Introduction

Known as MrSpeakers until 2019, Dan Clark founded the eponymous Dan Clark Audio (DCA) brand in 2012. Dan has been in the audio business for a few decades now and we first got a taste of the brand's work in the form of the Drop + DCA Aeon Closed X—a set of closed-back planar magnetic headphones which bucked the trend of poorly tuned such offerings in the market and presented a good entry point to the use of dampening materials in headphones. Dan Clark and his team have been working on this concept for a while now and shook the headphones market a couple of years ago with the release of the flagship closed-back STEALTH which debuted their Acoustic Metamaterial Tuning System (AMTS). This was then followed up by the open-back planar flagship EXPANSE and I have been wanting to try out both of these sets for a while now purely because of the materials design and engineering involved. Then things got more interesting as earlier this year saw the launch of DCA's new electrostatic headphones called the CORINA.


The CORINA is not Dan Clark's first foray into the wacky world of e-stat headphones, with the VOCE having taken that spot and still continuing to be sold today. Once again I lack context on how the VOCE sounds but that's not to say I have no experience with e-stat headphones having covered the Audeze CRBN and Nectar HiveX before and working on reviews for the HIFIMAN Shangri-La duo as we speak. Indeed, I immediately admired the extremely natural presentation of e-stat headphones when I first listened to them last year to where I ended up purchasing a $8000 Headamp Blue Hawaii Special Edition purely for them.

Imagine my delight then when learning DCA used the same BHSE amplifier to work on the CORINA, and also that this used the novel AMTS implementation too. The CORINA is classified as a flagship reference e-stat headphone which aims to address one of the biggest concerns of e-stat headphone tonalities in the form of an overly bright treble response that is compounded by many sharp peaks and dips galore. Dan Clark Audio is promising smooth mids and highs while still retaining detail and have gone the extra step in ensuring channel balance not only with driver matching but also ear pad matching—a first in this industry as far as I am aware! There is clearly a lot to unpack here in our review of the DCA CORINA, so let's thank Dan Clark Audio for providing a review sample to TechPowerUp and begin with a look at the product specifications in the table below.

Specifications

Packaging and Accessories

The Dan Clark Audio CORINA ships in a thick and appropriately-sized product box, which in turn comes placed inside more-than-adequate shipping packaging with good protection all around it should you decide to purchase it directly from the company. The product box is clean in design with a smooth black base that has the product name applied specially on the front similar to how you will see it on the headphones themselves down to the use of capitalized letters and R, I in blue. A similar such applique is found on the side where we see the brand logo itself and that's about it to see here as we now confirm the use of a two-piece packaging with the lid lifting off to reveal the contents inside.


There is a soft lining on the inner side of the box to help protect against any scratches to the items inside including a certificate of authenticity printed in fancy font, a handy microfiber cloth to help keep the CORINA clean, as well as two socket head screws and an Allen key to help install/remove them—more on this later. These items come placed inside a plastic zip-lock bag that does not necessarily match the more premium unboxing experience that perhaps customers might be expecting, and the certificate too feels like it would have been better off placed inside a felt envelope, perhaps. But these are barely any issues and will be soon forgotten as you then lay eyes upon the headphones themselves. Do also note the quick user guide going over the use and maintenance of these headphones (online copy here).

You may have noted by now there is no travel/storage case which ships with the CORINA, so those who saw the compact case that ships with the STEALTH and EXPANSE need to be immediately aware of the different design of the CORINA which prevents the folding gimbal design seen there. Part of this is of course because the CORINA has different amplifier requirements, with portable e-stat amps not really worth consideration based on my experience. Also, DCA no doubt would like customers to love the CORINA so much that it always has a place as part of their audio setup, with the usual e-stat handling caveats of course. In practice it's best to place the headphones back in the box when not in use or simply purchase a good headphones stand separately.