Its very subjective, but Atrium is far more relaxed listen than the rather fast VO with its more noticeable treble. Its much more conservativly tuned headphone aswell. I can listen to my Atrium for hours without any fatigue, listening to a lot of metal and rock.
I find the Atrium treble to be smoother than the Verite. The Verite to my ears has just a slight hint of metallic hardness, a byproduct of the metal coated driver. The Atrium's biocellulose drivers are extremely smooth and natural sounding. All my opinion of course!
I do think that if you're quite sensitive to more forward upper mids then the Atrium could be fatiguing. I think WaveTheory has mentioned that he's pretty sensitive to the 1-3k area so I think that plays a big part in why he prefers the VO to the Atrium
To me the Atriums are smooth sounding headphones, smoother than Verité. But that's not a surprise as Wavetheory's taste and opinions are usually quite different to mine.
I think this depends on a several factors, most notably each listeners sensitivity to upper mids/lower treble and listening levels. *side note, I listen loud*
Nailed it.
Curious, what kind of wood was it? I found my Redwood Burl super smooth from the get go.
I want to say it was the harder olivewood version? It was my first time trying ZMFs and didn't have too much knowledge about their offerings at the time so I could be wrong since it was a lot to take in being in a room with so many beautiful stabilized and limited wood versions of their headphones haha
Haven’t listened to VO but AO is my daily driver and I’ve never had fatigue with them. They’re very easy to listen to. In fact, they’re my go to early in the morning or late at night when I want something relatively more relaxed.
Atrium Open, paired with a tube amp, is my absolute favorite for rock (of all kinds). I lack the audiophile vocabulary to describe how it renders electric guitar and drums but listening to AC/DC Thunderstruck is so so fun!
