monsieurguzel
1000+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2005
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For a little background, I have owned a pair of ESW10s for about 1.5 years and have since been looking for a suitable pair of full size closed headphones that would give me the same sound for my home rig. I've owned the W1000X for a couple weeks now and have been listening and burning in this whole time. The W1000X has about 250 hours of burn in while the ESW10 has at least 1000 hours on them.
Equipment Used: PS Audio Power Plant Premier > Macbook Pro > USB > PS Audio Perfectwave DAC > Woo Audio 5 (Shuguang 300B-Z Output, Shuguang CV-181-Z Driver, EML 5U4G Rectifier)
Song list:
Neil Young - Old Man - Greatest Hits [NYA]
The Cars - I’m Not the One - Shake It Up [MFSL]
Diana Krall - S’Wonderful - The Look of Love [XRCD24]
Wilco - Impossible Germany - Sky Blue Sky
Sufjan Stevens - All The Trees Of the Field Will Clap Their Hands - Seven Swans
Beck - Paper Tiger - Sea Change [MFSL]
The Rolling Stones - Live With Me - Let It Bleed
Here is a diverse list of songs which I am very familiar with and am very good at telling the little differences between headphones on. Instead of giving impressions on a song to song basis, I will summarize my findings in the following categories: Bass, Mids, Highs, Soundstage. This is because I found that each headphone reacted similarly with all the songs that I played.
Aesthetic / Build Quality:
W1000X: This headphone is quite a handsome headphone with very clean lines. The magnesium frame is very sturdily built and the 3D wings have been tweaked over the years, and you can tell that this is a great frame that will last. The Wooden cups are of American Cherry wood and have a nice reddish / orange color with nice lacquer. In terms of wood it looks a lot better than many Denon headphones and JVC and once again you can tell that ATH has spent a long time perfecting the art of making wooden full-size headphones. The pads are made of a pleather-like and are a little thin for my tastes and not large enough inside for my ears. I wish they were real leather as it would feel more quality. As for the cable, it has a rubbery coating sheathing to it, but feels nice since it is lightweight and doesn’t tangle at all. Wooden plug is a nice touch.
ESW10: This headphone has been criticized as having a slightly flimsy frame that presses on the ears too much. But after having these 1.5 years and using them daily, I can tell you that these are great headphones in terms of comfort and durability. They look the same as the day I bought them and have gotten more comfortable with time. The frame needs bent a little to accommodate larger heads and to relieve pressure on the ears. As of right now I can wear these almost all day without discomfort due to the leather pads. The leather pads are very nice but not the nicest of sticking jobs, but are still great to have. As for the wooden cups, they are really beautiful and have a much more deep coloring than W1000X due to the many many layers of lacquer that are on it. I would call the style of this headphone’s styling functional and understated for casual people passing by, but once you hold them in your hand, you can tell the detail and craft of them.
Quick summary of sonic signatures:
W1000X : Relatively neutral (not dark) sound with a very expansive soundstage and a tip towards prominent bass.
ESW10: Warmer two dimensional upfront sound with an emphasis on lush mids.
Lows:
W1000X: I consistently found this headphone to produce very deep bass in almost all the songs I played. It was well controlled and nowhere near as loose as a Denon D5000 was in my book. The bass extends very deep and can be a joy on neutral sounding songs, but sometimes overwhelming in bassy recording. For example, the bassist on Diana Krall’s S’Wonderful would be overemphasized and at time compete with Diana Krall’s voice.
ESW10: The bass feels well controlled and defined, but never really extends too deep in a song. While it is quite satisfying, it can feel slightly recessed due to the mids being more upfront. However, on songs that have prominent bass in them, this headphone can feel more balanced than the W1000X in this regard.
Mids:
W1000X: The W1000X have very good mids in most songs, but I feel that they tend to get drowned out by the bass and treble, especially once that the volume levels are raised. At lower volumes, lows, mids, highs are all on an equal plane with mids ever so slightly emphasized. With higher volume, the growing bass and treble, compounded with the large-ish soundstage makes things like vocals a little bit too far back for my likings. Many times, instruments can start to take a little more front stage than the vocals. If it weren’t for the ESW10’s amazing mids, I would have been content with the W1000x.
ESW10: This is really where this headphone truly excels! I think that a combination of small, upfront soundstage and prominent mids make this headphone a joy to listen to. I would characterize the mids as being very lush and liquid, extremely easy to listen to. Singers and instruments all are very involving and intimate to listen, with great timber and tonality. The mids are the reason why I cannot get rid of these headphones....they just always sound so right and I can never get tired of them.
Highs:
W1000X: The highs on this headphone are really wonderful and well balanced with the rest of the spectrum. Cymbals and high pitched guitar strings really sparkle and add a lot of dynamics to songs. Even with these great and extended highs, it never feels fatiguing to my ears.
ESW10: Treble is quite good, but sometimes feels a little rolled off and not as extended as on the W1000X most of the time. Despite this, I wouldn’t call these headphones dark by any means and the lack of extended treble doesn’t quite bother me. It can get a little fatiguing when a song has a lot of highs since the ESW10 can get a little congested at times.
Soundstage:
W1000X: The W1000X soundstage is truly wonderful and expansive, which is something I would never have thought a closed headphone could do so well! It isn’t as big of a soundstage as the HD800, but still allows for a lot of room / air between instruments, especially in Jazz and acoustic genres. One is able to very easily pinpoint where the instrument in placed in the field of space. This does have downsides though because the vocals also seem to be pushed back and at times get a little lost between all the other instruments. This means that this headphone isn’t ideal for more classic rock songs where an upfront presentation is preferable.
ESW10: Right away, one can tell that these are portable headphones by the relatively restricted soundstage compared to the W1000X. To me the soundstage felt quite linear (2D) and not very expansive, meaning that instruments could be identified left, center, and right, but not in depth. Vocals and instruments were very upfront, where the singer always felt he was 5ft away from me vs. 30-50ft on the W1000x, making songs feel more intimate at times. This seemed to work a lot better on Rock songs and reminded me of a closed version of the Grado RS-1 in tonality. However, when a musical passage gets overly complex and layered, the ESW10 has a harder time keeping up and sounds start to blend into one another.
Conclusion:
As you have probably read over and over again in my song impressions, I feel that each phone does things very differently based on what you might be interested in. I don’t really see the W1000X as a full size successor to the ESW10JPN in any way and they are quite different in tone and character. To me, one would get the ESW10 if they like a pretty forward set of headphones with upfront mids that are amazing to listen to. They remind me a little of a more closed Grado RS-1 in terms of soundstage and upfront nature, but not as fatiguing to my ears. For this great presentation that works wonderfully on electronica, rock, indie, jazz, you are sacrificing a little on the soundstage and on the bass and treble, but the headphone never really feels lacking in any of those departments.
As for the W1000X, I think it is a wonderful headphone with a very good and balanced amount of bass, akin to the Denon D7000 headphone. The soundstage is quite wonderful as is the bass and treble in the songs, but the mids feel not as forward as the the other ends of the sonic spectrum, especially at higher volumes. I feel that this headphone is a lot more linear or with a very slight bit of a V-shaped sonic signature compared to the ESW10 which is more of an inverse - V. This makes it not work too well with classic rock songs and ones that aren’t as well recorded, resulting in a thin and slightly more distant presentation of the song. With most of the music I listen to, which is Jazz, Indie, Acoustic, 80s though it truly excels with. Overall, I think you would be sacrificing the mids a little for much better soundstage, better controlled and deeper bass, and great sparkling highs that aren’t fatiguing. Compared to the HD800s though, I feel that the mids are similarly presented, if only slightly more emphasized, thus making this a "neutral" can tipped towards bass.
I personally plan on keeping the ESW10 JPN and the W1000X since they both capture different aspects of the music and complement each other quite well. However, I still plan on searching for the ultimate closed full size can that can do it all (Stax 4070 maybe?).
Very useful insight here, and comparison with ESW10 was really necessary. Thanks!
