Headphones
Audio Technica ATH-A700
There's lots of crazy-priced full-sized sealed headphones out there with a warm sound and full bass, but not so many with a fast, clean presentation, great depth of field and a reasonable pricetag; the Audio Technica ATH-A700 is exactly one such can. With a tonally balanced sound leaning towards the detailed & airy, you'll resolve even the minutest musical nuance with these fine, mildly isolating cans. A very comfortable, good-sounding and well-built headphone at this price.
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Product Features:
- Fast and hyper-articulate headphone for lovers of detail.
- Sealed-back headphone with good isolation for private listening.
- Extremely comfortable headband light on the head.
- Classic styling and strong build quality from this long-time headphone maker.
What's In The Box:
- Detachable 1/4" (6.3 mm) adapter
Applications:
The Audio Technica ATH-A700 'Art Monitor' headphones are large, closed-earcup circumaural reference headphones engineered & manufactured exclusively in Japan. They offer the traditional AT sonic signature of an expansively broad, deeply layered soundstage image along with cleanly detailed musical resolution up and down the audio frequency range. The A700's bass extension is tight and non-bloated but still present enough to extend down low with authority as it supports a silky vocal midrange and transparently extended upper highs. AT claims their proprietary Double-Air Damping System allows for a more 'linear', resonance-free sound in closed-back earcups, and the headphones utilize a very large, specially-designed 53mm neodymium magnet driver. The A700's overall imaging is spacious and well-served by the seamlessness and timbral cohesion delivered by dedicated HeadRoom headphone amps with crossfeed that help stabilize and unify the stereo imaging. A quality dedicated head-amp will also deliver correct clean drive for the demanding power-hungry 64-ohm rated impedance/102dB sensitivity of the A700. Nevertheless, expect good tonal accuracy and that patently spacious AT soundstage image to be directly competitive with other full-size sealed headphones near this price.
Excellent ergonomics remains one of Audio Technica's calling cards so the A700's deep-well, pleather earpads and lightweight headband assembly are both comfortable and durably built for the long haul. The round black earcups sport a metallic-coated housing and are supported by a lightweight rubberized headband assembly, plus the usual AT '3-D' wing supports that provide instant auto-fit adjustments, although the oversize AT construction may be just bit too big to correctly fit smaller-noggin listeners. The approximately 10ft cloth-wrapped OFC headphone cord exits the left earcup and terminates to a 3.5mm [1/8"] mini-plug jack with and larger 1/4" plug adapter included in the package. A 1-year manufacturer's warranty is standard with AT headphones.
Specifications:
- Cord Type: Straight Left-Side
- Coupler Size: Large
- Manufacturer Warranty: 1 year
- Weight: 290 g w/o cord
- Cord Length: 10 ft. (3 m)
- Sensitivity: 102 dB/mW
- Detachable Cable: No
- Connector Type: 1/8" with 1/4" adaptor
- Noise Cancelling: No
- Wireless: No
- Impedance @ 1kHz: 64 ohms
- Ear Coupler Type: Full-Size
- Headphone Type: Full Size
- Isolation: -8dB
- Acoustic Seal: Closed
- Driver Type: Dynamic
- Microphone: No
Average Rating
Posted by mbrennwa from Zurich, Switzerland on 2011-04-15
Recommend Product: Yes
Pros: Comfort and sound quality. And comfort. Did I mention comfort?
Then I tried the ATH-A700 and I was in heaven! This thing IS REALLY COMFORTABLE! I can wear it all day long without getting a headache or feeling bad at all, although my skull seems to be rather sensitive to headphones. I own(ed) Grados, an AKG-701, some Sennheisers and of course the Beyer-Torture DT770, but nothing was even remotely as comfy as the ATH-A700. And the sound is good, too! Way better than the DT770. Overall, the ATH-A700 sound plays in the same league as my Grados (SR-80, SR-225). While the Grados sound more transparent and "faster", the ATH-A700 has more punch and "oohmph". The ATH-A700 does not sound as clear and refined as the AKG-701, but hey, this is a different beast (with a different price tag). If I need a headphone for more than an hour or so, then I'd choose the ATH-A700 over the AKG-701, because the ATH-A700 is so much more comfortable while it does not lack too much in sound quality. Conclusion: the ATH-A700 sounds more than good enough to rock away in the office during work!
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