MomijiTMO
Headphoneus Supremus
Disclaimer: I’m just a uni student and am into headphones as a consumer of music. Take anything I write with a grain of salt – I don’t claim to have a ‘better’ opinion than another person. I do try and be as objective as I can be. Feel free to slander anything I say - I think it is a good thing.
Background:
The AD2000 is a headphone which has a decent reputation but the high asking price relative to the HD650 and K701 makes it less attractive to many headphone lovers. Asr, through his loaner program and review, attempted to get these headphones out into the public as few people knew much about them. Audio Technica has many fans of the AD700 and to a lesser extent, the AD900 yet there are significantly less fans of the AD1000, AD1000PRM and the AD2000 relative to their competitors. Could this be because they don’t stack up? Well in my encounter with the AD1000, I do think they spar fairly well.
From reading Head-Fi threads, you seem to see the same thing posted about the AT line up. I feel ciphercomplete captured some of the key feelings people have from absorbing the information floating about. Whether this information is right or wrong is largely irrelevant as it is there and it will affect your opinions if you haven’t heard the headphones. [I have edited his post for my sanity]
Quote:
From reading reviews and skimming other threads, I thought the AD2000 was going to be sort of like what ciphercomplete so nicely summarised. My one experience with a full size AD model had set some expectations of an airy and spacious headphone but not to the point of K701 sound stage. I was a bit sceptical of the HD650 comparison and thought it would be like my AD1000 except it would have more bass, more mids and most importantly, less highs. I was expecting lots of detail like the AD1000, if not more. Seeing I really enjoyed the AD1000, I thought this just might be MY headphone.
My Motives:
The more information out there, the easier it is for people to make a decision. While there are some great AD2000 reviews and theads, there is little linking them together. I’d like to try and do that in this quasi review.
There are some important reviews to look at, some of which I refer to in my review.
Asr’s AD2000 review
Ldj325’s review from asr’s AD2000 loaner program
Patrickhat2001’s review from asr’s AD2000 loaner program
Nhat_thanh’s AD700, AD900, AD1000 and AD2000 comparison
MikoLayer’s impressions
Purchase:
I bought these off the forums. They were recabled by Moon Audio with Black Dragon and were originally balanced. The last owner had them reterminated to single ended [Furutech FP704 – damn it’s heavy]. I know there are at least 3 prior owners, making me the forth. It would be a fair call to say they have been burn-in enough. While I don’t believe in burn-in changing the sound in any meaningful way, you might not so this will put your mind at ease.
Packaging:
These headphones are no longer available in Australia but they were around the 1000AUD mark. Amazon currently have them for $499 which is still more expensive than the HD650, DT880, D2000, K701 or K702. For the extra asking price you would expect something better than the same box that the AD1000 comes in. I’m not very excited about this cardboard box and while I was ok with it for the AD1000, I’m going to hammer AT for it in this AD2000 review. This is not acceptable. The recable should mess with the sound too much.
Comfort:
In almost every single review I’ve read about this headphone, the heavy clamping force is always mentioned. Now being at least the fourth owner, I would have assumed that they would have less clamping than when new. When I first put them on my head, they were tight. After 30 minutes, my ears got quite sore from both the high clamping force and the fact that your ears rest on the driver cage. Unlike other headphones, AT use what closely resembles one of those kitchen sink drain strainers you use to stop large objects from going down your drain. It is hard and not flat and caused great discomfort. I don’t have a large melon and my ears don’t stick out. I would assume that this fit issue would be a hell of a lot worse for people who are bigger than me.
Moving on from the clamping factor, the normal AT wing design is back and is as pleasant as always and the pads are made from the same material as the AD1000 pads. These are not velour and are soft to touch. I don’t get any itching which some AD700/AD900 users experience. Out of all the material I’ve seen on pads, these are the most comfy on my skin and they allow my skin to breathe. The usual AT pad fit issue is back and with the high clamping force, it is even worse. You could try the phat mod for a better fit.
After the forth day of use, I guess I got a bit of HTFU as I don’t suffer from as much discomfort as I did at the start. I still prefer to have my ears touching the back of the pads and roughly in the centre. The closer you get to the pads, the further you move your ears away from the drain strainer. Fifth day report is that I've found the happy place and have no discomfort whatsoever. Hooray.
Phat Mod:
Tried it, hated it. Yes it is makes the headphone more comfortable but it does change the sound quality of the headphone. With the AD1000, it made it rubbish. With the AD2000, things weren’t so bad. The mids settled back into the mix, the detail improved and most importantly the smearing wasn’t as bad as it was without the mod. I’ll mention this ‘smearing’ later on. The Phat Mod is not something I would do but could be akin to defoaming your Senns as it changes the sound. Whether this is a pro is up to you.
Appearance:
Are they blue or are they black? The colour is like a slightly darker arsenic which matches the lighter colour of the pads. You can see that they have some kind of blue sparkly bits in my photos. The wing attachment is different to the AD1000/AD900 which itself is different from the AD300/400/500/700. The beams aren’t covered like the rest of the AD line and in my opinion looks much nicer. Otherwise they look pretty similar to the AD1000. Pics at the end.
Set up:
This is the same set up as I had during my AD1000 review. MF V-dac -> CKKIII -> Headphones
Reviewing Methodology:
I like to listen to my newly purchased headphone for a few days to ‘get’ the sound. Call it driver burn in if you want, I’d call it mental burn in. After this period I start comparing it to my other headphones and start the critical listening phase. Following this, I’ll go back to enjoying the music and return to my analysis a day later to see if these differences were are in fact real and not something I was scraping off the bottom of the barrel. It’s important to acknowledge that with audio, our brains can do some bizarre things and these anomalies need to be filtered.
When I compare headphones I do both AB/ing over certain sections as well as listening to a song a couple of times and then switching. Neither way is conclusive. Sometimes I'll think I hear a difference listening to a 30 second section of a track only to realise my brain needed to adjust to the sound. After that period, the issue doesn't appear.
The Sound:
Obviously all impressions are based of MY set up. Take note of that. Don’t forget that my ears are different from yours
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Bass:
The AD2000s might be viewed to be a bright headphone by some but don’t let that confuse you about the bass. The AD2000 hits with great impact and extends quite deep. Kick drums hit hard and linger for about the same time as they do in real life. The D2000s love to just hold bass kick drums for so long that if you’re listening to Psycroptic, they overlap and are muddy. With the AD2000, bass drums are not muddy, even when listening to Nile.
“Techy Techy” by Yoji Biomehanika is one of my favourite bass testing songs and the AD2000s excelled. In comparison, the HD650 doesn’t hit as hard or as deep although there appears to be more bass overall. The AD1000 fails at this test as the impact isn’t anywhere near its big brother’s and the K701 follows suite. Listening to “Advanced” by Marcel Woods is another great track to test the bass response of headphones. It’s one of those iconic songs and has a section with a lot of bass and rumbling sub bass. The AD2000’s fed those notes into my head but the HD650 had a bigger serve which made me a bit nauseous. I didn’t feel these notes on the AD1000 while the K701 did an ‘ok’ job. With those headphones, nothing rattled my brain but I did feel it somewhat.
When listening to rock or metal, the bass does take a back seat to the mids. It’s not as bad as with the AD1000 where sometimes the bass guitarist seems to decide to go for a walk or how you occasionally have to concentrate to hear the various drums. That said, the smearing effect mentioned later does somewhat mask the bass guitarist in most metal recordings.
Mids:
Ahhh aural bliss. I really love the mids of AD1000 and these are indeed even more forward. Guitars are nice and up front too and the way the AD2000 positions them in the mix, gets me fired up. They also have more body than the K701 and AD1000 which I think is a fairly large difference. It is like you are in the front row when listening to rock or metal. You really feel the music, especially if it is a vocal orientated track.
Vocals just have a glow to them and they take centre stage of the mix. With some headphones like the D2000, the vocalist just seems to be overpowered by the guitars and drums. That can happen at some crappy venues but normally the vocalist should be heard! Not only are they more forward, there is so much extra detail in the vocals and you can almost feel and hear their chest moving with each breath. The AD1000 is much more thinner so things are more detailed but also dry and sterile. While it was a step up over the HD650 in terms of mid presentations, you didn’t hear the heft of their voice. I know the K701 is said to make female vocals magical but I feel these trounce them, effortlessly. Listening to “The Host of Seraphim” by Dead Can Dance was quite an experience with these headphones. Lisa’s vocals are beautiful yet so sad. The emotion was there for you to touch. The K701s didn’t press my emotion buttons anywhere near as much. Male vocals don’t sound as amazing to me from the AD2000.
Treble:
While the AD1000 came off as harsh at times, the AD2000 is much more tame. It doesn’t appear to have any significant roll off like the HD650 does and for this reason, the headphone works fairly well with electronic genres. I guess I’m caught in the middle because I actually enjoy unusually louder highs with trance as it seems to just add more energy to the music. For a while, I was struggling when deciding if I’d like to listen to the AD2000 or its little brother. Thankfully, the extra lower presence of the AD2000 makes me want to pick them up. There isn’t much to write home about the treble. If you HATE bright headphones, these could be too bright for you. I think it would fall into the acceptable range for most folks.
Attack and Decay:
Fast. These headphones are fast. They easily out do the AD1000 on speedcore which happened to be the fastest headphone I owned. The decay is nice too and notes don’t hang around any longer than they should [D2000 anyone?].
Sound Stage and Presentation:
The sound stage of these headphones is smaller than the AD1000 which Nhat_thanh noted. As I wrote in my AD1000 quasi review, the AD1000 has a bigger sound stage than the HD650/580 but is much smaller than the K701. I favoured this sense of space out of all the headphones I had. The AD2000 has an slightly smaller sound stage. In general, the sound stage is bigger than the HD650 and is more complete. However, as soon as the music increase in complexity, something peculiar occurs.
While this may be a forward headphone that some say is like the Grado sound, I would pick the MS1 I had over these for metal. If you listen to heavy metal, then things should be ok. However, if you happen to enjoy your technical death, black, power or thrash metal where speed is something bands wear like stickers, then these headphones seem to run out of steam. Normally the vocalist is standing 1 or 2 metres from your face and the guitarists are in arms reach of them. When everyone is doing their guitar wankerage, all of a sudden the guitarists seem to be standing slightly closer to you! I’ve never seen a live band do that before
. Ldj325’s review mimics my findings -
Quote:
The second oddity was that when things did get complex, the guitarists seem to stretch ever so slightly. By this I mean that before you could point to where they were with a good deal of confidence but when you the guitarist started ferociously tremolo picking, the sound would warp, as if someone smeared the sound with a fine paint brush. I first thought of this smearing as a veil as the detail goes out the window. The strange thing is that it surfaced in most of my metal recordings but I had no issues whatsoever with other genres. Sure there was the odd song or two what got a little excited causing the smearing to begin but it wasn’t every second song. Further digging lead me to Patrickhat2001’s review –
Quote:
“Crippled Thrash” by The Senseless was a great song to mess around with this oddity. The Senseless are a death grind band and the start of this song is pretty quiet. When things sort of explode, it sounds like the guitarists have jumped two or three steps towards you. When things pipe down, they seem to take a few steps back.
Asr commented on dispersion which I think is what I call smearing. He describes this dispersion as fixing sound to a specific location on the sound stage. It’s possible that this headphone’s best use is with orchestral pieces but it is not something that I can answer.
Quote:
Now whether this is a major flaw or not is up to the listener but it’s bloody weird to me. I first thought there was something wrong with my set up or the used AD2000s. However, after seeing others mentioning it, I can assume it’s more than just crazy old me. Then again, one could easily argue that this only occurs on a couple of genres so why would you get so worked up over this? Well I’ve never heard this before as none of the AD2000’s competitors I own run into this issue. The AD1000 doesn’t encounter this issue. At the end of the day, I view this smearing as a minor problem. We aren't talking about a complete loss of detail or instant fuzziness. It's not a major flaw to me and I prefer the HD650 over the AD2000 for my metal collection. In every other genre I listen to, the AD2000 runs rings around the HD650.
While I’ve been flaming the AD2000’s compact and aggressive sound stage, it is still airy and better than a closed headphone. If you had to imagine the room you are in when wearing these, you would be thinking of that small, cheap venue where some lights don’t work, the drinks are cheap and the toilets are feral but the sound set up is pretty awesome. It’s not the greatest stage and you can’t really move around much because of how small the venue it BUT it’s got character. This is where the K701s fail at as they sound like you are at an open air festival where there are no boundaries. The stage can appear to be 60 metres wide and about 20 metres deep. If I’m going to knock the AD2000, I would have to knock the K701 even more. The HD650 in comparison is like the decent venue with expensive drinks and a 12 metre stage. It has some terrible acoustics [the three blobs in your head] but you can hear the boundaries and the band seems to the normal distance from each other. I can’t make any stage analogies to anything other than metal because that is the genre I’ve seen the most live bands with and know the best.
A quick collection of other Head-Fi'ers opinions of the AD2000 sound stage and presentation.
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We have different ways of assessing the sound stage but we arrived at the same conclusion. I didn't notice it as much during the vocals as the guitars got it the worst.
SIZABLE UPDATE : Going from the v-dac to the more neutral and higher end tpa buffalo 32S significantly reduced smearing. My mind was blown.
Clarity and Detail:
I'm not really sure what to make about this headphone's detail levels. From my experience with the K701 and the AD1000, they seem to do a better job. It could be that because they are thinner sounding, they seem to be easier at pin pointing sounds. When smearing does occur, it makes things a bit distorted, especially the guitarists. With that said, I wouldn’t call these blurry or unfocused as in electronic music, they really did stand up from the rest. The bass was so well defined and the highs managed to cut through the mids. When listening to some slower rock, the cymbals were able to cut through the wall of guitars much better than what the HD650 reproduces and the bass guitarist was always heard. I could say the level of detail and clarity is a notch or two above the HD650 from my set up.
I've got another take on the detail of the AD2000. It could be too detailed. The big complaints on 'smearing' and the associated lack of focus could be that the recording [often extreme metal] is not as good as I thought it would be. It's possible that the smearing is what is actually happening but my other, more musical headphones don't pick this up. Further reading on Head-Fi and other forums have lead me to hold this view.
AD1000 v AD2000:
So are the AD1000s a gimped AD2000? No. They are a completely different sounding headphone. They are much brighter, have lighter bass, have a thinner sound, much more airy and in many ways sound more like the K701 than the AD2000. This is by far the most surprising finding from my AT encounters as everyone seems to recommend people either stay with their AD900 or go with the AD2000 as the AD1000 is a half arsed upgrade. I don’t understand how you could say the AD1000 is close to the AD2000. If I were to guess, the AD1000 and the AD2000 are two completely non-related end points in the evolution of the AD900 with the AD2000 being warmer and more aggressive, whereas the AD1000 is the more analytical and brighter phone. The only way I’ll be able to prove this is to buy a pair of AD900s and compared all three together! Or maybe someone could lend me theirs
.
So which do I prefer? The AD2000s hands down.
Conclusion:
The AD2000 is an interesting headphone with lots of character. The mid colouration is either something you love or is a trait that drives you mad. The bass is solid but not overpowering so bass heads can scratch this from their list. The highs aren’t subdued by any means but they aren’t over emphasised. If you are finding the HD650s to be boring with electronica but are also sensitive to harsh highs, these could be your headphone. While I was highly critical of the sound stage, I feel that if used with other genres besides metal, punk and rock, these headphones sound amazing.
At the end of the day, I didn’t get these for free. When positioned next to my K701 and AD1000 which were a bit more than half the price NEW, one must question if they are worth it. In my limited experience, I don’t think they are for the asking price. I feel their true value is around the same price as the HD650 is. I've seen people say it is a HD650 done right but I wouldn't be able to completely agree with them. The HD650 is a great all rounder whereas the AD2000 doesn't mesh so well with metal and to a lesser extent, rock. It bests it in other genres but if you were to ONLY listen to metal, you would probably pick the HD650. This is significant to me because most of my music collect consists of metal. Does it kill my K701? Yes. I used to go to my K701 for electronica as it was so spacious compared to the HD650. When I got my AD1000, I looked to that as the sound stage was smaller and much more personal. It wasn't as bright either and the mids were close. In comes the AD2000 to boot them out the door. While not as neutral as the K701, it's much more engaging.
I could see a lot of people not liking this headphone. In fact initially, I was pretty disgusted with my purchase but from day 2 onwards but my opinion changed as I started to break them down. I'm in love with the lush mids and apart from the obvious sound stage issues, I couldn’t really want more from a headphone. My favourite genre at the moment is psybient and these headphones easily surpass all my other headphones. Maybe it's because most tracks aren't overloaded like say a metal album as the sound stage when listening to "Hydroponic Garden" by Carbon Based Lifeforms is quite large. On that album, it is easier to hear the depth in the layers of sound. Some effects are close to your ears, others are distant. When listening to "Annihilation Of The Wicked" by Nile, everything except the drum set was 1 metre from your face. Everything was close, too close for my liking.
I think this quote best represents my feelings of the AD2000.
Quote:
This could well be the fact that some younger folks only know rock and metal. Maybe orchestral and jazz fans prefer other headphones. I can only speculate. Regardless, I bought these expecting something quite different to what I ended up having based on the more popular reviews and my experience with the AD1000. Such is the Head-Fi game of Chinese whispers. Either way, I rate these above the K701, HD650, D2000, HD580 and of course the AD1000.
Pictures:
The boring black box. It is not a Black Edition XFX gpu or AMD cpu. I want some stickers at least for pete's sake!
AD2000 colour
[Shot at night so sorry for the poor light source]
AD1000 and AD2000
Cheerios
Edit Log:
8/03/10 - Added more impressions on this 'smearing'. Edited sound stage section. Reworked my conclusion. I actually do like these headphones which the initial conclusion didn't show.
9/03/10 - Updated comfort. More information on smearing in the detail section.
11/03/10 - Added some quotes about the sound stage. It seems some people like it, others don't.
19/03/10 - See post 14.
Background:
The AD2000 is a headphone which has a decent reputation but the high asking price relative to the HD650 and K701 makes it less attractive to many headphone lovers. Asr, through his loaner program and review, attempted to get these headphones out into the public as few people knew much about them. Audio Technica has many fans of the AD700 and to a lesser extent, the AD900 yet there are significantly less fans of the AD1000, AD1000PRM and the AD2000 relative to their competitors. Could this be because they don’t stack up? Well in my encounter with the AD1000, I do think they spar fairly well.
From reading Head-Fi threads, you seem to see the same thing posted about the AT line up. I feel ciphercomplete captured some of the key feelings people have from absorbing the information floating about. Whether this information is right or wrong is largely irrelevant as it is there and it will affect your opinions if you haven’t heard the headphones. [I have edited his post for my sanity]
Quote:
| Originally Posted by ciphercomplete /img/forum/go_quote.gif I have not personally heard these three but I read a lot of Head-Fi posts about them. I did a ton of research because I was considering buying the ad1000 or ad2000. Here is what I think is a general consensus. ad900 - Great headphone for the price. Might be a little grainy with the highs. Similar to the ad700 but a worthy upgrade. (The ad700 is a great pair of headphones btw I wish I still had mine sometimes) ad1000 - I have never read anything good about this pair. Most people say stick with the ad900 or upgrade to the ad2000. Most people say this pair has its own sound and doesn't quite fit into ATs line up. Some people say it has a weird sound signature. (maybe too cold or analytical and not musical enough?) ad2000 - On a completely "nuther" level. I have never read a bad review of this headphone. I have heard it described as "the hd650 but with everything done right" "Kills the DT880 and K-701" etc. I have also yet to find a owner of these who didn't also describe them as their favourite headphone. A lot of this might be hyperbole but people really seem to love these headphones. |
From reading reviews and skimming other threads, I thought the AD2000 was going to be sort of like what ciphercomplete so nicely summarised. My one experience with a full size AD model had set some expectations of an airy and spacious headphone but not to the point of K701 sound stage. I was a bit sceptical of the HD650 comparison and thought it would be like my AD1000 except it would have more bass, more mids and most importantly, less highs. I was expecting lots of detail like the AD1000, if not more. Seeing I really enjoyed the AD1000, I thought this just might be MY headphone.
My Motives:
The more information out there, the easier it is for people to make a decision. While there are some great AD2000 reviews and theads, there is little linking them together. I’d like to try and do that in this quasi review.
There are some important reviews to look at, some of which I refer to in my review.
Asr’s AD2000 review
Ldj325’s review from asr’s AD2000 loaner program
Patrickhat2001’s review from asr’s AD2000 loaner program
Nhat_thanh’s AD700, AD900, AD1000 and AD2000 comparison
MikoLayer’s impressions
Purchase:
I bought these off the forums. They were recabled by Moon Audio with Black Dragon and were originally balanced. The last owner had them reterminated to single ended [Furutech FP704 – damn it’s heavy]. I know there are at least 3 prior owners, making me the forth. It would be a fair call to say they have been burn-in enough. While I don’t believe in burn-in changing the sound in any meaningful way, you might not so this will put your mind at ease.
Packaging:
These headphones are no longer available in Australia but they were around the 1000AUD mark. Amazon currently have them for $499 which is still more expensive than the HD650, DT880, D2000, K701 or K702. For the extra asking price you would expect something better than the same box that the AD1000 comes in. I’m not very excited about this cardboard box and while I was ok with it for the AD1000, I’m going to hammer AT for it in this AD2000 review. This is not acceptable. The recable should mess with the sound too much.
Comfort:
In almost every single review I’ve read about this headphone, the heavy clamping force is always mentioned. Now being at least the fourth owner, I would have assumed that they would have less clamping than when new. When I first put them on my head, they were tight. After 30 minutes, my ears got quite sore from both the high clamping force and the fact that your ears rest on the driver cage. Unlike other headphones, AT use what closely resembles one of those kitchen sink drain strainers you use to stop large objects from going down your drain. It is hard and not flat and caused great discomfort. I don’t have a large melon and my ears don’t stick out. I would assume that this fit issue would be a hell of a lot worse for people who are bigger than me.
Moving on from the clamping factor, the normal AT wing design is back and is as pleasant as always and the pads are made from the same material as the AD1000 pads. These are not velour and are soft to touch. I don’t get any itching which some AD700/AD900 users experience. Out of all the material I’ve seen on pads, these are the most comfy on my skin and they allow my skin to breathe. The usual AT pad fit issue is back and with the high clamping force, it is even worse. You could try the phat mod for a better fit.
After the forth day of use, I guess I got a bit of HTFU as I don’t suffer from as much discomfort as I did at the start. I still prefer to have my ears touching the back of the pads and roughly in the centre. The closer you get to the pads, the further you move your ears away from the drain strainer. Fifth day report is that I've found the happy place and have no discomfort whatsoever. Hooray.
Phat Mod:
Tried it, hated it. Yes it is makes the headphone more comfortable but it does change the sound quality of the headphone. With the AD1000, it made it rubbish. With the AD2000, things weren’t so bad. The mids settled back into the mix, the detail improved and most importantly the smearing wasn’t as bad as it was without the mod. I’ll mention this ‘smearing’ later on. The Phat Mod is not something I would do but could be akin to defoaming your Senns as it changes the sound. Whether this is a pro is up to you.
Appearance:
Are they blue or are they black? The colour is like a slightly darker arsenic which matches the lighter colour of the pads. You can see that they have some kind of blue sparkly bits in my photos. The wing attachment is different to the AD1000/AD900 which itself is different from the AD300/400/500/700. The beams aren’t covered like the rest of the AD line and in my opinion looks much nicer. Otherwise they look pretty similar to the AD1000. Pics at the end.
Set up:
This is the same set up as I had during my AD1000 review. MF V-dac -> CKKIII -> Headphones
Reviewing Methodology:
I like to listen to my newly purchased headphone for a few days to ‘get’ the sound. Call it driver burn in if you want, I’d call it mental burn in. After this period I start comparing it to my other headphones and start the critical listening phase. Following this, I’ll go back to enjoying the music and return to my analysis a day later to see if these differences were are in fact real and not something I was scraping off the bottom of the barrel. It’s important to acknowledge that with audio, our brains can do some bizarre things and these anomalies need to be filtered.
When I compare headphones I do both AB/ing over certain sections as well as listening to a song a couple of times and then switching. Neither way is conclusive. Sometimes I'll think I hear a difference listening to a 30 second section of a track only to realise my brain needed to adjust to the sound. After that period, the issue doesn't appear.
The Sound:
Obviously all impressions are based of MY set up. Take note of that. Don’t forget that my ears are different from yours
Bass:
The AD2000s might be viewed to be a bright headphone by some but don’t let that confuse you about the bass. The AD2000 hits with great impact and extends quite deep. Kick drums hit hard and linger for about the same time as they do in real life. The D2000s love to just hold bass kick drums for so long that if you’re listening to Psycroptic, they overlap and are muddy. With the AD2000, bass drums are not muddy, even when listening to Nile.
“Techy Techy” by Yoji Biomehanika is one of my favourite bass testing songs and the AD2000s excelled. In comparison, the HD650 doesn’t hit as hard or as deep although there appears to be more bass overall. The AD1000 fails at this test as the impact isn’t anywhere near its big brother’s and the K701 follows suite. Listening to “Advanced” by Marcel Woods is another great track to test the bass response of headphones. It’s one of those iconic songs and has a section with a lot of bass and rumbling sub bass. The AD2000’s fed those notes into my head but the HD650 had a bigger serve which made me a bit nauseous. I didn’t feel these notes on the AD1000 while the K701 did an ‘ok’ job. With those headphones, nothing rattled my brain but I did feel it somewhat.
When listening to rock or metal, the bass does take a back seat to the mids. It’s not as bad as with the AD1000 where sometimes the bass guitarist seems to decide to go for a walk or how you occasionally have to concentrate to hear the various drums. That said, the smearing effect mentioned later does somewhat mask the bass guitarist in most metal recordings.
Mids:
Ahhh aural bliss. I really love the mids of AD1000 and these are indeed even more forward. Guitars are nice and up front too and the way the AD2000 positions them in the mix, gets me fired up. They also have more body than the K701 and AD1000 which I think is a fairly large difference. It is like you are in the front row when listening to rock or metal. You really feel the music, especially if it is a vocal orientated track.
Vocals just have a glow to them and they take centre stage of the mix. With some headphones like the D2000, the vocalist just seems to be overpowered by the guitars and drums. That can happen at some crappy venues but normally the vocalist should be heard! Not only are they more forward, there is so much extra detail in the vocals and you can almost feel and hear their chest moving with each breath. The AD1000 is much more thinner so things are more detailed but also dry and sterile. While it was a step up over the HD650 in terms of mid presentations, you didn’t hear the heft of their voice. I know the K701 is said to make female vocals magical but I feel these trounce them, effortlessly. Listening to “The Host of Seraphim” by Dead Can Dance was quite an experience with these headphones. Lisa’s vocals are beautiful yet so sad. The emotion was there for you to touch. The K701s didn’t press my emotion buttons anywhere near as much. Male vocals don’t sound as amazing to me from the AD2000.
Treble:
While the AD1000 came off as harsh at times, the AD2000 is much more tame. It doesn’t appear to have any significant roll off like the HD650 does and for this reason, the headphone works fairly well with electronic genres. I guess I’m caught in the middle because I actually enjoy unusually louder highs with trance as it seems to just add more energy to the music. For a while, I was struggling when deciding if I’d like to listen to the AD2000 or its little brother. Thankfully, the extra lower presence of the AD2000 makes me want to pick them up. There isn’t much to write home about the treble. If you HATE bright headphones, these could be too bright for you. I think it would fall into the acceptable range for most folks.
Attack and Decay:
Fast. These headphones are fast. They easily out do the AD1000 on speedcore which happened to be the fastest headphone I owned. The decay is nice too and notes don’t hang around any longer than they should [D2000 anyone?].
Sound Stage and Presentation:
The sound stage of these headphones is smaller than the AD1000 which Nhat_thanh noted. As I wrote in my AD1000 quasi review, the AD1000 has a bigger sound stage than the HD650/580 but is much smaller than the K701. I favoured this sense of space out of all the headphones I had. The AD2000 has an slightly smaller sound stage. In general, the sound stage is bigger than the HD650 and is more complete. However, as soon as the music increase in complexity, something peculiar occurs.
While this may be a forward headphone that some say is like the Grado sound, I would pick the MS1 I had over these for metal. If you listen to heavy metal, then things should be ok. However, if you happen to enjoy your technical death, black, power or thrash metal where speed is something bands wear like stickers, then these headphones seem to run out of steam. Normally the vocalist is standing 1 or 2 metres from your face and the guitarists are in arms reach of them. When everyone is doing their guitar wankerage, all of a sudden the guitarists seem to be standing slightly closer to you! I’ve never seen a live band do that before
Quote:
| Originally Posted by ldj325 ...There is another characteristic of the AD2000 that had very pervasive effect for me. As soon as the music got complex in some way, with multi-tracked music, often only back up singers coming in, and especially rock, the clarity of the mid-range and highs and separation sound became much less distinct. Maybe because of the clarity otherwise, this smearing of the sound was especially noticeable. I think that this same type of smearing could be heard on the Senn 650 and more so on the Senn 580/600, but as the sound presentation is generally smoother, more laid back, and a bit rolled off in the highs this quality, while present, seems less obvious... The soundstage could be quite large, especially with more “simple” music. And the separation and clarity, combined with a lively and forward presentation added to that wonderful mid-range. In width of soundstage on the right music, the AD2000 bested the Edition 9 a headphone with a very wide soundstage. (again, especially the Extreme helps this soundstaging.) But there was a dramatic shift in the soundstage, with it contracting significantly into a tight soundstage on more complex music. An example of both soundstages could be found on the album Aqualung, with the faster rockers demonstrating the smaller soundstage. (Aqualung was sitting on a much narrower park bench with the AD2000s than what I am used to with the Edition 9s. )... |
The second oddity was that when things did get complex, the guitarists seem to stretch ever so slightly. By this I mean that before you could point to where they were with a good deal of confidence but when you the guitarist started ferociously tremolo picking, the sound would warp, as if someone smeared the sound with a fine paint brush. I first thought of this smearing as a veil as the detail goes out the window. The strange thing is that it surfaced in most of my metal recordings but I had no issues whatsoever with other genres. Sure there was the odd song or two what got a little excited causing the smearing to begin but it wasn’t every second song. Further digging lead me to Patrickhat2001’s review –
Quote:
| Originally Posted by Patrickhat2001 …However, there was something in the presentation of the AD2000 that really started to bother me after a while. That something, I believe, was the uncontrolled echo of sound waves within the headphone which caused a smearing of a sound placement within the soundstage. Let me explain further--the drivers of the AD2000 rest right next to your ear (the porous metal plate covering the driver touches your ear). Because of this the presentation it creates a very upfront sound; very akin to the stereotypical Grado sound (right on the stage--or how I like to think of it as--like I am the lead singer)… So the sound has plenty of space to bounce around and thus create a larger sound stage. That’s all well and good but I think the designers of the AD2000 didn’t take controlling these sound waves into proper account when designing this phone. I say that because many times I’d here a sound (say someone on my right strumming on a guitar) sound like it’s coming from someone standing right next to me but, at the same time here it the same sound seeming like it was coming from about 5-10 feet away! It was as if there was a horizontal smearing of a sounds placement in the soundstage with this headphone. Also, I think this smearing of the sound also played a part in the unfocused sound of this headphone, overall… |
“Crippled Thrash” by The Senseless was a great song to mess around with this oddity. The Senseless are a death grind band and the start of this song is pretty quiet. When things sort of explode, it sounds like the guitarists have jumped two or three steps towards you. When things pipe down, they seem to take a few steps back.
Asr commented on dispersion which I think is what I call smearing. He describes this dispersion as fixing sound to a specific location on the sound stage. It’s possible that this headphone’s best use is with orchestral pieces but it is not something that I can answer.
Quote:
| Originally Posted by asr ...There's also a very nice "dispersion" kind of effect that handles complexity and routes layers to their own position in the soundstage. Stereo-channel separation is very clean and helps provide a nice 3D positioning that's done very convincingly. The resulting sound field is very horizontal, very realistic of where instruments/performers normally are in real-life. Orchestral music in particular benefits from this, the violins always sound like they're coming from the left and the brass & woodwinds like they're coming from the back, with the basses and cello on the right. As a detriment to orchestral though, it tends to not sound very epic and big - primarily due to the lack of treble sparkle, but it's also because of the limited airspace... |
Now whether this is a major flaw or not is up to the listener but it’s bloody weird to me. I first thought there was something wrong with my set up or the used AD2000s. However, after seeing others mentioning it, I can assume it’s more than just crazy old me. Then again, one could easily argue that this only occurs on a couple of genres so why would you get so worked up over this? Well I’ve never heard this before as none of the AD2000’s competitors I own run into this issue. The AD1000 doesn’t encounter this issue. At the end of the day, I view this smearing as a minor problem. We aren't talking about a complete loss of detail or instant fuzziness. It's not a major flaw to me and I prefer the HD650 over the AD2000 for my metal collection. In every other genre I listen to, the AD2000 runs rings around the HD650.
While I’ve been flaming the AD2000’s compact and aggressive sound stage, it is still airy and better than a closed headphone. If you had to imagine the room you are in when wearing these, you would be thinking of that small, cheap venue where some lights don’t work, the drinks are cheap and the toilets are feral but the sound set up is pretty awesome. It’s not the greatest stage and you can’t really move around much because of how small the venue it BUT it’s got character. This is where the K701s fail at as they sound like you are at an open air festival where there are no boundaries. The stage can appear to be 60 metres wide and about 20 metres deep. If I’m going to knock the AD2000, I would have to knock the K701 even more. The HD650 in comparison is like the decent venue with expensive drinks and a 12 metre stage. It has some terrible acoustics [the three blobs in your head] but you can hear the boundaries and the band seems to the normal distance from each other. I can’t make any stage analogies to anything other than metal because that is the genre I’ve seen the most live bands with and know the best.
A quick collection of other Head-Fi'ers opinions of the AD2000 sound stage and presentation.
Quote:
| Originally Posted by KT88 /img/forum/go_quote.gif IMO the AD900 is much better than the AD2000. I couldn't notice the AD2000 to be any better in detail/resolution or anything else actually. I did find it to be one of the most uneven headphones I've ever heard, they just sound weird, so weird that I can't even explain it. I've had a chance to test both, and went for the AD900 (and the price difference for me wasn't really an issue). |
Quote:
| Originally Posted by Henmyr /img/forum/go_quote.gif ...Without the pad mod, my AD2000 are slightly mid-bassy (but still very well controlled), slightly recessed highs and a very smooth and euphoric midrange (to my ears). The sound is also slightly (just slightly) blurred. This blur decrease the clarity a bit but makes the sound smoother. |
Quote:
| Originally Posted by Kees /img/forum/go_quote.gif The AD2000 I found to be a bit too much of everything. Made a bit too much of a spectacle of every piece of music. And it did something weird with positioning. It placed everything far apart in the soundstage, when they were supposed to be much closer together. Like the singer of the band was right up in your face, with a three feet wide mouth and the guitar player 30 feet to the left and 7 feet up in the air... I never experienced anything as extreme as that with any other headphones. |
We have different ways of assessing the sound stage but we arrived at the same conclusion. I didn't notice it as much during the vocals as the guitars got it the worst.
SIZABLE UPDATE : Going from the v-dac to the more neutral and higher end tpa buffalo 32S significantly reduced smearing. My mind was blown.
Clarity and Detail:
I'm not really sure what to make about this headphone's detail levels. From my experience with the K701 and the AD1000, they seem to do a better job. It could be that because they are thinner sounding, they seem to be easier at pin pointing sounds. When smearing does occur, it makes things a bit distorted, especially the guitarists. With that said, I wouldn’t call these blurry or unfocused as in electronic music, they really did stand up from the rest. The bass was so well defined and the highs managed to cut through the mids. When listening to some slower rock, the cymbals were able to cut through the wall of guitars much better than what the HD650 reproduces and the bass guitarist was always heard. I could say the level of detail and clarity is a notch or two above the HD650 from my set up.
I've got another take on the detail of the AD2000. It could be too detailed. The big complaints on 'smearing' and the associated lack of focus could be that the recording [often extreme metal] is not as good as I thought it would be. It's possible that the smearing is what is actually happening but my other, more musical headphones don't pick this up. Further reading on Head-Fi and other forums have lead me to hold this view.
AD1000 v AD2000:
So are the AD1000s a gimped AD2000? No. They are a completely different sounding headphone. They are much brighter, have lighter bass, have a thinner sound, much more airy and in many ways sound more like the K701 than the AD2000. This is by far the most surprising finding from my AT encounters as everyone seems to recommend people either stay with their AD900 or go with the AD2000 as the AD1000 is a half arsed upgrade. I don’t understand how you could say the AD1000 is close to the AD2000. If I were to guess, the AD1000 and the AD2000 are two completely non-related end points in the evolution of the AD900 with the AD2000 being warmer and more aggressive, whereas the AD1000 is the more analytical and brighter phone. The only way I’ll be able to prove this is to buy a pair of AD900s and compared all three together! Or maybe someone could lend me theirs
So which do I prefer? The AD2000s hands down.
Conclusion:
The AD2000 is an interesting headphone with lots of character. The mid colouration is either something you love or is a trait that drives you mad. The bass is solid but not overpowering so bass heads can scratch this from their list. The highs aren’t subdued by any means but they aren’t over emphasised. If you are finding the HD650s to be boring with electronica but are also sensitive to harsh highs, these could be your headphone. While I was highly critical of the sound stage, I feel that if used with other genres besides metal, punk and rock, these headphones sound amazing.
At the end of the day, I didn’t get these for free. When positioned next to my K701 and AD1000 which were a bit more than half the price NEW, one must question if they are worth it. In my limited experience, I don’t think they are for the asking price. I feel their true value is around the same price as the HD650 is. I've seen people say it is a HD650 done right but I wouldn't be able to completely agree with them. The HD650 is a great all rounder whereas the AD2000 doesn't mesh so well with metal and to a lesser extent, rock. It bests it in other genres but if you were to ONLY listen to metal, you would probably pick the HD650. This is significant to me because most of my music collect consists of metal. Does it kill my K701? Yes. I used to go to my K701 for electronica as it was so spacious compared to the HD650. When I got my AD1000, I looked to that as the sound stage was smaller and much more personal. It wasn't as bright either and the mids were close. In comes the AD2000 to boot them out the door. While not as neutral as the K701, it's much more engaging.
I could see a lot of people not liking this headphone. In fact initially, I was pretty disgusted with my purchase but from day 2 onwards but my opinion changed as I started to break them down. I'm in love with the lush mids and apart from the obvious sound stage issues, I couldn’t really want more from a headphone. My favourite genre at the moment is psybient and these headphones easily surpass all my other headphones. Maybe it's because most tracks aren't overloaded like say a metal album as the sound stage when listening to "Hydroponic Garden" by Carbon Based Lifeforms is quite large. On that album, it is easier to hear the depth in the layers of sound. Some effects are close to your ears, others are distant. When listening to "Annihilation Of The Wicked" by Nile, everything except the drum set was 1 metre from your face. Everything was close, too close for my liking.
I think this quote best represents my feelings of the AD2000.
Quote:
| The AD2000 is one of those headphones that people love the idea of, but don't like the reality of. |
This could well be the fact that some younger folks only know rock and metal. Maybe orchestral and jazz fans prefer other headphones. I can only speculate. Regardless, I bought these expecting something quite different to what I ended up having based on the more popular reviews and my experience with the AD1000. Such is the Head-Fi game of Chinese whispers. Either way, I rate these above the K701, HD650, D2000, HD580 and of course the AD1000.
Pictures:
The boring black box. It is not a Black Edition XFX gpu or AMD cpu. I want some stickers at least for pete's sake!
AD2000 colour
[Shot at night so sorry for the poor light source]
AD1000 and AD2000
Cheerios
Edit Log:
8/03/10 - Added more impressions on this 'smearing'. Edited sound stage section. Reworked my conclusion. I actually do like these headphones which the initial conclusion didn't show.
9/03/10 - Updated comfort. More information on smearing in the detail section.
11/03/10 - Added some quotes about the sound stage. It seems some people like it, others don't.
19/03/10 - See post 14.
