q that's a little more practical to lug around with you. Lastly, there's a swanky, cloth screen wipe and leather carrying case for phones no bigger, I'd guess, than the iPhone 6S Plus or Samsung Galaxy Note 5.

Performance and verdict

AKG nailed the first impression and the unit, for packing in so many functions, are fairly intuitive to use. So, how does the N90Q sound? In one word, spectacular.

But I think I'll need to use a few more. Out of the box, these headphones work wonders on your music collection without any equalizer tweaks. But, thanks to the active noise cancellation (ANC), full treble and bass control and the unique TruNote tech, the N90Q will make your music sing like you've likely never heard.

Let's start off by mentioning that every feature of these headphones feeds off the battery. So when it's dead, the music stops. Powering on the N90Q automatically triggers the ANC, which I'm pleased to say doesn't damper or negatively impact the sound whatsoever.

From there, you'll want to press and hold the calibration button for five seconds. It'll beep and boop, but under the hood, it's calibrating the headphones by using the outside noise to create an optimum frequency to cancel it out between the 52mm drivers and your ears. It's a bit of a process compared to other headphones that only require a flick of a switch to get things started, but it's worth it.

Once you get started listening, you can adjust the left dial to add bass and treble, or rotate it the opposite way to remove it. If you still aren't getting the desired effect, you can tap the calibration button to cycle between three sound stage presets.

This is no doubt the N90Q's coolest feature.

First off, there's the standard setting, which offers up the tunes in an unaltered state. Then, there's the studio preset, which is said to deliver your music as its producers intended. Lastly, there's the surround sound setting, which sounds similar to the studio effect, but extends the size of the stage vastly.

There's a setting that suits every genre of music I threw at it and each can be enjoyed distortion-free through the N90Q. These headphones even come stocked with a built-in digital-to-analog converter (DAC), so you can hook these up to a PC for lossless listening if you have the necessary hi-res audio files.

Listening to music with the N90Q, while amazing to the ears, isn't as kind to the top of your head. In my experience, adjusting the earcups down too low made the headband grind into the top of my head after about 20 minutes of use. Thankfully, a quick re-adjustment helped considerably.

As for battery life, during testing, which consisted of over 15 charge cycles, the battery lasted anywhere between 10-13 hours each time. Not too bad, considering that it's powering such a grand experience along with ANC, but you'll want to make sure that you keep the included power bank with you. Also, the inline controls and microphone work just like you'd assume they would. It's all easy to use and voice quality is completely serviceable.

Final verdict

This section of the review is where I tell you whether, based on everything that I've said so far, the product is worth your money. I've asked readers before to trust me on a verdict of a pricey item (see: Sennheiser Momentum Wireless) but this takes things to another level. The AKG N90Q are three times the cost of Sennheiser's amazing wireless headphones, which I truly love. If you're feature-crazy, the Parrot Zik 2.0 will keep you plenty entertained for around the same price.

When things are two or three times the cost of another, similar item, be it toilet paper or audiophile-grade headphones, the expected question is: is it two or three times better than the cheaper one? To answer that question for the N90Q, yes.

But should you buy them? That's a harder question to answer. These headphones try, and succeed, at a heck of a lot. At half the cost, I'd be more likely to recommend these excellent headphones. But at its current (punishing) price, you'd be better off looking elsewhere for your audiophile needs.

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