Wood you believe it? Denon’s got a new set of flagship headphones

Well thanks Denon, you’ve announced these a few days too late for me to put them on my Christmas list…

Yeah, that’s a shame – although in fact the AH-D7200, Denon’s new flagship pair of cans, isn’t actually going on sale until January 2017, so it’s not like you were going to find it wrapped up under your tree on Sunday.

Good to know. What else should I be aware of?

Well, you can see that the housings employ an eye-catching solid wood finish. All-natural walnut, to be precise, chosen due to its high density, which damps down resonance to give a cleaner, less wooly sound.

And with the headband finished in sheepskin leather and soft memory foam lining the ear pads, plus a weight of just 385g, they might just be as easy on your bonce as they are on your eyes.

Perfect for long listening sessions, then?

Yep. Fans of noodling prog rock, classical music and Guns n’ Roses albums need not fear: these cans should be light and spring enough not to give you a sore neck before the end of the first overture.

As for how they sound? Well, without having clamped them over our own lug holes (yet) we can’t attest to that, but one thing’s for sure: Denon’s really chucked all of its 50-year headphone-making knowhow into making the AH-D7200s the best cans it’s ever produced, which means 50mm nano-fibre drivers to provide the sonics and oxygen-free copper cable to ensure the cleanest signal.

Will they satisfying the exacting demands of your common or garden audiophile? Only time will tell.

And what about the damage? How much are these going to set me back?

Denon has set the RRP for the AH-D7200s at an eye-watering £699, which is a wedge and a half for a pair of headphones. But given that these are aimed at the sort of person who doesn’t mind dropping a couple of hunners on speaker cable, we suspect there may be more than a few takers come January.