After a few evening sessions with the Atrium, I hooked up my Auteurs for a quick comparison.
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.
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