[spittis]

After a few evening sessions with the Atrium, I hooked up my Auteurs for a quick comparison. Both have the the perf. universe pads installed. Edit: my mistake, I have the Eikon lambskin perf. pads on the Auteur at the moment. The Autriums have the stock Universe lambskin perf.

The Auteur holds up pretty well tbh, due to its more forward sound the Atrium sounds slightly veiled immediately after switching between them. However, after a little while when the hearing has settled, the perception changes.

The Atrium has a larger soundstage, and somehow it manages to make everything sound extremely pleasant (timbre), yet not lacking anything when it comes to detail retrieval and separation. It's considerably warmer in sound signature than the Auteur, but it doesn't have the drawbacks of say the Aeolus to my ears, which I consider too warm and veiled.
After getting accustomed to the Atrium sound and switching back to the Auteurs, the more forward presentation and closer soundstage jumps at you immediately, the sound is slightly more crisp, but also more aggressive, I can pick out sibilance with some tracks, something I didn't notice before owning the Atriums. Overall the Auteurs also sound leaner down low (not anemic, just leaner than the Atriums).

I guess I'm mainly confirming what seems to be a common opinion on the Atriums - that they have an incredibly pleasant sound signature without the drawbacks that typically comes with "pleasant sound" - i.e. a lack of characteristics that tend to make a headphone sound "refined" which to me is a lot about detail retrieval and separation.

At the same time I have to give credit to the Auteurs - they hold up remarkably well, at this point I'm not even sure that the Atrium's replace them for me, I can see a case for keeping both.

I also haven't tested other pads with the Atriums yet, so there's a lot to explore still.

 

[Traiguen]

These Atriums are so beautiful.... that you enjoy them even when they are not on your head!!!!

 

[kumar402]

so I have been putting in some hours into the atrium, be it passive burn in or active listening. What I am noticing that despite having excellent depth, and decent width with staging. It actually presents itself kinda weird, where the left and right pans very much directly left and right, and with good depth, the staging is pretty much like an upside down "T" and not much in between, will that change by itself or pad change, or is that by design.

I had similar experience where the hall presented itself with more depth then width. I found Freya+ in tube mode helped me out a lot by making it sound a bit wider and bringing the stage a lot closer.

 

[ckhirnigs113]

After a few evening sessions with the Atrium, I hooked up my Auteurs for a quick comparison. Both have the the perf. universe pads installed.

The Auteur holds up pretty well tbh, due to its more forward sound the Atrium sounds slightly veiled immediately after switching between them. However, after a little while when the hearing has settled, the perception changes.

The Atrium has a larger soundstage, and somehow it manages to make everything sound extremely pleasant (timbre), yet not lacking anything when it comes to detail retrieval and separation. It's considerably warmer in sound signature than the Auteur, but it doesn't have the drawbacks of say the Aeolus to my ears, which I consider too warm and veiled.
After getting accustomed to the Atrium sound and switching back to the Auteurs, the more forward presentation and closer soundstage jumps at you immediately, the sound is slightly more crisp, but also more aggressive, I can pick out sibilance with some tracks, something I didn't notice before owning the Atriums. Overall the Auteurs also sound leaner down low (not anemic, just leaner than the Atriums).

I guess I'm mainly confirming what seems to be a common opinion on the Atriums - that they have an incredibly pleasant sound signature without the drawbacks that typically comes with "pleasant sound" - i.e. a lack of characteristics that tend to make a headphone sound "refined" which to me is a lot about detail retrieval and separation.

At the same time I have to give credit to the Auteurs - they hold up remarkably well, at this point I'm not even sure that the Atrium's replace them for me, I can see a case for keeping both.

I also haven't tested other pads with the Atriums yet, so there's a lot to explore still.

Just thought I’d mention that Universe pads are by far the brightest option on the Auteur. I tried them briefly and immediately took them off. Have you tried the stock Auteur Lambskin pads? I go back and forth between those and the warmer-sounding Eikon Suedes on my OG Auteur. I don’t think many Auteur owners are using the Universe pads.

 

[Edosan227]

I had similar experience where the hall presented itself with more depth then width. I found Freya+ in tube mode helped me out a lot by making it sound a bit wider and bringing the stage a lot closer.

yeah, I thought the soundstage will be comparable to the elite, but so far it is not the case

 

[Edosan227]

as a new zmf headphone user, I think it's the height of cruelty for zmf to label the direction for the earpads

 

[orbilius]

Amphitrite arrived this past week and it looks gorgeous! Like everyone else, they're hard to do justice in photographs to the awesomeness that they are in real life. Wanted to get some good light though so you can see how cool the wood grain and colors look. I really dig how different each cup looks.

Feeling very grateful to own these. Thanks so much @zach915m and everyone else at ZMF!

Such a beautiful collection and amp. I am really curious to hear about ZMFs on 300b tubes. From what I have heard on mine they are plenty warm and smooth and I think that is the character of the 300b. Please correct me if I am mistaken. I guess my question is about the benefit of pairing ZMF with an amp of similar character. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

 

[spittis]

Just thought I’d mention that Universe pads are by far the brightest option on the Auteur. I tried them briefly and immediately took them off. Have you tried the stock Auteur Lambskin pads? I go back and forth between those and the warmer-sounding Eikon Suedes on my OG Auteur. I don’t think many Auteur owners are using the Universe pads.

Lol thanks for pointing this out, I haven't been pad rolling in a long while and got confused, it's the Eikon perforated lambskin pads I have on the Auteurs atm, I edited my previous post. I do have the stock Auteurs lambskin pads too, but they're in a bit of a rough shape and I probably need to just order a new pair at some point. I think I used an unsuitable leather cleaner on them, I've had the Eikon pads in use for the last 6 months at least. I should put the stock pads on to refresh my memory on the stock sound though.

I do also have the perf Universe pads (both suede and lambskin versions) but I haven't tried them in a long long time. Also got the BE2 pads with the Atriums but haven't tried those either yet. I'm giving the Atriums some more time in the stock condition before trying other pads.

 

[robo24]

Such a beautiful collection and amp. I am really curious to hear about ZMFs on 300b tubes. From what I have heard on mine they are plenty warm and smooth and I think that is the character of the 300b. Please correct me if I am mistaken. I guess my question is about the benefit of pairing ZMF with an amp of similar character. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

There's quite a lot of variation in 300b tubes and some like the Elrogs are much more solid state sounding if that's what one wants, but even between the two Elrogs I've had the ER & MO they were quite different, with the ER being warmer. For my preferences it worked with my ZMFs better than the brighter MO model. The Western Electric are warmer still, more "tubey" with a very expansive sound and they're my favorite 300b with all my ZMFs.

So some of it is simply playing to the strengths of ZMFs. When I had brighter amps like the TT2 and Hugo 2, while I liked them directly with various ZMFs initially, over time as I got better and better tube amps the Hugo 2 especially got a bit grating when used directly. I also found something similar with the warm LCD-3 which I really liked on tubes and warmer solid state, but had I first heard it on the TT2 I would never have given it another try let alone buy it.

 

[Traiguen]

QuickSilver & Tor Audio Balanced - 2 good tube amps which work great with ZMF and don't break the bank!

 

[gKalkin]

Anyone have issues with their Atriums sliding off of their head when leaning back or forward? I have tried adjusting the clamp force but increasing it doesn't seem to help. I think the clamp is already too strong and is affecting comfort.

This wasn't as much of an issue when I was using the lambskin universe pads but I have been enjoying the caldera ultra perf, which seem to slide around on my head pretty easily.

 

[JackarlTwo]

Anyone have issues with their Atriums sliding off of their head when leaning back or forward? I have tried adjusting the clamp force but increasing it doesn't seem to help. I think the clamp is already too strong and is affecting comfort.

This wasn't as much of an issue when I was using the lambskin universe pads but I have been enjoying the caldera ultra perf, which seem to slide around on my head pretty easily.

I'm using the Caldera pads as we speak and the fit is great for me, but yes they seem to move around a little bit more now that you mention it. I haven't really thought about it. Never been an issue though.

 

[spittis]

Anyone have issues with their Atriums sliding off of their head when leaning back or forward? I have tried adjusting the clamp force but increasing it doesn't seem to help. I think the clamp is already too strong and is affecting comfort.

This wasn't as much of an issue when I was using the lambskin universe pads but I have been enjoying the caldera ultra perf, which seem to slide around on my head pretty easily.

They do move around more on my head than the Auteurs, the shape of the headband seems to be different at least between my models, the Auteurs sit more flat on the head and thus move around less. It's very noticeable when hanging them on stands:

The Atriums moving around on the head hasn't been an issue for me though. Also regarding the comparison above, the shape of the headbands is probably to some degree affected by wear, the Auteurs have been in heavy use for +3 years while the Atriums are pretty much new still.

 

[JackarlTwo]

Speaking of the Caldera pads I admit I've neglected them for a while. Holy crap I forgot how good they can make Atrium sound. With good recordings it's insane how much clarity and space there is. The Caldera pads and the more open radial mesh push the treble a bit more than I like for sure, but everything sounds so incredibly clear and spacious. In a way it's almost planar like with some biodynamic ZMF magic. I just need to get into tubes soon. I feel like I'm restricting the potential of these headphones too much with my aging solid-state

 

[recstar24]

Speaking of the Caldera pads I admit I've neglected them for a while. Holy crap I forgot how good they can make Atrium sound. With good recordings it's insane how much clarity and space there is. The Caldera pads and the more open radial mesh push the treble a bit more than I like for sure, but everything sounds so incredibly clear and spacious. In a way it's almost planar like with some biodynamic ZMF magic. I just need to get into tubes soon. I feel like I'm restricting the potential of these headphones too much with my aging solid-state

Wonderful timing - I had a friend over and I had him listen to my atriums with the recently installed universe pads I had from a few weeks back as I was curious. Upon listening he immediately noticed that it didn’t appear to have that same magic he had heard with them last time (with the caldera pads). I swapped over to the caldera UP and we both agreed that the sense of space and overall soundstage was simply better and more natural sounding with the caldera pads. I hate rolling pads too so I was simply waiting for him to confirm my thoughts and I plan on just keeping it on the caldera pads for good.