Re: All this AT talk:
This all seems like exciting news. Audio Technica is a company I respect deeply, even though their house sound isn't always my thing. I feel very lucky to have owned the AD2000 for a bit; that was a gorgeous headphone. (Eventually traded it for some cash + EX1000's).
I'm endlessly intrigued by the CK100Pro and CKM1000. One day I have to listen!
Hello everyone! As a fellow Head-fier, I do have a very deep affinity and respect when it comes down to Audio-technica gears, they were the ones who helped kick-start this hobby of my when I was getting sick of those sub-50 dollars earbuds/IEMs when I moved up to higher quality music sources. Still remembered I just got started getting into Head-fi around 2004/2005 period by lurking around, back at that time in terms for the portable scene Sony/iRiver players were always very popular among budding audiophiles/enthusiasts, even more so than Apple back then since they only had Classics/Minis back at that time. Shortly after I got the Sony NW-HD5 I registered around here, but I have also been reading up on alot of Audio-technica headphones gears back at that time as the AD1000/AD2000 cans just got released too, but mostly could not afford them as I was still a student, so I mostly stuck around playing with mid-fi IEMs like the MDR-EX90 NUDE monitors and Panny's RP-HJE70 which were quite popular IEMs for its time as well.
The major changing point for me was in June 2008, after finally moving on from dynamic transducer in-ears to ATH's balanced armature ones. The
ATH-CK9 was my first actual Audio-technica gear purchase I picked up (was also ATH's first BA made iem model), and I still remembered back then liked it more over the dynamic sibling CK7, mostly due to the latter having very boomy/flabby bass response to my ears, while the former had a very punchy and nice slam in terms of bass quality though not more in quantity, but it's adequate enough for me personally since I have always being more of a mids/treble person myself, and not really a basshead exactly. (back in those days those who can say that Audio-technica stuff are suitable for bassheads were probably out of their mind srsly, as back then there wasn't anything like the Solid Bass series introduced for the consumer entry line-up, although there are already quite some bass heavy cans at that time such as the ATH-L3000, but it's a truth that not everyone can afford the L3000 easily lol, at least not for my case)
Well ever since then, my growing love for Audio-technica is something that cannot be explained by mere words. So far my ATH gear acquisition history goes from something like ATH-CK9 > ATH-CM700Ti > ATH-FC700 (2 pairs, one in White one in Red) > ATH-ESW9 (my first ATH woodies) > ATH-CK100 > ATH-CK100PRO > ATH-W100 (my second and only full-sized ATH woodies so far) > ATH-AD1000PRM (my latest acquired ATH gear, apart from the AT-PHA05BT LTD edition bluetooth receiver+amp which I picked up ard the same time when I bought my Walkman Z series earlier this yr).
I can confidently say so far, I have never had the urge to sell any of my acquired ATH stuffs that I have bought so far, well with the exception of the ATH-ESW9 as they were abit too dark for my listening tastes, but I do still go back to them occasionally once in awhile to listen to slow acoustic/vocal jazz genres which seems to compliment these portable cans very well. My main qualms with the ESW9's is that their comfort fit doesn't fit my ears that well, while I have pretty small canals but my ear lobes are quite large for Asian people standards, so most of the time because these are considered supra-aural cans so they are usually resting on my ears instead of over them, which kinda strains the overall wearing comfort experience so in my honest opinion they were not exactly the best cans for me. I did not realised this when I tried it out at my local stores, only after owning them for awhile in my ownership, but their overall design and richness in their mids tonality overall more than makes up for its flaws. My favourite and what I would personally considered to be my best buy through out my ATH journey so far, is the AD1000PRM Air Dynamic series, this is honestly the same Audio-technica gear that has given me alot of surprises after my CK9/CK100PRO, for the price that I have gotten them it was truly a bargain and considering it was produced in limited quantities and based on the same Permendur 53mm drivers like the presently discontinued AD2000 flagship model. (it was new and came in sealed box with everything included, according to my japanese friend the store was having some sort of annual clearance during April, and because electronic denki merchants there usually have stock clearance during April since they are finishing the stock accounting for the fiscal work year of the prev year by March every year, so I got lucky and managed to pick these up brand new for a pretty good price)
Please feel free to ask me anything about the CK100PRO's if you wanna know anything abt them, we have 2 major audio stores here in Singapore and they do carry most IEM flagships from the other brand manufacturers, so I will be able to give you guys a feedback or something if some of you need some impressions of a certain IEM model against the CK100PRO. Unfortunately I haven't heard the CKM1000's for myself yet as it's not available here, but according to what I know so far from what my japanese friend told me + several online chinese review impressions gathered from various other forums, CKM1000 is quite a step back in terms of overall resolution details/transparency and blackness in terms of background. It has a fuller/thicker body in terms lower-mids/midrange similar like the CKW1000ANV wood model, but the CKW1000ANV has slightly more resonance/reverberation in it's upper-mids treble range in terms of the sound, most japanese people generally refer to this sound characteristics or properties as "adeyaka coloration" (which also stands for glossy-sounding or enchanting in terms of describing the sound traits) so I think depending on whether you have heard other ATH higher end stuffs before, it can be a love it-or-hate it thing and definitely not for everyone. Both CKW1000ANV and CKM1000 definitely has more bass body and response compared to the CK100PRO's, this I can confirm as it has been verified by my friend as well who has heard all 3 models.
re: AT AD2000, now that you mentioned it (it going scarce) this is going to be hard on me lol. I don't know how close the sound is it (AD2000) to the A1000x (I'm thinking not close at all) but really the aggressive look of the open back and my love for the 3D wing system (which, IME w/ the A1000X fits me perfectly) are what attracts me to the AD2000. That and just the scarcity of them amongst most Head-Fiers. Still, looking forward to the new model. And with this, hopefully the revamp of the whole AD series (so that I can afford at least some of the new line LOL)
re: VMODA M100, I think a little bass tilt, and possibly treble tilt, for any portable on-the-go headphones is a good thing, since IME, noise seems to be masking a lot of the lower and higher frequency, especially when I'm using the Metro (subway). Besides, they have those custom shields, which means I can flaunt my anime love. Somehow I am regretting not following the hype of these current Head-Fi darling and pre-ordered it. This would be quite nice to wear when winter just hit later this year. (No where in forever that it would be enough to combat -5 C (possibly not even 0 C) and below though).
Of the others on your 'interest list' MF, I'm most likely looking forward to your thoughts on the STAX IEM, the FAD "Pandora Trio", the UE900 and the TH600. Of course reading your impressions of the others is also great since I can't imagine even auditioning some of the more expensive gear here (both in Moscow and Malaysia) in the short term and medium term future.
To be honest, I don't see the reasoning to get the AD2000 right now when the AD2000X has already been announced, in fact I'm actually saving up for the AD2000X right now, and will definitely be writing a review impressions and A/B comparison thread for my AD2000X, against my own pair of AD1000PRM as well. I should have them by Jan/Feb period of next yr if nothing goes wrong in terms of my wallet, this year is kinda impossible for me already as I'm going on a holiday vacation soon and I think I have already spent enough for this year in terms of my audio purchases, having just bought one of the last few avail sets of TTVJ Slim as well before Todd discontinued them in favour of the latest Apex Glacier portable amps.
Unless you can get a pretty good bargain price for a mint used AD2000 through the buy/sell section, if not I would say it's probably a better idea to go for the newer AD2000X cans if your wallet allows you. I will re-quote this portion from one of the original posts I had posted previously in one of my local forums, this analogy is usually true from what I have heard before based on my impressions from Audio-technica's own Art Monitors line-up as well as their Wood series line-up, so unless ATH decides to experiment with something drastically new, I'm actually quite sure that the AD2000X model will surpass the previous AD2000 predecessor by all possibilities given.
Haonan said:
AD2000 is actually not a "brighter" can than AD1000PRM/AD1000, you can go search it up on Head-fi yrself, there's alot of consensus going ard that AD2000 is the more balanced headphone out of the whole AD series line-up, which is also why I believe Audio-technica decide to improve it further, and name it the AD2000X. Case in pt, typically for Audio-technica cans for their Art Monitors/Air Dynamic and Wood series, when a certain specified model gets upgraded to a latest iteration with the "X" denotation after the product model, it usually shows that it has a much linear curve in its overall frequency response, and usually the bass/treble extension get refined/improved further. At least this was the case for me when I tried out the A900X/A2000X models over their non-X predecessors, as well as one of my fav woodies of all time, the W1000X, W1000's bigger sibling and successor.
