Takashi
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2003
- Posts
- 504
- Likes
- 11
I got this wood clip-ons a month and a half ago, and since this is my first purchase of clip-ons, I waited to see how I feel after a while. Here it is.
When I looked at these phones on the picture I felt this is just another gimmick Audio Technica came up with, and I didn't expect any practical use of it. But as W1000 is on my shopping list for a long time, I thought I'd give it try and get a hint of how "wood headphones" are. Well it's rather economical to go straight to W1000 in the first place, but at the time I couldn't come up with good reason to convince my wife for getting another full size headphones. Actually I still don't.
Anyways, so I bought them. Out of the box, first I felt they look classy with beautiful wood, comfortable with jersey earpads, and those metal wire hangers with rubber cushon flipping out for easy wearing is pretty nice gimmck. They are really comfortable for extended use.
Soundwise, my first impression was that they have pretty good highs and lows. Good resolution but not too revealing. It is quite impressive they have enough bass reaches down to good drum kick. Also mids are smooth, though not full-bodied like other AT full-sized headphones.
I was really amazed at this as my sole experience with clip-ons is the really cheapy one which was bundled with Sony Clie.
But over time, its rather harsh mid-highs started to bother me. Vocals, especially female, hurt my ears. Also as the nature of clip-ons, sound is so upfront and has no sound stage. Compare to this, even SR-225 has deep spacious sound stage.
I think they are OK for home use, or at quiet office, with realtively smaller sound level. If you crank it up mid-highs starts to hurt your ears. But some may find it favorable depending on the type of music they hear. Especially I find it quite enjoyable with acoustic guitar sound. Does this have anything to do with the housing being wood? Not necessarily, but I like to think so.
As portable phones, when they are used at noisy places such as on the train, you'll still get plenty of vocals with some highs and lows. Of cource they don't isolate at all so lows are really mixed with ambient rumbling noise, You can't expect much.
Cost performance? Depends on how you like the touch of wood.
My conclusion:
They are beautiful, comfortable to wear. Best use for these are at quiet places like at home, office or park in the morning.
For some acoustic music, or with proper EQ, and surround processing if you like, they can be good sounding clip-ons. Basically I like them.
Lastly, I read on Japanese forum that EM9s have same characteristics. So if you don't care about wood, they would be the ones to try. (I like the look of EM9R disguising itself as ventilated disc brake rotor.)
Oh and KSC35s has been delivered to my home, I can't wait to compare them with EW9 after I go home next week.
When I looked at these phones on the picture I felt this is just another gimmick Audio Technica came up with, and I didn't expect any practical use of it. But as W1000 is on my shopping list for a long time, I thought I'd give it try and get a hint of how "wood headphones" are. Well it's rather economical to go straight to W1000 in the first place, but at the time I couldn't come up with good reason to convince my wife for getting another full size headphones. Actually I still don't.
Anyways, so I bought them. Out of the box, first I felt they look classy with beautiful wood, comfortable with jersey earpads, and those metal wire hangers with rubber cushon flipping out for easy wearing is pretty nice gimmck. They are really comfortable for extended use.
Soundwise, my first impression was that they have pretty good highs and lows. Good resolution but not too revealing. It is quite impressive they have enough bass reaches down to good drum kick. Also mids are smooth, though not full-bodied like other AT full-sized headphones.
I was really amazed at this as my sole experience with clip-ons is the really cheapy one which was bundled with Sony Clie.
But over time, its rather harsh mid-highs started to bother me. Vocals, especially female, hurt my ears. Also as the nature of clip-ons, sound is so upfront and has no sound stage. Compare to this, even SR-225 has deep spacious sound stage.
I think they are OK for home use, or at quiet office, with realtively smaller sound level. If you crank it up mid-highs starts to hurt your ears. But some may find it favorable depending on the type of music they hear. Especially I find it quite enjoyable with acoustic guitar sound. Does this have anything to do with the housing being wood? Not necessarily, but I like to think so.
As portable phones, when they are used at noisy places such as on the train, you'll still get plenty of vocals with some highs and lows. Of cource they don't isolate at all so lows are really mixed with ambient rumbling noise, You can't expect much.
Cost performance? Depends on how you like the touch of wood.
My conclusion:
They are beautiful, comfortable to wear. Best use for these are at quiet places like at home, office or park in the morning.
For some acoustic music, or with proper EQ, and surround processing if you like, they can be good sounding clip-ons. Basically I like them.
Lastly, I read on Japanese forum that EM9s have same characteristics. So if you don't care about wood, they would be the ones to try. (I like the look of EM9R disguising itself as ventilated disc brake rotor.)
Oh and KSC35s has been delivered to my home, I can't wait to compare them with EW9 after I go home next week.
