Here’s a closed-back headphone from Audio-Technica with familiar features except that its capsule closures are made of titanium instead of wood. To what effect?
Human resources departments have many wonderful euphemisms for giving you the sack: downsizing, right-sizing, letting you go, etc. So what’s the right term for trimming down an overly numerous and confusing product offer? ‘Rationalisation’, sometimes used for the former, is a term that actually makes sense in the latter case. So, Audio-Technica, a word to the wise: undertake some product rationalisation.
SO MANY MODELS!
You’d expect, of course, a company with Audio-Technica’s long history in headphone manufacture to have a broader range of models than headphone industry newcomers like Audeze (seven models) or Oppo (three models). But the new £529 ATH-A2000Z reviewed here joins no fewer than 22 other cans in A-T’s Hi-Fi category alone. Alongside which there are five active noise-cancelling models, 35 portable models, 12 monitor models, three DJ models, three headsets and six gaming models.
I make that 82 models in total!
It’s hardly surprising in the circumstances that I get a sense of déjà vu looking at the ATH-A2000Z. In many respects it is similar to the ATH-W1000Z Maestoso, and other A-T closed-backs we’ve reviewed before that. It too has a captive four-conductor Y-cable using 6N (99.9999% pure) copper (the voice coil is 7N), large circular circumaural capsules, a magnesium capsule frame, the same 3D Wing Support headband arrangement, and the same Double Air Damping System that is claimed to provide ‘an extended frequency range for deep bass reproduction’. But, as the lab report shows [see p71], it doesn’t, particularly in comparison to competing models from Audeze and Oppo.
What the lab report also reveals is that the diffuse-field corrected responses measured from the Maestoso and ’A2000Z are the same to within ±2.5dB, and for much of the audible frequency range align more closely than that.
So what are the differences? Well, the ’A2000Z has titanium rather than teak capsule closures, which help make it 8% lighter (including cable). If, like me, you are as bored with headphones having wooden capsules as you are with woodveneered loudspeakers, the silvery titanium items also give the ’A2000Z a visual lift, making it look more contemporary, less pipe and slippers. Other differences are that the ’A2000Z appears to lack the ‘floating mount’ system of the Maestoso that compliantly decouples the drive unit, and it has a headband comprising thin fl at metal strips rather than the thin plastic-covered roundsection equivalents of the A-T Maestoso.
And thereby hangs an all too familiar tale. I’ve been griping in these pages about headband resonance in Audio-Technica headphones since the ATH-W5000 [HFN Nov ’08]. It too had the thin fl at metal headband of the ATHA2000Z, which very obviously colours the sound of pink noise played over the left capsule during the impedance test. Here we are, getting on for eight years later, and Audio-Technica is still using this headband design and I’m still complaining about it, apparently in vain. Does nobody in A-T’s Tokyo headquarters listen to constructive criticism?
Like every Audio-Technica I’ve tried with the 3D Wing Support system, the ’A2000Z is comfortable to wear, as much because of its large, soft earpads and moderate head clamping force as its idiosyncratic headband design. Of course, the reduction in weight brought by the use of titanium only helps here.
As with the Maestoso, though, the ATHA2000Z demonstrated more variability in low frequency response than, say, the harder-clamping Kennerton Magister so some users may find that this comfort comes at the cost of finding it difficult to achieve an effective seal to the head – a good reason, if you can, to try before you buy.
While the ATH-A2000Z is no better suited to use on the move than the Maestoso – the capsules don’t fold fl at and the connecting lead is 3m long – it does at least allow for use with mini-jack signal sources. Whereas the Maestoso’s terminating plug is a ¼in jack, the ATHA2000Z’s is a mini-jack with sleeve adapter for compatibility with ¼in sockets. No storage case is provided, not even a soft pull-string bag.
EASE OF LISTENING
You won’t be surprised to learn, given what I’ve already said, that the ’A2000Z sounds broadly similar to the recently reviewed Maestoso, which I still had to hand for comparison. Which is to say, it has a tonal balance that I hear as a little on the warm side of neutral but which never becomes cloyingly so, suiting a wide range of programme in terms of both genre and recording quality.
It isn’t the most explicit headphone, lacking as it does the ultimate transparency of the best, but it does a more effective job than most of combining ease of listening with powers of analysis. And those small differences in frequency response between it and the Maestoso are not inconsequential, especially the ATH-A2000Z’s slightly stronger presence band output. As a consequence, I prefer the ’A2000Z of the two, particularly where an ability to cut through dense musical textures is an asset.
An example I stumbled on pretty quickly when comparing them was the Scottish Ensemble’s recording of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade For Strings. Particularly when you’ve just been listening to a hi-res string recording, as I had been, the distinctly more murky string sound of this 44.1kHz/16-bit offering comes as something of a shock. But there is subtlety within that a revealing headphone can mine, and the ’A2000Z did a distinctly better job of this than the Maestoso while at the same time still adopting caution as a virtue, and not quite serving up the warts-and-all sound that I ultimately prefer to anything that’s editorialised.
I anticipated from this that the ’A2000Z would also be better able to blow the cobwebs off old pop and rock recordings, and so it turned out. Cameo’s ‘Word Up!’, given new life recently by the silly MoneySuperMarket TV advert, provided a good example. Nobody is ever going to deify this track as an audiophile demonstration piece but it’s less dynamically squashed than a lot of modern pop material and embodies an extraordinary ability to encourage even those with two left feet to dance.
From the opening bars with their Ennio Morricone-like whistles through to Larry Blackmon’s Donald Duck vocal, this track was distinctly more energising via the ATH-A2000Z than the Maestoso, which was that bit too reserved to inspire the fl ailing of limbs.
SANTANA’S ACOUSTIC SPACE
It was a similar story when I played the hires version of ‘Jingo’ from the eponymous Santana album [HDtracks 96kHz/24-bit download], and this track also crystallised an impression that I’d begun to gain from the previous items: that the ’A2000Z images better. I was surprised to be aware of a sense of acoustic space as the music began – not something I’ve come to associate with CBS’s only moderately successful attempts at capturing the distinctive Santana sound when the band was in its pomp. By comparison the Maestoso’s stereo image was less expansive and the sense of an acoustic, however fleeting, significantly less well resolved.
Ringing the changes, and revisiting old friends, I played a couple of the 96kHz/24-bit recordings that Norway’s 2L Records makes available as free downloads in a number of different formats for comparison.
Neither the Presto from Haydn’s String Quartet in D, with the Engegård Quartet, nor the Maestoso from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 32, played by Tor Espen Aspaas, are items for the faint-hearted or those who prefer to sit nearer the back of a hall when listening to classical music rather than in the front row. The Haydn in particular is explicit to the point of being strident but the upside is that you hear the playing of each member of the quartet in exquisite detail.
IN LOVE WITH SABINA
Doing its best to deliver the upside while dodging the downside, the ATH-A2000Z succeeded in conveying the detail, and capturing the natural recording acoustic of the Haydn without allowing the incipient harshness too much of a look in.
On the Beethoven sonata movement it delivered a delicious balance between the left and right hands, conveying the full impact of the power chords while also giving free rein to the swirling string harmonics to be heard reverberating within the case of the pianoforte. Whether you care for Aspaas’s interpretation or not, this is a demonstration piece and the ’A2000Z carried it off notably well.
The ATH-A2000Z also served to reintroduce me to the 192kHz/24-bit download of the marvellous ‘Take Five’ from Sabina Sciubba and Antonio Forcione’s Meet Me In London [Naim label], another track I haven’t listened to for ages. Is it possible to fall in love with someone just by hearing them sing? If so, Sabina Sciubba must have broken countless hearts in her career. She soars through this song to the tune of the famous Dave Brubeck Quartet piece, with fabulous control and vocal variety but always with what sounds like an impish grin on her face. Audio-Technicas are often good at female vocals but the ’A2000Z went that bit further, melding seductive vocal warmth with well controlled sibilants and clearly resolved but unexaggerated breath sounds.
And let’s not forget Antonio Forcione, whose right-channel acoustic guitar was crisp, with just the right hue of body tone. It’s a pity that the centrally-placed guitar – also played by Forcione, of course – sounds a bit muffled by comparison otherwise this would be a demonstration piece too.
It can be a bit trying listening to a succession of headphones that fail, for me, to make the leap from mundane to special, so the ATHA2000Z has been a real fillip. In that crazily large range of Audio-Technica’s it could easily be lost, but it deserves to shine like beacon.
VERDICT
This is the most inspirational Audio-Technica headphone that I’ve heard in many a year. Despite embodying many familiar elements in its construction, and while still being recognisably A-T in its sound quality, it manages to be a significant improvement on the recently reviewed ATHW1000Z Maestoso – and usefully cheaper too. Take my advice: if you’re looking to buy a £500 headphone, be certain to hear it.
SPECIFICATIONS
Sensitivity (SPL at 1kHz for 1Vrms input): 117.4dB
Impedance modulus min/max (20Hz-20kHz): 42.7ohm @ 5.5kHz, 53.6ohm @ 76Hz
Capsule matching (40Hz-10kHz): ±12.8dB
LF extension (–6dB ref. 200Hz): 32Hz
Distortion 100Hz/1kHz (for 90dB SPL): 0.1% / <0.1%
Weight (inc cable and 0.25in connector): 366g