[Monsterzero]

Just when I had made up my mind to go with the Caldera as my next purchase, I read this post and now the AC is back at the top of my list. After reading your enthusiastic post one after the other about this headphone, and being a basshead/stage addict myself I have decided I just have to hear that bass, and staging asap. There's a good chance there will be an AC in my near future...

These tracks are fun as heck with my VC's by the way, and I really dig the track Photosynthesis by Carbon Based Lifeforms. Thanks for sharing!

To be honest Wes, if I go directly from the AC to the Caldera it takes my ears and brain a bit to adjust before the Caldera no longer sounds bass light. Granted the Violectric v550 has a more neutral bass response than what the Airmid can bring to the table when using the Tung Sol 5998 or Western Electric 421a, so that def plays a role in what I'm hearing too, but the AC is the ZMF you want if you're a basshead.

The VC does do trance very well too, but the AC kicks the intensity up a notch. I also found that with the Western Electric 421a and Tung Sol 6J5 in the Airmid, the bass response out of the Burmese Teak(soft wood) pair I have here is actually too much for trance! The Thuya Burl pair I have tightens up the bass a bit, sounds snappier and a touch brighter overall, so to repeat what I said in my review, choose wood type wisely with the AC. Consider your DAC and amp and tubes in your system, and if you have a bass laden chain I'd recommend the hard wood AC.

Regardless, when I have the AC on my head and i'm listening to trance I get this stupid grin on my face knowing that what I'm hearing just cannot get any better.

 

[goldwerger]

 

[ken6217]

This one time in band camp…..

 

[Monsterzero]

I've received a couple of private messages regarding the trance tracks I posted above requesting more. I have been collecting trance music since the early 90s both for work and personal consumption, so again my collection is quite large.

Roon gives the ability to create a PDF file of my entire trance collection. If you have a streaming service I would assume that much of this stuff would be available for your listening enjoyment.

For the compilation albums that list the artist as "various", reference column "F" for the correct artist.

Enjoy.

 

[AudioDuck]

I love the caricature of Flea in this!

 

[AudioDuck]

This one time in band camp…..

American Pie spoiled me forever. Whenever someone says “this one time…” in casual conversation my mind always completes the sentence/joke in all its inappropriate glory. It literally happened to me a couple of hours ago.

 

[ken6217]

American Pie spoiled me forever. Whenever someone says “this one time…” in casual conversation my mind always completes the sentence/joke in all its inappropriate glory. It literally happened to me a couple of hours ago.

I saw interview with her a couple years ago and she said she has a 10-year-old daughter and a seven year old daughter and people still come up to her on the street to say that and she cringes.

 

[SLC1966]

Once I finished my review of the Atrium Closed HERE, I got busy with other stuff (I did just go back and add better headers to my review to make it cleaner).

I continue to spend a lot of time listening to the AC while doing this other stuff. I continue to be extremely impressed with the AC even as I understand it even more and more at deeper levels. Other headphones are easier to pigeon hole for good and bad. AC is hard to put in a box, literally and figuratively. It comes across as warm but it is not just that. It comes across with very good detail retrieval but is more than that. It comes across with such natural timbre but it is more than that. The sub bass is alluring but it is more than that. Really impressive.

The Caldera of course shines with SS amps. The Atrium Closed behaves so well with SS amps also. I have owned all other ZMF headphones and when I would listen to them on SS amps, I enjoyed them a lot but in the back of my mind, I always thought about how amazing these would sound on a tube amp. AC probably does sound great on a tube amp, but to me, it is already at an extremely high level with SS amps. I am not getting FOMO with AC and SS amps. I will end this paragraph also with "very impressive"!

OK, back to other stuff.

 

[henrix]

The wait is over

 

[ken6217]

The wait is over

They look beautiful. Which wood is that?

 

[Mímir]

I've received a couple of private messages regarding the trance tracks I posted above requesting more. I have been collecting trance music since the early 90s both for work and personal consumption, so again my collection is quite large.

Roon gives the ability to create a PDF file of my entire trance collection. If you have a streaming service I would assume that much of this stuff would be available for your listening enjoyment.

For the compilation albums that list the artist as "various", reference column "F" for the correct artist.

Enjoy.

Thanks a lot for this! I've spent 2 hours listening to trance very early this morning to start my day. The AC just excells here. And needless to say I didn't need any coffee after that .

It's now late in the afternoon, another 2 hours session but with calmer genres (mostly trip-hop) and boy do they also shine here. I don't know if its the wood or the closed back architecture, but thanks to the "slow" decay, the longer the notes, the better they are.

The AC is such a great allrounder.

 

[henrix]

They look beautiful. Which wood is that?

Olive wood LTD

 

[ken6217]

Olive wood LTD

I ordered the same.

 

[DenverW]

Feel pretty much the same. Caldera and AC compliment each other perfectly

I’ve got a strong feeling that is my future. Doing early canjam saving to find the right AC. Well, I was, until the aegis amp tapped me on the shoulder…

 

[ApertureSilence]

I’m almost two weeks into listening to the AC, and this may be the first closed-back I’ve ever truly fallen in love with.

At CanJam, I was astounded by just how close I felt Zach had come to the Atrium Open, and I told him so. However, the longer I listen at home the more I appreciate how different these are. For now, they've supplanted my Kennerton Gjallarhorn as my go-to basshead headphone. Not that they punch harder (the GH50 is arguably *too* aggressively dynamic for longer sessions), but the AC's combination of gentle biocellulose tactility and all that sub-bass presence is just so incredibly addicting. Makes me think I would have loved the Eikon back in the day. Being closed and its particular tuning also make it honestly the best headphone I’ve ever heard for quiet listening, which again is great for saving one’s hearing during those long sessions.

Since I now have two Atriums and the ZMF OTL amp to drive both simultaneously, I had a friend over for the first time for a joint listening session last Sunday. Needless to say, he was blown away.