Somebody having both Grado RS1 and an Audio Technica woodie?...

[greenhorn]

... and willing to stress the comparative advantages / disadvantages between them?

When I say "Audio Tecnica woodie", I am limiting myself to W100, W1000 and W2002, these are the ones I know. I would be interested to know what I will gain / lose when I will get a pair of RS1 (see my WTB thread in the FS forum

)

Thanks a lot!

 

[bangraman]

RS1 > W1000 in every sense
RS1 > W2002 in overall entertainment sense... but it's easy to grow out of this. I did in 3 weeks
RS1 < W2002 in a technical sense

 

[NotoriousBIG_PJ]

w100 has this coloured upper midrange that makes everything but female vocals sound unatural. It also has strange reverb effects. RS-1's don't have these problems.

And I still haven't grown out of the rs-1's entertaining playback.

Biggie.

 

[Chefguru]

I've owned the w2002 and rs1. I greatly prefer the w2002 but they sound pretty different. The rs-1 is much faster and has more slam in the sound but the w2002 has more detail and it's sound stage is much larger. The Mid range on the w2002 is bigger as well but it's bass is kind of a tie. The w2002 can have very nice bass with the correct amp but the rs-1 always has very nice controlled bass.

Ath-w2002 : Bigger sound stage, better mid range, a lot more detail, good bass when amped correctly, much better looking, nice case

Grado Rs-1 : Faster, Bit more slam although i feel both are good here, lighter, less amp sensitive, easier to drive, cheaper

 

[jpelg]

Having also owned the W2002's & the RS-1's (at different times), I would agree with all that has been written here.

My feeling is that the A-T's (W2002) are much more amp-dependant to sound "right", though. The W100's don't hold a candle to the higher-end models in any regard. Never heard the W1000's.

 

[aerius]

Heard the RS1 and W100 at 2 separate meets. W100 has a nice sweet sound with female vocals and it sounds about average with male vocals. However, as Biggie mentioned, there's a weird colouration which I noticed with electric guitars, they never sounded right and the tone was off somehow. With solo violins there's a bad resonance as well, it sounds as if someone punched holes into the violin body. The RS1's don't have these problems.

 

[gpalmer]

I have both the W2002s and the RS-1 and would pretty much agree with everything folks have been saying in this thread. They both have a place in my collection... I like the two for different music also. I tend to favor the W2002s for jazz and classical and reach for the RS-1s when I'm listening to rock. Not that either can't do both styles of music, but they do have their strengths.

 

[greenhorn]

Thanks everybody.

As for the W2002: which were the amps that made it shine and which not?

 

[gpalmer]

W2002, in descending order of sound quality

Thumbs up
carlo modded Sugden Headmaster
EAR HP-4 || Gilmore Balanced Reference
Grace 901

Thumbs down
Emmeline HR-2
Stock Gilmore V2-SE

 

[Chefguru]

Haven't heard it my self but every one that has heard it seems to like the sudgen headmaster with the w2002. I have a feeling w2002/hp-4 would work well (I've owned both but never had them together). I have heard w2002/ppa and thought it wasn't to bad but was a tad dry for the w2002.

 

[zeplin]

I'm not trying to bash the two cans because I've heard them both and they both sound wonderful, but is the reason as to why they are priced so high lie in the making of the product, or something else? Just wondering???