Closer Examination

The unboxing experience may have been more utilitarian but the headphones ooze luxury all the way. Indeed, when I first saw them in person my first thought was that the photos and videos online don't do much justice to the design and build quality of the Dan Clark Audio CORINA, which commands a spot in flagship headphones class. I dare say it's also a set that those not accustomed to how expensive headphones can be will still easily recognize looks and feels like an expensive product. At the same time, I also see common threads between the CORINA and the Aeon Closed X to where some of the DCA design language clearly flows across the product line. Take the headband assembly, for example, which continues the use of two thin wires. This time we have a lightweight and tough titanium alloy composition which is complemented by a wide leather suspension band that has CORINA stitched on the top with R and I in blue as we saw on the product box itself. Blue stitching continues on the edges too, as well as the underside, and the suspension band is supple and large enough to help support the mass of the headphones more evenly across a larger surface area on the top of your head to minimize hot spots and discomfort. The headband assembly meets the aluminium frame on either side where we see the DCA logo applied on the outside for further branding, albeit in a clean manner.


The inner side has the serial number engraved, among other things, and we see the use of screws to keep everything neatly assembled. This also bodes well for long term maintenance and replacement of worn suspension bands. The suspension band has a stretchy lining on either side which helps with vertical sizing of the DCA CORINA. The space between this and the titanium headband up top is effectively the amount of room you have to accommodate these on your head and it's plenty to fit people with head sizes small or large alike. The suspension band is also self-tensioning and not too resistant to moving up to where you won't feel the headphones are going to apply upward pressure on your ears, unlike some other such implementations I have used recently.


A look from the side also shows the stitching on the underside of the suspension band results in uneven, padded contact points. This also allows for air to flow between the suspension band and your scalp and thus gets around the need for ventilation holes I'd have otherwise liked to see. It allows for the clean looks to continue here which is complemented by the black and gunmetal gray colors used on the frame and ear pads alike. The headband allows for some pivoting around the yokes, if you will, and the clamp securing the ear cups adds further movement up and down to allow for decent movement of the ear cups in all three directions. This helps achieve a good fit over the ears by accommodating not only the head size but also the ear position and shape too.


The DCA CORINA is an open-back set of headphones, meaning that the ear cups are not closed off to the surroundings. This usually presents opportunities for companies to have unique patterns or motifs from an aesthetic perspective, albeit still ensuring the final implementation is acoustically transparent. With the CORINA, Dan Clark Audio has gone with an extension of the same machined aluminium used on the rest of the ear cups. These are patterns that break away from the monotony elsewhere and can be somewhat divisive in appeal—I like it myself, others I showed the headphones to were mixed on it. Underneath is empty space before we get a teaser of the electrostatic driver and the mesh on the outer side. The stator itself is invisible to the naked eye in this design, concealed behind the dust shield and mesh screen itself. That dust shield means the CORINA does not require a separate dust cover accessory similar to most other e-stat headphones on the market and this can help convince those who feel the extra care and attentions required with other e-stats is a deal breaker.


The CORINA has ear pads that have an adhesive backing tape used to help secure them in place, not unlike a few other such headphones in this price range. Going this route helps maintain a certain level of seal between the ear cups and the pads themselves. DCA also sells replacement pads for its headphones at reasonable prices, although there isn't one for the CORINA as of the time I write this review. I will also mention that the ear pads are part of the equation that's gone into the final tuning of the headphones, so pad rolling is not encouraged. DCA also says going with removable ear pads, such as with plastic locking rings or other such mounting mechanisms, also adds weight and bulk to the ear cups. This adhesive route ends up being user-friendly when it's time, and I can only imagine there will be first-party replacement ear pads sold sooner than later.

The pads themselves have a soft suede surface where they meet the skin and I've found this to help reduce any sweat and heat build-up in use. Indeed, I was surprised to find out the suede, as well as the leather around, is synthetic given they feel anything but. Dan Clark says protein leather was used to allow for tighter tolerances compared to leather and the synthetic materials also allow for the ear pads to be sewn more consistently. I can also acknowledge that leather can have batch-to-batch tolerances in material composition and thicknesses in addition to elasticity of the final material, so there is some merit to going this route. Ultimately I could not tell these were synthetics and would expect them to last the test of time compared to leather pads at least.

These pads are sculpted to where the front is narrower than the back to allow for them to more naturally go over the ears. There is also the large opening which is wider at the top than the bottom to better follow the shape of the human ear. Oh, and a careful examination here reveals the presence of the proprietary acoustic metamaterials tuning system (AMTS) on the inside with the hexagonal waveguides visible. The ear pads are also partially fenestrated on the inside to help reduce unwanted resonances. But what really has got people talking is DCA going beyond its usual good driver matching to also having matched ear pads on the CORINA. This is one of the reasons behind the use of synthetic materials on the pads given the much tighter tolerances needed to allow for the two sides to sound even further alike. I am not sure how practical it is to do so in terms of what you get in return compared to the resources put in, but this is the level of attention to detail and design that helps distinguish the CORINA as a proper flagship product.


At the bottom of the ear cups is where you will see the pre-attached cable, which in itself isn't out of the ordinary when it comes to e-stats. Indeed, you would like to have a low resistance, low capacitance cable here anyway and then you realize the CORINA operates at the now-standard 580 V pro bias so a hot-swappable cable isn't high up on the demands list. The CORINA still allows you to change out the cable thanks to the use of two screws, and this is where the provided Allen key comes in. You would do this only to change the length of the cable itself with DCA selling the CORINA with a stock 2 m long cable or optional 3/5 m cables at a higher cost. You can choose to purchase longer/shorter cables separately later on and then swap the cables out this way. The cable connectors are angled outward to avoid them hitting your shoulders and have L/R markings to help indicate the left and right channels, respectively. These then lead to a thick sheathed cable that uses high-purity silver-plated copper conductor of very low capacitance—DCA claims as low as 135 pico Farads with the 2 m cable—and there is a simple Y-splitter in use. The source side has a large barrel housing that has the STAX-style 5-pin connector headed to your preferred e-stat amplifier of choice. The cable is not microphonic and simple to route/shape as needed.