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AKG N9: Two minute review
As someone who tests headphones for an income, I’ve got a roster of “X headphones” for specific tasks. I’ve got my best headphones for music, my running headphones, a gaming headset, a pair of the best earbuds when it’s too hot for headphones, and a set-up for movies and TV shows too.
The new AKG N9 from Samsung‘s sub-brand’s sub-brand, AKG, didn’t slot into this line-up as much as they replaced half of them, and it’s largely down to one handy feature which we also saw in their contemporary earbuds equivalent, the AKG N5.
I’m not going to do that clickbait headline thing of alluding to a feature and then dancing around the topic, only specifying it 20 paragraphs in: this feature is a dongle which comes build into the AKG N9, and if you plug it into any USB-C slot, it overrides that device’s audio output into the N9.
Borrowing a partner’s laptop for a quick video call? Dongle it. Don’t want to play games out loud for fear of annoying a flatmate? Dongle it. Really can’t be bothered to set up Bluetooth on every device you own? Dongle it. That’s not to mention that this dongle has a higher quality connection than Bluetooth, affording higher-quality music and entertainment.
Within days of me realising the potential of this dongle, I’d begun using the N9 for a range of tasks that I usually afford to bespoke speakers or headphones; I was watching movies from my iPad, playing video games on my PC and taking calls on my girlfriend’s tablet. And now you can take a break from reading the word ‘dongle’ for a bit.
A handy way to instantly and temporarily connect to any device is a killer feature, but it’s not the only one the AKG N9 offer. The AKG Headphones app is full of extras like dynamic EQ, spatial audio, L-R panning and a hearing test to create you a bespoke audio profile.
There’s also a battery life that stretches up to a staggering 100 hours if you listen on Bluetooth with noise cancellation off, but lasts for over a day even if you turn on all its power-hungry features.
Of course, I wouldn’t be commending headphones like these if they sounded bad; they don’t, with AKG’s staple neutral audio mix delivering detailed music and an expansive sound stage.
I’m not used to writing so many positives in an introduction, so it feels weird to keep going, but one more thing: the AKG N9 are some of the best-designed headphones I’ve ever tested. Not only do they look premium but lots of the features are smartly incorporated into the design, with the dongle nestled in a little nook in one cup and volume being controlled by easily twisting one side of the cans. AKG clearly treats design as an important part of the headphone-making process, instead of an afterthought to hold a few drivers and buttons together, and it’s appreciated.
Unless you’re Sir Mix-a-Lot, you probably don’t like big “but…”s, and unfortunately the AKG N9 have a major one: the price. There’s no two ways about it: these are premium headphones and many buyers’ budgets won’t come close to reaching them. That said, they’re expensive, but they’re not four-figure-cost expensive like many of the true best headphones are, so perhaps sales will bring them within reach if you’re interested.
Since I have to list three ‘cons’: I also feel like the Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) could have been a little bit more robust, as it doesn’t compare with top dogs on the market right now. Plus, you can’t fold up the headphones for increased portability, which made transporting them in my bag a risky proposition.AK
AKG N9 review: Specifications
|
Component |
Value |
|
Water resistant |
NA |
|
Battery life (quoted) |
100 hours (ANC off) 55 hours (ANC on) |
|
Bluetooth type |
Bluetooth 5.3 |
|
Weight |
281g |
|
Driver |
40mm |
AKG N9 review: Price and availability
- Announced in October 2024
- Priced at $399 / £299 / AU$499
- Expensive… but competitive to rivals
After making their debut in October 2024, the AKG N9 went on sale that same month. They’ve been on sale for roughly a year, by the time of this review.
The AKG N9 don’t come cheap. They’ll set you back $399 / £299 / AU$499, which firmly cements them as premium cans that you need to consider carefully before you buy.
They cost more than some of our favorite rivals including the iconic Sony WH-1000XM4 and Cambridge Audio Melomania P100, but then again, they undercut (to a decent extent) the B&W Px8, Dali IO-8, the Sony WH-1000XM6 and Bose QuietComfort Ultra.
I should point out that a year on shelves seemingly hasn’t affected the headphones’ usual price (outside of sales)… except in Australia, where they were easy to find for as little as AU$309 which is an absolute steal.
AKG N9 review: Design
- Premium-looking sleek cans
- Features incorporated into design
- Doesn’t fold down and no IP rating
On the surface, the AKG N9 might look like any old pair of headphones, but there are a few refinements and polishes that go a long way in making these look both premium and feel ultra-functional.
I’m talking about the soft fabric of the headband (either leather or a close imitator), the comfortable earpads, the sparkling sheen of the speaker covers, svelte fashion of the headband connectors. It all comes together to make it obvious to onlookers just how much you paid for these cans. They come in either white or black.
The headphones weigh 281g so despite some option extras that we’ll get to, they’re on the lighter side of things, and I found them comfortable to wear for long music bouts and entire movies. There’s no IP rating, as far as I can tell, but they felt sturdy enough that I wasn’t worried wearing them out and about.
I also had no qualms in wearing them for long periods of time, as they’re comfortable and lightweight.
The headband connectors are extendable by about two inches each, letting you change your headphones’ size. One thing to note is that the headband can’t be folded, so you can’t reduce the size of the N9 to fit in a bag. Instead they can be transported in a rather large carry case that comes included in the price.
As with all the best headphones, each cup provides some useful controls. On the right side we’ve got a slider which lets you turn on the headphones as well as put them into Bluetooth pairing mode, as well as a pause/play button and USB-C charging port – and, in one of my favorite implementations of a volume rocker, the entire headphone cover can be rotated clockwise or anticlockwise to change the volume. This was incredibly easy to use, to save me fiddling with small buttons on the headphone.
The left cup has a 3.5mm headphone jack and a toggle for Ambient Aware noise cancellation, and I thought that was it at the beginning of my testing… until I realized that you can partially slide the headphone cover off to reveal a USB-C dongle underneath. Some may be annoyed that they’re carrying the extra weight of this dongle on the head but it’s only a few grams, and these are still nice and lightweight headphones.
AKG N9 review: Features
- Hugely long battery life
- App brings loads of features
- Useful dongle connector
The dongle is one of my favorite features of the AKG N9; you can plug it into any device with a USB-C port to instantly (and, vitally, temporarily) connect to said device without having to go through the laborious pairing method.
I used this to connect to my iPad, my laptop and my PC at various times in order to quickly watch a video, take a call or do some work, and it’s incredibly convenient – in fact, for a while during testing the N9 became my go-to gaming headset. One thing to note is that once during testing the connected device still played music out of its speakers instead of using the N9, and I never really worked out why – like the N5, it worked 90% of the time, but there were a few teething problems.
Another thing I absolutely love is the battery life of the AKG N9, which if you play your cards right lasts for an entire 100 hours. ‘Playing your cards right’ involves listening via Bluetooth with ANC turned off and if you want ANC on, that figure drops by 45 hours; likewise using the dongle cuts about 15% of your listening time over Bluetooth.
However AKG’s lowest battery expectation, specifically talk time over the dongle, is still 30 hours, which beats quite a few competitors. So the battery life is great whatever you do, and it’s fantastic that people who need a lot of listening time on one charge have the option of dialling down the features to get that fantastic figure.
Let’s touch on that active noise cancellation, which so dramatically affects the battery life. AKG has given the N9 a range of ANC modes: Ambient Aware which cuts out ambient background sound but allows in important nearby ones, TalkThru which does the same but just for voices, and a standard ANC mode which has extra modes for Adaptive ANC which changes the noise cancellation strength depending on your surroundings and Auto Compensation which does the same based on how you’re wearing the N9.
It’s a pretty overwhelming array of options for non-audiophiles but it does let you get into the nitty-gritty of what you can and can’t hear. However even at its strongest tier the ANC is only good, never great, and quite a few rivals are better for removing background sound.
Those aren’t the only overwhelming options in the feature set, because the AKG Headphones App has an absolutely huge roster of perks, including the ability to balance your sound to the left or right, change how voices sound on calls and play with a 10-band equalizer.
As in the AKG N5, the app lets you choose between listening to high-res audio, or enabling a few other features including spatial audio, dynamic EQ for low volumes and Personi-Fi. This latter is a hearing test that provides you with a custom audio mix.
AKG N9 review: Sound performance
- 40mm drivers
- Balanced sound profile
- Textured audio in high-res mode
The AKG N9 pack 40mm dynamic drivers with what the company calls “liquid crystal polymer diaphragms” which are designed to improve the detail and clarity across the board.
It works because the N9 have a beautifully balanced sound profile, which doesn’t dominate your mix with too much treble or overblown bass (though it also gives you a nice springboard to use the equalizer to change this if you like a wonky sound mix).
Instead you’re getting a detailed glimpse across the bow of an entire orchestra or band, full of texture and detail. You can hear the scoop of a bass guitar string, the strike of fingers on piano keys – I almost felt like I could tell which guitar strings were being strummed during chords.
There’s an audible sound spread too, and I noticed mids in several songs holding a distinct space that many rival cans lose. It’s an effect that makes these just as great for movies and gaming as for music, and I went so far as to use these headphones instead of my gaming headset during the testing period.
At times I did feel like songs lacked a an extra ounce of energy, with the bass in particular missing a touch of momentum, but these aren’t huge issues – I’m only nit-picking here to justify the score below not being a full 5 out of 5.
- Sound performance score: 4/5
AKG N9: Value
If you’ve read the price section already, you’ll know that the AKG N9 have an uphill battle in proving themselves in the value department (and if you didn’t read that section, they cost $399 / £299 / AU$499).
Basically no headphones costing that much present a real value proposition, not when you can get great alternatives for a third of the price, but for what it’s worth the AKG N9s come closer than most.
The inclusion of the dongle, the useful cup controls, the range of features and high-quality audio all come together to make it clear that AKG is giving you some value for money… just not as much as if you’d paid a lot less money.
I will say, though, that these are primed for deals in Black Friday and Amazon Prime Days. So if you don’t think you can afford them, it could be waiting to see how low the price goes.
AKG N9 review: scorecard
|
Category |
Comment |
Score |
|
Value |
AKG goes some way in justifing the price of the N9, but they’re easily beaten in this department. |
4/5 |
|
Design |
Not only do the cans look great, but the design neatly incorporates many of the headphone’s features. |
4.5/5 |
|
Features |
From the Bluetooth dongle to the range of app features to the long-lasting battery, everything’s working here. |
5/5 |
|
Sound |
The N9 has a nice balanced sound profile that will please most listeners, if not owners of the real top dogs. |
4/5 |
AKG N9: Should I buy?
Buy them if…
Don’t buy them if…
Also consider
|
Component |
AKG N9 |
Cambridge Audio Melomania P100 |
Sony WH-1000XM6 |
|
Water resistant |
NA |
NA |
NA |
|
Battery life |
100 hours (ANC off) 55 hours (ANC on) |
100 hours (ANC off) 60 hours (ANC on) |
40 hours (ANC off) 30 hours (ANC on) |
|
Bluetooth type |
Bluetooth 5.3 |
Bluetooth 5.3 |
Bluetooth 5.3 |
|
Weight |
281g |
330g |
254g |
|
Driver |
40mm |
40mm |
30mm dynamic |
How I tested
I tested the AKG N9 for two weeks, doing so alongside their contemporary siblings the AKG N5 (which are earbuds).
As you’ll know from reading this review I tested them on loads of devices: Bluetooth from my smartphone, 3.5mm on an iPod Classic and 2.4Ghz dongle on a Windows PC, Windows laptop, iPad and Android tablet.
This was done for a range of functions; mainly listening to music and streaming audio but also gaming, movies and video calls. I tested at home, in the office and around my neighborhood, including on a several-hour-long trip.
- First reviewed: September 2025
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tom.bedford@futurenet.com (Tom Bedford)
