The Ways of Sound: My Headphones

Among all the non-geek, non-tech sides of me, music is probably one thing I crazy about the most. There hardly exist any moment that I'm not listening to it (except when I absolutely cannot); working, traveling, studying, doing nothing, browsing, walking, cycling, etc-ing.

One of the the most important things for listening to music are speakers and headphones/earphones.They are the portals between you and the music. So today I will mention a little about the headphones/earphones I'm using the most. (Won't mention many other head/earphones I put into the drawers and never ever think of using them again ....)

First of all, let me mention that I'm not a fan of the one size fits all philosophy. I'm more of a put the right man to the right job person. So that's why I have a few pairs of them for listening to music, depending on where I am and what I'm doing.

Secondly, I listen to a pretty wide range of music. Classical (a big fan of Tchaikovsky, lover of his Symphony #5 and Swan Lake, collecting many composers' Piano Sonata and Symphonies, etc), Instrumental (violin, mostly), Orchestral (I believe I have the entire London Symphony's classic rock and symphony rock series, as well as a lot of orchestral rendition of rock/pop songs), Rock (mostly older ones, like Queen, Scorpions, Rolling Stones, Europe, X-Japan, etc), Pops and R&B (a Sarah Brightman, Diana Ross and Toni Braxton fan, like many of J. Lopez's, Jessica Simpson, etc). New Age & Classical Crossover (Maksim Mrvica, Yanni, Bond, etc). Etc etc etc and etc. Forgot to mention to old (70's and 80's) J-pops too (yeah, Momoe Yamaguchi, Akina Nakamori, Mayumi Itsuwa, etc ;-)

Ok, so here are my mates:

• In-Office: Audio-Technica ATH-EW9
  
  Despite how nice looking this pair is, it's not for using outside. Being the clip-on earphones, it provides almost no sound isolation and sealing. That makes the sound quality when using outside very poor, and you hear everything from the world outside, everyone nearby hears what you're listening to, too.
  
  Indoor, (office, room, more quiet environment, etc) however, it's another story. This pair rocks and, as far as my ears are concerned, has no rival (for a very-portable ear/headphones. I'm not talking about the bigger Hi-Fi headphones here). It provide a very warm and rich sound, partly (or largely) because of its wooden enclosure (it uses Hokkaido's Asadazakura wood). Wooden housing is really rare for earphones. It also has nice balance spectrum (IMO, anyway), really good bass (might not be enough for young and bass-crazy people, it's more classical tune). It really sounds great and luxury and very very comfortable even when listening all day long. Well worth the premium price.
  
  Also, because of nature of the clip-on, I can hear someone knocking on my door or my phone ringing pretty well.
  
  
• Road Warrior: Audio-Technica ATH-CM7Ti
  
  Here is my road warrior, using mostly with my iPod mini and shuffle. Although it's the same High-end product from Audio-Technica (I don't like low-end earphones, no matter from which maker), it sounds quite different from EW9. The sound is less warm but more clear. Mid-range is more present and sweet. Without the earpad (the foam), the bass isn't really there (but still more than the much more popular Sony MDR-E888). With the foam on, bass improves dramatically but it does dim the high and mid range a bit, making it sounds closer to what EW9 delivers. Not there yet but very close though (maybe due to EW9's larger driver and thick foam driver, and of course, the wooden housing). It does sound much better than MDR-E888.
  
  Being the earbuds (earphones which you insert into your ear, but not the inner-ear type, we get to that soon), CM7Ti does isolate you better and seal what you're listening to yourself better than the clip-on EW9. You still hear what's happening around well enough. This make it an ideal choice for a road-warrior; cycling or walking. Also, with the earbuds' nature of being the jack of all trades, it serves well as a general-purpose earphones, too.
  
  The downside of this one ... it is made of titanium. So that made it a bit heavier than most earphones and it won't feel disappearing in your eyes. After a while, I got used to, though.
  
  
• Bus, Flight, Library: Shure E2c
  
  I'm a person you can occasionally find on bus, flight, and sometime work in coffee shop and hall with a lot of people. Places that are too noisy for normal earphones to handle (except you bump up the volume). That's when and where you will need one of the inner-ears earphones, and my gear is this baby.
  
  Shure has high-reputation of producing good quality inner-ears. I was thinking of getting the E3c but since I'm not using the inner-ear that much, the half-price E2c will do (sometime in the future, I might get E3c though). The quality of sound isolation, as well as the sound itself, are great, compared to the more popular Apple's inner-ears and Sony EX71. The bass level is OK, quite pleasent, but somewhat lacking comparing to CM7Ti and especially EW9. It beats both hands-down in noisy places, though (as mentioned it's almost impossible to enjoy EW9 in such place). The high sound is pretty impressive and is what I enjoy the most from this pair, the midrange is fine (high-mid is good though). Sound detail is fine.
  
  ........But ... there's one more thing (trying to do the Steve Jobs' manner) .... and this thing just makes me forget the entire flow of time....
  
  
• Home: Audio-Technica's ATH-W1000
  
  Boy ... this is just too good to be true (for both my musical and aesthetic sense, also my desire of wooden speakers and headphones). Looking at my earphones earlier, probably it's not hard to guess that I would go for a premium for my main headphones; the one that I will be using most of time when I'm at home, doing whatever at desk or sofa.
  
  It did make me think so hard though. After all its price is really high. But all I can tell is that, it worths every yen (of ~50,000 JPY I paid). This pair sounded surprisingly great out of the box, which is really surprising as I thought it won't sound that good until some initial burn-in. After a few hours of burning-in, its sound really improving a lot. I can't wait until the burning-in process is completed (which should be like 200+ hours, more likely 300). Tchaikovsky and Moonlight Sonata, as well as Maksim Mrvica and Yanni sound really impressive with this one. Sarah Brightman just became another person and Itzhak Perlman sounds much more sweet and sad. Nothing beats this. Repeat, nothing.
  
  More technically, I love the balance of the sound out of this one. The Asadazakura definitely plays the role in crafting the sounds to make them so pure and so warm. Great bass for my taste, again might not be enough for people who love the bass-driven music, but for classical ... it's perfect amount of bass (IMO). I found the bass of this pair to be smooth and (despite the relatively flat shape of the can) has good resonance, carving the music/music to be a calm and really warm and relaxation. The high is also great. This makes a lot of violin solo pieces became really another music. Midrange is also really good and really sweet.
  
  The most remarkable things are probably the balance of all tone, which is quite a Audio-Technica's style and sound details. Balance is so good. With this pair, while nothing is outstandingly great, combination of everything is great. Sound detail is just great, revealing a lot of things you won't heard from the other speakers/head/earphones. Still, not too much to make things harsh.
  
  Also, thanks for Audio-Technica's choice for deliberately designed W1000 to have relatively low impedance (40 Ohm) for its class of headphones. As a result, even without the amp it sounds reasonably good (of course, an amp would improve it further still). This making it much more portable and better for a lot of people who don't know what the headphone amp is or simply don't what to buy one due to additional cost.
  
  Being housed in a hand-craft wooden housing making it looks heavy. It actually quite light and quite comfortable though.
  

That's all. Short reviews for each of my head/earphones..... well, putting them all together ... it's this long though ;-)

OK, have to leave now. I'm getting my girlfriend an ATH-AD700 today ;-)