Update on the 'amp or upgrade' article

Just thought I'd let you know that I think we're about halfway through the article.

Audio-Technica ATH-ES7

The “Earsuit” range from Audio-Technica extends further with the ATH-ES7. Audio-Technica’s intention with the ES range is exactly what the name hints at… something smarter and more upmarket than the rest, offering refinement in design. The ATH-ES7 has mirror finish stainless steel earcups on a lightweight, low-profile design and was created to fold flat in your briefcase, Prada manbag or whatever it is you consider stylish work storage. The phone is available in black and white. The black is shown here.

DESIGN & ENGINEERING
If you search through this blog (which is a pain and one of the main reasons why I want to change now) you’ll see a somewhat lukewarm review for the ATH-ES5, it’s smaller, older sibling. While essentially a decent headphone, the ES5 offered no isolation and a very slow folding mechanism. The ES7 shares very little with the ES5 in terms of mechanical design and is a considerably larger headphone, but you can probably see that the two are related in terms of offering understated design uniqueness that seeks to stand out from the rest.

Although I complained about the mechanical properties of the design, there was no question that the ATH-ES5 was built to very high standards of quality. The same is true with the ATH-ES7. Build quality is top notch, and everything feels very "bespoke".

The pivot mechanism for the earcups feels very tightly put together with no wobble.

However the mirror finish, just like the iPods back is unfortunately a fingerprint and scratch magnet. No real scratches yet for this ES7, but it’s only a matter of time. It does ship with a cleaning cloth for the inevitable fingerprints.

The fantasy...

...And the reality after a day's worth of heavy use.

The headband adjusts on ratcheting twin steel heavy-gauge wires made of very tough steel, and there’s enough movement of the band as well as of the earcups for it to adjust to virtually any ear or head.

In terms of the overall look, it’s very smart and does justify it’s ‘Earsuit’ moniker. It’s comfy for a supra-aural design (on the ear) but it has a slightly ‘wide-shouldered’ look once on the head, which makes it look slightly goofier than it needed to, compared with some other more low-profile headphones.

The elastomer-covered, metre-long, compact 3.5mm plug-terminated cable is a carryover from the ES5, and they’re still as potentially delicate as the ES5’s cables were. There’s better strain relief at the earcups now, but I think if anything is going to break first on these phones it’ll definitely be the cable.

How’s the external noise isolation? Decent. Not anywhere near as good as the top performer in this range (the Sennheiser HD25-1), but on a par with or slightly inferior to most closed DJ phones. Sound leakage to the outside is minimal.

Quality earpads offer decent comfort for an 'on-ear' phone,
but not the greatest isolation.

SOUND
The headphone is pretty easy to power from any portable. It's unlikely that you'll find much, apart from Sony's most heinously European-crippled machines perhaps, unable to drive these to a decent volume level. In terms of sound quality and treble / midrange response, the ATH-ES7 is quite similar to the more ubiquitous Sony MDR-V700DJ headphone. That means a relatively mild treble and a slightly prominent midrange. However the ATH-ES7 ups the bass ante from the MDR-V700DJ with much more ‘boom’, delivering real weight in the mid-bass (where the bass action normally occurs in pop/rock). I say ‘weight’ instead of ‘punch’ because the sonic response, rather like a low-cost subwoofer is a bit slow. The trebles in common with the Sony feels somewhat rough, lending some erroneous texture to the highs but the ES7 does offer a slight improvement in overall sound accuracy to the Sony. There is a noticeable case of ‘closed phone honk’, artificial-sounding sonic reflections caused by not overcoming design limitations in closed phones. To sum it up, the ES7 is basically a slightly more accurate Sony DJ-phone with added subwoofer.

Putting that in overall context, there are plenty of (even other closed) headphones around the $50~$100 mark which can get very close to or even beat these on a sound quality assessment, but perhaps no others which offer the sort of combination of an unfatiguing yet still relatively well defined sound plus the "wave o'bass". Am I impressed? Not as such. But the overall sound is actually quite pleasing for pop and rock use, and I can imagine many people being very happy with this sound.

LAST WORDS
The ATH-ES7 is a subtly blingtastic alternative for the more image-conscious who might be considering a higher-end portable headphone. Rather expensive for the level of performance offered as far as the full imported price goes, but nevertheless there are some definite plus points about these. If you love kicking out the beats and keeping it to yourself, then these might be just the phones for you with a powerful bass and usable, if not spectacular isolation. The image is distinctly cool and overall it’s not a bad headphone at all to spend your commutes with.

ATH-ES7 "Earsuit"
Manufacturer: Audio-Technica Japan
Impedance: 32 ohms
Efficiency: 100db/mw claimed (sounds higher, but that's perhaps because of the bass response)
Drivers: 42mm
Weight: 160g claimed
Freq. Response: 5 ~ 30,000hz claimed

Availability: Retail in selected Asian countries, import elsewhere using the shops below
Price: $150ish + shipping
Buy from Bluetin
Buy from Audiocubes

EDIT:
I was doing some idle searching in Bing, and came across this - apparently they're better at SEO than some. An interesting remix, wouldn't you say?
http://www.headphonegeek.com/reviews/review.php?pro_id=35

Schedule

Hi guys, yes I'm still alive.

Still working on a replacement for this blog, but for now I'm trying to get some behind-the-scenes stuff sorted out.

Next Major Article
I and a fellow Head-Fi member are working on a comparison of unamped and amped configurations. Say you start with an Etymotic ER-6i and are looking to step up. You visit Head-Fi or other forums and they tell you that amping the ER-6i can work wonders. You get directed to Xin's website and learn about his new Supermini. Then someone else recommends the Ultimate Ears Super.Fi Pro as a step-up earphone. Which do you pick? Well that's exactly what we're about to establish. In the case of balanced-armature in-ear phones the choice of a more expensive earphone is not always as clear cut as it might be, since the drivers in use by all the main companies (Etymotic, Shure, Ultimate Ears, etc) are all pretty much the same in terms of capability. The difference is in the use of multiple drivers of differing size and the tuning of each driver. Amp or Upgrade? That's the question we'll be answering.


I've also got hold of a pair of the Audio-Technica ATH-ES7 headphones, which I'll be posting a short review soon.

Sorry!

Hey guys, I'm sorry about the lack of updates to the blog. The truth is that I've gone directly from being ill and dragging my feet on an otherwise simple in-ear review to too much gear to review! Multiple DAPs have hit the bangraman household, and the people who provide these to me must be satisfied first. Not to mention other things taking up my time. I'll pick out a choice article and re-do it for here fairly soon.

Logitech Bluetooth Headphones

I picked these up a while back as… well, they’re interesting, and usually that’s all that’s required for me to pick something up. I was not expecting a whole lot to be honest. My audio-based experiences of Bluetooth technology to date have not been, shall we say, stunning. The headphones retail for £99 in the UK and approximately $130 in the US.

The Logitech Bluetooth Headphones use the Bluetooth (duh) short-range digital transmission system to send audio to the headphone from the slightly bulky transmitter at a practical maximum of around 4 ~ 6m (12 ~ 18ft) range.

The headphones have built-in controls for volume, and the iPod-specific version also has track control / pause functions. As the iPod version has the remote socket built-in to the transmitter, it’s not compatible with non-iPod players nor the Nano / 5G. So I chose the regular “MP3” variety.

Charging up the non-replaceable Li-ion batteries in both headphone and transmitter takes around 3 hours, and pairing it is as simple as switching on the phones after the transmitter is on... and they’re ready to use.

I plug the transmitter into an iPod and am quite surprised at what comes out. It’s actually music as more or less it’s supposed to be played, not a frog chorus with the flu in an echo chamber!

The sound is comparable in general quality and tonal balance to the £30 Sennheiser PX100, although there is more 'enclosure honk', a sort of tin can effect overtone especially in the midrange. There’s a fairly solid bass, a mild top end and a midrange that doesn’t feel particularly boosted or recessed. Quite an agreeable tonal balance in general, but nowhere near a half-decent £99 wired headphone in terms of sound quality. Of course, I wasn't expecting that.

The Logitech phones compared to a Sony MDR-G74.

The general physical characteristic of the Logitech is comparable to other behind-the-neck headphones such as the Sony MDR-G74SL, only that it doesn’t fold. It’s the same sort of street style design, and unfortunately just as uncomfortable, tending to dig in at the top of the ear after a while. There’s also a convex curve to the phones where they meet the ear, and this means that placing of the phone on the ear is slightly more critical than your regular mini / street style phone. Shifting the phones around does create a change in the sound so it’s important to seat them properly. The increase in weight with the circuitry and batteries is definitely noticeable if you compare the Logitechs with a regular street style, but it's not a big deal when worn. The general lack of comfort though (like the Sonys) was more of a problem for me.

Charging the Logitech.

Battery life seems adequate for a commute. The maximum I’ve used the phones for between charges is 4 hours or so, although I'm sure they could have gone on longer (I haven't really tested the battery life). The claimed life is 8 hours on a charge. The phone and transmitter are charged by a ‘dual-head’ socketed AC charger.

Transmitter headphone jack positions

The transmitter is somewhat bulky, but it’s fairly lightweight. It also has a jack that locks into two different positions, so it works with a wide range of players. If the jack positioning isn’t optimal, there’s a low-profile extension cable supplied.

The range depends on whether there's anything between you and the transmitter. Either way, it's pretty clear whenyou're about to go out of range as the music starts breaking up... you get bursts of music with silence inbetween. Usually, I got about a 4m range with one plaster wall / wooden door inbetween.

In terms of sporting use, my jury’s out… although they’re stable while worn, the phones are noticeably heavier than a pair of lightweight earphones and even a pair of regular street styles, and sweat / Li-ion batteries can’t be a match made in heaven.


You certainly don’t get what you pay for in sonic terms, but what it does achieve is quite impressive. And as minor an inconvenience as it might seem to many, the lack of a cable is quite refreshing in use. It is a bit of a shame though that they chose to pattern the phones on an open, street-style chassis as it’s not particularly comfortable, and although open phones are safer for active use, I feel some isolation would have been nice for commuters in general.

Would you pay an effective 200% premium on top of a £30 headphone to get rid of the cable? If I was given a choice once again, probably not. But the wireless technology does work pretty well, and for some I would imagine the curiously satisfying sense of freedom is worth it.


Logitech Bluetooth Headphones: ~$130 (US), ~£99 (UK).

Product Link (Logitech USA)