Design, Build Quality
I personally think the Wodan looks stunning. Sure the steel headband looks a bit special, but the design of the ear cups is beautiful. The woodwork also is perfect (no cracks or chips) and there’s really nothing bad I can say about it. The suede headband and ear cushions look and feel incredible.
When Kennerton enquired what design I preferred, I asked if I could have the Curly Maple wood together with the suede pads. Ever since they posted a picture of this combo on their Facebook page, I’ve loved it and so I was very happy to see they agreed to send me this exact version. OF course you can request other types of wood, and I’m sure they’ll even build you a bespoke model if you’d ask for it.
The eye catcher and one of the USP’s of the Kennerton brand, are the wooden ear cups. Every cup of this model is made of a whole piece of wood. According to Kennerton, it not only affects sounding in a positive way, but also adds a special feeling from the amount of attention to the details that the crafters put in every single unit. Kennerton explains:
“To create such a special headphone cup, we first use machine carving to create a workpiece from a wooden plank. Then the workpiece goes into polish, and peculiarity of this model is that every transition, every cell and every hollow is polished by hand. Afterwards the polished cup soaks in Italian oils used in restoration of antique furniture and best picture frames. The grids’s cells created in a specific way to form a bell like in design of a horn.”
The whole process is explained in detail on Kennerton’s website, so head over there if you’re curious about the production process.
Another thing I want to highlight is the design of the Kennerton grills. Each Kennerton headphone has a dedicated, recognizable grill and its no different this time. I really like the T-design in the Thror, but the wooden Wodan grill is just very beautiful.
I have no negative remarks in regards to the build quality of these hand built headphones. The wood is perfect, the mini xlr-connectors sit perfectly in the cups and the head band system is solid. Everything looks and feels sturdy (but feels light) and I wouldn’t worry about the build quality at all.
FYI, the pads are hand stitched, so if they don’t look perfectly identical, it’s very normal. My 3 sets are almost perfectly symmetric though, I can’t fault them.
Comfort
The Wodan features the same style self-adjusting headband as the Vali & Thekk headphones. It’s a strap-design headband which allows even weight distribution over your head. The 480g completely disappear with tis headband and the fine lambskin leather and suede ear pads are incredibly soft. The side pressure on your head is also perfect. It’s soft enough to comfortably use the Wodan four hours and hours, and it’s just tight enough to keep the headphone in place when moving around.
This to me by far is the most comfortable headphone of the Kennerton headphones and it’s just an incredibly comfortable headphone overall. Many brands can learn something from this.
Sound
Sound – Intro
According to Kennerton, the Wodan is designed “to achieve maximum performance in the speed of music. Wodan ahs a dynamic and fast reproduction which allows you to perceive every single environmental sound effect as if you were present in the place where the sounds were born.”
The Wodan is also supposed to sound softer and more analytical sounding than Odin or Thridi. We’ll find out about that later.
For the part on sound we used the Wodan as it was shipped to us: with the suede ECL-01 pads and the single ended cable. We used a multitude of sources and amps for this section.
Sound – General
First of all the Wodan is a very open, outside of your head sounding headphone. The music is around you and not in your head. You get a very spacious and airy sound, with a natural and pleasing tonality.
Soundstage-wise the Wodan scores well in width and the depth is good too but not near the level of the width. The layering could be better, more precise. Wodan absolutely impresses when it comes to “speed”. It has excellent PRaT and I really like the attack I’m hearing.
From upper bass to the mid mids the Wodan is quite linear and balanced. From what I hear there is a slight upper mid dip to enhance the vocals, and there’s more rolled off treble. The sub bass presence is more limited here, but more on that in a bit.
Body-wise I would describe the Wodan as being neutrally full. Bass and mids have good presence, and when needed bass for sure has good impact. Compared to a lot of other orthodynamic headphones, the Wodan body-wise is lighter, more neutral. That being said, I have never felt it to be lacking in this regard, it’s pleasing and natural and not overly thick, which is good. The top end of the Wodan is light, soft and very easygoing.
The tuning of Wodan isn’t fully neutral and it’s not warm either, but it’s definitely somewhere in between. The delivery is smooth and natural. I there’s one thing the Wodan is, it’s musical. So add all that up and you get very easy and pleasing listening experience. From bass to treble, the Wodan is clean and clear sounding with excellent dynamics and very nice detail retrieval.
Note extension and decay also are very nice, especially in the mid section where this comes out best. Vocals here are slightly more to the front, mostly because of that top mid range dip.
In short (TL;DR): The Wodan is neutrally warm tuned headphone with a high level of musicality. It’s very easy to listen to. You get a fast, detailed and highly dynamic sound, with energetic vocals and a soft top end.
Sound – Classics
Bass:
Bass is present in a neutral amount but it still is full sounding and comes with nice impact. Sub bass isn’t overly present however. The level of detail here is nice, and bass is dynamic but it’s not the deepest and best layered. It’s bass which is fast, easy to listen to and which is very engaging.
Mids:
The mids share the same amount of body as the bass. The mids are spacious, airy and have a lovely timbre. Note decay/extension and separation are good. The presentation is smooth and a little warmer but the airiness, naturalness and smoothness make it very musical and easy to listen to. There is a small dip in the upper mids it seems, most likely put there to make the vocals stand out. It reminds me of the Gae Bolg IEM we reviewed just last week, as it hares that exact characteristic. The mids to me have the best depth and layering.
Treble:
The top section is not as extended, and it is very easy and soft to listen to. For me personally there could be some more extension and energy on top, but that being said, the treble tuning is musical, smooth and very easy on the ear. A lot of people nowadays want exactly this kind of unfatiguing tuning, so I fully understand Kennerton’s choice here. If you like the typical high end treble tuning with heaps of detail and energy, this will sound very soft to you.
The part on sound continues on page 3. Click here or use the jumps, as usual.
