Audio-Technica ATH-WS77 SOLID BASS Portable Headphones (Japan Import)

I purchased this for around $105 after my old cheap sennheiser HD202 cable broke. I used to HD202 for years and enjoyed listening to it.
 
Sound quality:   When I first listened to this my immediate expression was OK out of the box.  Even after burn in, I felt that sweetness and clarity was not up to the mark compared to my HD202.  WS77 has more base and that's it. It is tighter and controlled more than other bassy headphones.  Bass is emphaised and stretched towards lower mids that is a problem. Its kind a loose which ruins experience a bit. I could never realise importance of mids if I had not used hd202 before. I am no longer a basshead. hd202 has right amount of base and perfectly tuned all frequencies.
 
Build: They are strong and wires are also of good quality and gives feel of long lasting piece of headphones if one does not abuse it too much. 
 
Comfort: Not suitable for extended wear. Earpads are nothing to praise about. Ears start getting hurt and get hot just in half an hour and have to put these off. Real culprit is overly stiff headband which kinda crushes ears to skull. I stretched it overnight for long but it never got loose. I really wanted to return these but seller refused to accept. One day left cup fell apart when I stretched and that's the end of story.

See The Whole Review With Pictures Here: http://db-headphones.blogspot.com ... Oh and ignore the sliders for the audio quality, value etc. I can't edit the slider scoring on mobile.


Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Audio Technica in any way (other than how I'm using their product). I was not paid for this review. These are 100% my opinions on this pair of headphones... If you haven't stopped reading yet from boredom, then congratulations. You don't have a short attention span.

So what I got here is the ATH-WS77 from Audio Technica. As part of their "Solid Bass" series, I wasn't expecting much in the way of refinement... I am happy to say my expectations were completely shattered. These are a very mature bass can.



Packaging

First off, the packaging... Superb. The front of the outer cardboard cover is white, shows you the brand "Audio Technica" and a picture of the WS77's. The sides are a copper color, and has an eye catching gleam. It reminds me of candy paint, but with a matte appearance rather than gloss. The back of the box is white again, features another picture of the WS77, specs, and says "Feel Closer to Your Music". Slide off the outer cover, and you have the box, which has the words "Solid Bass" emblazoned on the front in gold. The box has see-through plastic, and you can see the gorgeous circular aluminum sides these cans have. On the back, we have the specs again, and it points out the "Double Air Chamber System" and "Direct Driver Mounting". It states: "Internal double chamber design enhances air damping effect to provide defined, punchy bass" and "Mounting the high rigidity aluminum housing directly on the driver eliminates undesired vibrations. This contributes to high quality sound reproduction."

Sound good so far huh? Because it also says above that "Comprehensive system provides 'Overwhelming bass sound’".

Oh boy...overwhelming bass sound? No idea what to expect from the sound anymore.




Build and Design

Before the moment of truth when I describe the sound, I must say... The build is excellent. Feels solid, just like its namesake "Solid Bass". It is mainly high quality metals. Under the plastic headband frame, there is a sub-frame of steel that is of a decent thickness. The aluminum on the sides of the cans has a premium look and feel. The plastic arms connecting the cups to the headband, though thin, actually feel extremely sturdy. They don’t bend at all if I push on it, and don't move around. Also, no creaking noises moving them around on your head. Very tightly put together with no loose parts. The headband has a decent amount of padding, but the ear pads are somewhat troublesome... I found it to be very uncomfortable and couldn't wear them for more than 15 minutes before I had to take them off because my ears felt like pieces of cauliflower. My ears stick out more than most peoples do, and a section of my ear goes inside the pads and gets shoved up against the plastic driver cover. This has since then lessened since the pads broke in and flattened a little. They may not be as thick as they were when I got them, but now the pads are wider and stop my ears from completely touching the plastic. I’m sure most won't have this problem, as most ears don’t stick out as far as mine. There are a few replacement pads online if you have this problem too and can't tough it out until the pads flatten somewhat. Also, no accessories? Seriously? Not even a carrying pouch? Would have been a nice touch since this is marketed as a portable.

My only other gripe is the cable. It is double sided, has some memory to it, and it isn't the modern flat tangle free type cable that I would have liked. It is of decent thickness, and the strain relief is fantastic. The cable feels like it will last, but it just doesn't finish off the solid build quite right.





Sound

The first thing I noticed when I placed it on my head other than the plastic touching my ears was DAT BASS! Extended well past 50 Hz, very fast and punchy, and with above average texture. While not dark sounding, they are not bright either. They are somewhat v-shaped in response, and as such I hear a slightly hollow midrange with a little bass bleed, and some sibilance, but it isn't a deal breaker. They are still neutral enough for audiophiles like myself however, and are less bassy than a lot of other portables commonly used by Head-Fi’ers, including the V-Moda M100, so I don’t see it being a problem. In fact, when my sister put them on she noticed they had less bass than her skull candy IEM's (UGHH I told her not to buy them and to get something else... She didn't listen) and had fuller vocals.

The soundstage is above average, with fantastic positional cues. They surpass the UE6000 in this regard. The sound placement is almost as good as my AKG K240's, but not quite. These have more accurate vertical cues, but lack the width and depth of the K240. To be expected, as the K240 is semi open.

These handled all genres I threw at them decently, including orchestra due to it having an above average soundstage and positional cues, but excelled at electronic. The combination of speed, texture, and extension makes them better in my opinion for electronic than cans like the Logitech UE6000, and the B&W P5. It keeps up with the fast volley of bass notes laid out in "Onvang" by Spag Heddy, which is very impressive, and gives the bass synths on "Outnumbered" by Rekoil and Devour plenty of weight, and stops the quick synths, drums, and cymbals from being muddled. It does admirably when things get complicated in recordings. When listening to "Oye Como Va" by Santana, the percussion has a timbre that is more in line with what real percussion sounds like than the UE6000. It lags behind the K240 in this regard however.



Amping
These are very easy cans to drive, only needing about 20/30 volume on my Lumia 925 to reach listening levels. Additional amping widened the soundstage, and improved detail somewhat, so they do scale up if you feed them more power.








Summary

At around 120$ (Amazon pricing), these offer an impressive bang for your buck if you like a little more low end to your music and want it to look good. These really hit it home with electronic, and will not disappoint sonically. The cable and lack of accessories may disappoint some, but the sound makes up for it.

After reading lots of reviews I decided to buy this headphones. Everyone said they had a great sound quality, and they were right. I have tried some high quality headphones such as Bose Quietcomfort 15, and Audiio-Technica's sound quality is better.
I'm a bass-guitar player and due to that I really want headphones with a good bass quality, but still with a good quality in the rest of the spectre. In that this headphones work perfectly.
For thier value this are between the best headphones avlaible. Also they have a good passive noise blocking. You can "feel" some one is speaking, so you can pay attention to it or simply ignore it and keep listening to music
 
When it comes to the design you can tell by the photos they are very pretty. They are made of plastic with leather (or pleather, I'm not sure) on the headband and the ear pads. This earpads don't look like they can be easily replaced, but there's no need to.
 
The comfort of this headphones is OK. They hold your head strongly, and that is good for me, you can be sure they won't fall. When you put them you can feel that fitting your ears inside the pads can be a bit tricky, as they are too small for being over the ear headphones. They are the minimum size for headphones of this kind. 
Once you put you ears inside properly they will be very comfortable for some hours, but after 4 hours or more it will start to be painful. I guess that if you have big hears it will be worse.
 
An other special thing of this headphones is that they are clasified as portable by Audio-Technica. This traduces not only to having those small earpads as it also means they have a small power consumption. This means they can't only be plugged to computers, as studio headphones, they can also be plugged to the mobile phone with nearly no loss of sound quality (I haven't been able to hear the difference). A bad thing about them is that even though they are classified as portable, they don't have any kind of case.
 
At last the cable is non-detachable, which means that when it breaks (it's usually the first thing to break), you will have perfect but useless headphones. Also the cable doesn't look very strong, it's a normal quality. The good thing about it is that it is an "L" shaped cable, which usually lasts longer.
 
To sum up, overall great headphones with not that great comfort and cable.