[swifty7]

actually amping the ad900x made a world of difference.....at least to me.   I'm a bit confused!  why settle for the Audio Tech's when you already owned two superb cans?  My next buy will hopefully be the he-500's.

 

[RobSys]

I've had the A900x for a couple of months now and use them mainly for listening to a wide range of music primarily at my PC (flac's of course) with a fairly high end sound card. The music is a range of classical (all sorts) to pop, techno, trance, et al.
 
Throughout the range they sound wonderful!
 
Now I'm rather old and decrepit and have destroyed my ears over some 40 years of listening through cans - far too loud - not to mention the rackets generated on building sites and my own workshop so I'm definitely not up to speed as a discerning listener. Certainly the terms used in the forum (soundstage,  sound signatures, imaging, etc.) have little meaning for me but to what's left of my ears they simply sound good!
 
As for comparisons, I have a set of Bose "TriPort" cans (hopeless in comparison), Bose in-ear plugs (can't be bothered to look them up...), Audio Technica ATH-EW9 over the ear phones (no bass) and a set of Shure SE210 in-ear phones (again minimal bass - but brilliant mids and highs). The EW9's and SE210's will now only be used for travel.
 
The ATH900x's have enough bass - but I wouldn't have minded a bit more but I didn't want to go to closed cans....
 
The long and the short of it all is these open headphones suit me fine... No complaints, not sorry about the cash outlay....

 

[manbear]

Not a lot of action in this thread!

I just received a pair of AD900Xs today. I bought them as a second pair to complement my incoming ZMF Vibros. A little premature as I don't actually have the Vibros yet, but they are closed so I figured a open pair with a big soundstage would work nice. 

So far, I'm digging these. I probably couldn't live with them as my only headphones, but they will do well for acoustic, ambient, and other genres where a big soundstage is valuable. 

Detail retrieval is better than I was expecting for a headphone in this price range. The last bit of black space and low-level detail isn't quite there compared to my HE-400s, but its not a big problem. 

The soundstage isn't as wide as I was expecting, honestly. I thought these were supposed to be even bigger than the Q701. Not in terms of width, but they do have more depth and more of an overall sense of openness and air. I can see what people mean when they say the imaging is a bit fuzzy. These headphones don't do layering very well, but the more nebulous imaging imparts a sense of space in its own way. Again, I wouldn't be happy if these were my only headphones but as a second pair I can appreciate them for what they are. 

Timbre is very nice with the exception of bass guitar (not enough body IMO). Strings, voices, etc. sound great. 

These are clean and bright without being peaky or harsh, so far anyway. A tiny bit of sibilance is present, 

Bass extension is adequate, but the deep bass falls way back in the mix. On the other hand, these do have a great sense of snap and impact on drums. 

I'll add a full review at some point once I've had these for a while. 

 

[manbear]

A few more comments. 

I made a very important discovery: these headphones don't like the 0.1 ohm output of my amp at all. I switched it the 30 ohm output and the bass improved VASTLY. It is now tight, extended, and present with lots of slam. Very similar to my HE-400's bass honestly, though lacking that ultimate extension and texture. But still absolutely fantastic for the price.  

 

[wateryakcat]

I will get soon Ad900x. Lets see if it is worth money compared to exellent iems, like ck100pro, xba-h3 and ckr9.

 

[manbear]

I added a review. Check it out:http://www.head-fi.org/products/audio-technica-air-dynamic-headphones-ath-ad900x/reviews/11776

 

[trufunk]

I have a set coming from Japan I bought on Amazon. I can't wait.

 

[trufunk]

Just got them today

I'm coming from the Samson SR850 we will see once I do a comparison.

 

[trufunk]

So far so good.I'm really liking these headphones. Extremely comfortable I'm really liking the sound!! Very nice and detailed.Bass is fine I also purchased a fiio e6 and the headphones are nice with it too

 

[Kanine]

How do people find these compared to the regular AD900's? I tried the AD900x in the shop and it still sounded rather sibilant.  I couldn't detect these on the nearby AD-2000x but it was difficult to be critical as there was lots of ambient music playing from speakers.

 

[Sounding]

Is the Fiio E10K a good cheap DAC + AMP for the AD900x? I'm interested in the soundstage and accuracy for FPS games.

 

[manbear]

Is the Fiio E10K a good cheap DAC + AMP for the AD900x? I'm interested in the soundstage and accuracy for FPS games.

I havent heard the E10K, but IMO my AD900x sounds more or less the same from my phone, laptop, Fiio X1, and Concero DAC + Ember amp. So I would advise just running them a straight off your stock headphone jack and saving some money.

 

[Gluten Free]

So I just received mine today and I'm noticing that the left ear cup's drivers feel like they are touching my ear where as the right side drivers do not touch my right ear. Is this a reported issue? I did have to resort to the rubber band mod as they simply fall down my head after some time.

 

[JohnStag]

I just got a pair of these today. I ordered them on eBay after a lot of reading up. This site helped a lot in the choice.
 
They sound pretty good, much more detailed then the ones I'm replacing. Seems like a much flatter response, too.
 
But... two major problems right out of the box:
 
a) What size head do you need to wear these? I wear a 62 hat (which is about as big as it gets) but they were far too big for me. There's no way to put the ear cups vertical when opened to my head size, I need to pull them much wider apart than that to get the cups remotely vertical. The cups also have no top-to-bottom rotation at all to provide "auto-fit", they're completely rigid in that axis (What?). The result is that all the pressure on my head is concentrated at the base of the pads (under my ear) instead of being evenly applied all around the pad. There may well be "no sense of pressure on the ears" but there's a great sense of pressure just underneath them.
 
One of the reasons I bought these headphones is because I wear headphones all day long, almost every day, and these are supposed to be among the best for that sort of use. The sensation I got was that I wasn't going to be able to wear them for more than an hour or so...
 
What I've done is to bend the wire at the top to make the ear cups more vertical when opened to my particular head size. The wire bends quite well, and the result is a much better fit, but it shouldn't be necessary. It's bad design - the ear cups should have some rotation in the horizontal axis (the headphones I'm replacing do...)
 
nb. The "wings" have two-axis rotation even though they probably don't need it. Why not the cups?
 
and
 
b) What part of these is "open air"? They're marketed as "open air", it says "open air" on the box but there's no air movement in or out of the headphone as far as I can tell. At best it's an "open back" design. I live in a hot country and am a hot sort of person in general so I need some ventilation. With the headphones I'm replacing I can put my finger through the ear cup and touch my ear when I'm wearing them.
 
There is actually a metal grille with holes in it around the outside of the driver but it's covered with a piece of non-breathable white paper tape. You can get to it by removing the ear pad and I've removed it on one side to see if it makes much difference. The headphone also looks much better without it - it's the white ring around the driver, visible through the grille in this picture:
 
http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/resource_library/product_images/f05133ff1848bb6d/orig/ath_ad900x_1_sq.jpg
 
(Why didn't they use black tape? Or purple...)
 
After an hour or so of listening I think I prefer the sound without the tape - it's a teeny bit less boxy IMHO, with more natural trebles (though the difference is slight). Maybe it's just an illusion caused by that ear being a bit more open to the room, but I definitely prefer it.
 
The ear without the tape also feels a few degrees cooler than the ear with the tape so I think the tape is going to get removed on both sides. It came out with no problem so maybe that's a secret design feature I've discovered.
 
Overall: They feel like they can do the job, but two major mods in the first couple of hours? That shouldn't be necessary. The lack of ear cup rotation in particular seems inexcusable to me.
 
PS: What am I replacing? Some SONY MDR-605s that I bought about 12 years ago. They've seen an awful lot of service. The sound is pretty bad, sure ... but your ears get used to it. The main reason I've stuck with them is that they've never fatigued me or felt uncomfortable in any way even though I've worn them for 8-10 hours a day for all those years.
 
http://www.engadget.com/products/sony/mdr-605/
 
The AD900X seems like the closest thing to those. The sound is definitely better than the SONYs. The fit feels like it could work after a bit more bending of the wire. I'll go gradually over the next few days. It really shouldn't be necessary though.

 

[m1ku]

I wonder is the 3d wing flap a huge problem for fitting any head size? I'm worry about that.