smodtactical
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2012
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Auteur has the best timbre; nothing sounds 'off' with electronic music and musical instruments/vocals sound very natural. The Atticus has the best timbre for real instruments; despite the satisfying midbass thump, the timbre just seems a bit off for electronic music. The Atticus is just very organic. The HP-3 is the total opposite of the Atticus; electronic music sounds AMAAAAAAAAAAZING but I don't care for the timbre when it comes to real instruments.
HP3 and Atticus have about same soundstage width, Auteur a bit narrower. HP3 has the deepest soundstage of them all, but the Auteur's imaging is the best as well as the 'blackground'.
If you like subbass/boosted treble = HP3 (plus it actually isolates a decent chunk for an open back)
If you like midbass/mids = Atticus (the HP3 has an even bigger boosted midbass, but the Atticus does it better with a nice thump you pretty much only get with closed backs)
If you like Mids/Clarity with acceptable subbass = Auteur.
Electronic = HP3, no question
Jazz = Atticus due to sexy mids, then Auteur
Classical = Auteur/HP-3 then Atticus
Best all rounder = Auteur
Most forgiving of poorly recorded tracks = Atticus (the HP3 and Auteur will reveal ****ty mastering very readily, this is kinda a drawback)
Auteur not for consumer bassheads.
Thank you for the awesome impressions. This is a very tricky decision for me. On the one hand I have the hd800s which I use for classical ambient and space ambient music as well as medieval and Celtic music and I'm not really looking to replace them for those genres. However I have always wondered what the 800s would sound like if it had a bit warmer of of the sound with more bass and subbass.
The Atticus seems very appealing to me based on what you said. A sort of hd650 with even better bass and detailed mids and probably even more extended treble. I enjoy my 650 for edm and jazz as well as any music where the 800s gets too white hot or if I'm just in a softer detail relaxation mood.
Very tough decision. I also wonder if I'll get a decent sound with my burson conductor sl 9018 with zmf headphones. I suppose most likely I will be fine. I recently compared the Burson to the Moon Neo 430 had and was surprised to find that the Burson got me to about 95% of the sound quality of the Moon Neo with my hd800s (with a laptop running flac on foobar 2000) I suppose I'll be fine.
Do you think the Atticus could satisfy consumer baseheads?