A700X
The A700X is a closed headphone that is part of Audio Technica’s Art Series. I wished I could have tested the A900X too since it was its older version, the A900 that was very popular around 10 years ago when I joined headfi.org. The A900 was quite popular among the forums during those days and they were always compared as some sort of standard to many other open and closed headphones alike. The A900 basically got the reputation of being the best closed headphone to get for music lover’s that just wanted to enjoy the music and think less about the equipment. I agreed with that consensus since the a900 didn’t really scale up that well with more expensive amps yet already sounded good out of less powerful equipment like the ipod for example. I bought an A900 myself but ended up letting them go because they were too bassy for my tastes in the long run. I also found them to be slightly bright with slightly hollow mids. Although I was a noob at headfi during those years, I have already been into high end speaker audio and have already owned koss electrostats, Sennheiser’s HD580, and a few Grados by that time so far as headphones were concerned. Now you may ask yourself why am I talking a lot about the old A900 instead of the A700X? Well to put it plainly, I have heard that the A700x is derived from the a900 technology while the a900x from the a1000 technology. I don’t know how much truth there is to that but I am just reporting this information based on what I have read. Enough with the technology, Lets talk about the sound.
So how does the A700X sound?
Well, to put it bluntly they sound outdated. The bass is adequate but nothing special. The headphones sound a little cheap with artificial sounding highs and a nasal cuppy sound. The weird tonality in the upper mids to highs is especially noticeable when playing classical music where getting the sound of individual instrumental timbres right is critical. There is a really huge dip around 3khz when I played a sweep track probably contributing a lot to this weirdness in tonality. The lower mids to around 1khz is okay though and is relatively warm with good weight to instruments. Dynamics on these are okay for the price too I guess but it’s hard to praise dynamics when the tonality is not quite right. These cans however are definitely an upgrade over apple buds and I myself would choose them over many headphones that I have heard in the same price range that have bloated bass or very bright highs for instance. Audiophiles that want a neutral headphone however need not apply. If a fresh new redefined sound or something oozing with technicalities is what is desired, forget the A700X and look for something else. I would get Audio Technica’s own M50LE for that matter over these since they hit the sweet spot for being technically correct (neutral and balanced) and musical at the same time at around the same price as the A700X. Just like the old A900, the A700X has that slightly bright treble and hollow midrange typical of the Art Series. The bass on the newer A700X is more balanced however and doesn’t overpower the mids as much as the old A900 did.
So enough with me ripping these headphones apart. The question I should ask is… Who will actually want to buy these? The target market so to speak. I can see a lot of people that just want headphones that have an overall good balance with decent bass and sparkly highs plus a good capability to play loud without distorting liking these cans quite a bit. I bet that most people outside of audiophiles that hang out at audio forum sites won’t even relate with those negative points that I just talked about because if I remember when I was young, the first thing that mattered to me was getting a clean sound at high volumes and everything else became secondary to that. Besides, if you look at the headphones that I ripped apart above like the well liked dt880s and the k701s for example, you may feel at least relieved that the A700Xs are not alone. Another factor that may make people want to buy these are for their looks. The Audio Technica A700X definitely has its own classic look in contrast to the beats-like look of most headphones coming out these days. Oh, and in case I forgot to mention it, these cans are very easy to drive just like all the other Audio Technica Art or Air series headphones for that matter. Getting these will definitely come out cheaper than getting a headphone in the same price range that is only slightly better yet harder to drive since you will have to add an amp for those to get decent sound quality and volume out of your portable device or computer.
Lets move to the AD900x…..
