Head"Band"
The headpiece is a pair of thinly padded pieces of molded plastic that rest on the head, attached to the cans' rotating mount via a spring-loaded piece of plastic. This is, from what i have seen, somewhat of a signature for Audio Technica, and it works well enough. This causes them to float at a position set by the tension of the spring, and thanks to the light weight of the headphones, makes the thin padding sufficient. There is a serious flaw with it though, the ear-cups only rotate horizontally, so if you have a small head, they will not surround your ears. I am fortunate as they just fit, but they form a pressure-point at the back of my jaw after long sessions because of the way they are angled.
Cans
The cans themselves are made of plastic, but solid feeling plastic, like Nintendo products, with a rigid metal mesh bearing the Audio Technica name and logo protecting the drivers and soft fabric over the ear-pads. The pads are not memory foam, but they are reasonably thick and do the job well for me aside from the aforementioned pressure points. These are immensely open headphones, with the noise made by rubbing my fingers together being audible, but they also bleed sound all-over the room, and into the ears of anyone nearby.
Edit after a few months: They remain comfortable, but after long sessions (more than four hours), they cause some tenderness on my left ear. Easily avoided by just taking short breaks, but still, it is rather relevant.
Cable
The Cable is very long, about three meters long in fact, i could mount an O2 amp and dac on the ceiling above my desk, and still have slack on the cable. As for the quality, it is pretty good, nearly as thick as a guitar cord, and has a kind of "soft touch" feel to it, like a rubberised mouse. On the end of the cable is a gold-plated 3.5mm audio plug, that can be adapted to 7mm with the included adapter (also gold-plated)
Sound
Now that i have stopped staring at them and screwing audio equipment to the ceiling, i can listen to them. Not being qualified to compare them against other headphones, i can only describe the sound. To use a single word, i choose "Clear", like glacial water, or the sky in the middle of nowhere.I listen to mainly Classical and Power Metal, with some Lost Horizon (Ethereal Metal) as well, and these do well with all, everything comes through clearly, from violins to guitar solos, everything is distinguishable from everything else, and in binaural recordings of live performances, i can almost point at where each sound is coming from (i will mention gaming separately). Drums do not quite kick the way they do with my IE60s, (IEMs, not headphones) but definitely still make themselves known. The supposed lack of base is not much of an issue for me
Gaming
Gaming on these is awesome, every footstep, every gunshot and every grenade can be both heard and, using the sound, located. You can hear the enemy's medigun crackle, the enemy trying to flank you as you try to plant the bomb, the arrows fly past in Skyrim and be ready when someone tries to be sneaky in WarThunder: Tanks.
The headpiece is a pair of thinly padded pieces of molded plastic that rest on the head, attached to the cans' rotating mount via a spring-loaded piece of plastic. This is, from what i have seen, somewhat of a signature for Audio Technica, and it works well enough. This causes them to float at a position set by the tension of the spring, and thanks to the light weight of the headphones, makes the thin padding sufficient. There is a serious flaw with it though, the ear-cups only rotate horizontally, so if you have a small head, they will not surround your ears. I am fortunate as they just fit, but they form a pressure-point at the back of my jaw after long sessions because of the way they are angled.
Cans
The cans themselves are made of plastic, but solid feeling plastic, like Nintendo products, with a rigid metal mesh bearing the Audio Technica name and logo protecting the drivers and soft fabric over the ear-pads. The pads are not memory foam, but they are reasonably thick and do the job well for me aside from the aforementioned pressure points. These are immensely open headphones, with the noise made by rubbing my fingers together being audible, but they also bleed sound all-over the room, and into the ears of anyone nearby.
Edit after a few months: They remain comfortable, but after long sessions (more than four hours), they cause some tenderness on my left ear. Easily avoided by just taking short breaks, but still, it is rather relevant.
Cable
The Cable is very long, about three meters long in fact, i could mount an O2 amp and dac on the ceiling above my desk, and still have slack on the cable. As for the quality, it is pretty good, nearly as thick as a guitar cord, and has a kind of "soft touch" feel to it, like a rubberised mouse. On the end of the cable is a gold-plated 3.5mm audio plug, that can be adapted to 7mm with the included adapter (also gold-plated)
Sound
Now that i have stopped staring at them and screwing audio equipment to the ceiling, i can listen to them. Not being qualified to compare them against other headphones, i can only describe the sound. To use a single word, i choose "Clear", like glacial water, or the sky in the middle of nowhere.I listen to mainly Classical and Power Metal, with some Lost Horizon (Ethereal Metal) as well, and these do well with all, everything comes through clearly, from violins to guitar solos, everything is distinguishable from everything else, and in binaural recordings of live performances, i can almost point at where each sound is coming from (i will mention gaming separately). Drums do not quite kick the way they do with my IE60s, (IEMs, not headphones) but definitely still make themselves known. The supposed lack of base is not much of an issue for me
Gaming
Gaming on these is awesome, every footstep, every gunshot and every grenade can be both heard and, using the sound, located. You can hear the enemy's medigun crackle, the enemy trying to flank you as you try to plant the bomb, the arrows fly past in Skyrim and be ready when someone tries to be sneaky in WarThunder: Tanks.
