ATH-AD10 i purchased a new in box pair on ebay for au$99 including shipping, the seller had purchased them also on ebay for about half that as a quick investment aparently & the original seller had purchased them in japan but never used them, letting the box gather dust. As i was in the market for a pair of open phones & audio-technica is my brand of choice i couldn't pass it up. I do own a pair of ATH-A500s that I'll be selling to upgrade to another pair of closed phones soon. Buying the ATH-AD10s was something of a risk, the only two english language reviews on the net are not positive but i went ahead anyway, my ears not being the most discerning but very sensitive, i often find the volume of a proper line out too loud for my ears also i like a bit of adventure in my purchases. I have to concur somewhat with the scathing review posted by wally on audiocubes [link at bottom] but I'm not that unhappy. The other review was posted on head-fi by “Gerg”* as a pdf download [link at bottom] & is a great & highly literate review although my standards for audio quality i dare say are a little lower. I've only had them for around three hours now, appearing as the did at 7:00am on my doorstep. I'm a little wary of the whole concept of “burn in” although i do the careful thing & do it anyway, I'll listen to them all day then leave them playing a shuffle of genres & sounds overnight for the next couple of nights. So far the added soundstage over the closed ATH-A500s is amazing & the bass is considerably less although very, very clear. They have a precision I'm amazed with. Source so far is wavs & high bitrate mp3s -> winamp -> soundblaster live! 24Bit & I've listened to Madlib's “Shades Of Blue – Madlib Invades Bluenote”, “Hits: The Very Best Of Erasure”, Colin Hay's acoustic “Man At Work” & Sade's "Stronger Than Pride" [music info at bottom] My issue as with other reviewers is the odd pads included. The are very comfortable, soft & made of a velvet that has an oddly suede feeling but they are far too thin, squashing to almost nothing, placing the drivers almost in the ear rather than over the top. This is odd given they were Audio-Technica's top of the range open 'phone[?] when released, although they're somewhat outdated now. I'm considering Gerg's solution of placing other pads over the top, but I've found a rather easier solution for the moment. When the headphones ore on the head in the correct place, slide them a little further up the skull so the bottom of the pad is almost under the ear lobe, this gives a little more room in the cup & is of no detriment to the comfort. On the comfort issue, it's 35 degrees [95f] here right now & the cups have an air flow through I've never had on phones, never having owned open phones before & it makes them more wearable for sure. Apologies for the crappy pics my camera has no macro mode side by side the ATH-AD10s are slightly smaller than the ATH-A500s, the red tape was to remind me which ear was which, not as a ghetto repair. side by side cups, the AD10s champagne coloured wire mesh clearly displays the drivers. from this angle the cups look about the same size & depth. The closeness of the AD10s driver is exacerbated by the angle of the driver compared to the 'squared off' driver inside the A500. driver & mushroom coloured velvet pad. on my head. hard to tell here but the cable of the AD10 is of a brown cloth that has a tighter weave than the black cloth of the A500. This seems to curl tighter. The plug is a gold plated 1/8 inch [3.5mm] with a chrome[?] casing. It has a screw on gold plated 1/4 inch jack although slightly smaller than the A500 cup here is the AD10 over a blank dvd-r conclusion. It's a little early but so far i like 'em. Further updates will no doubt follow, like how they perform with portable gear in my house. audiocubes product & review page http://www.audiocubes.com/category/Headpho...Headphones.html ATs singapore page for the 'phones http://www.audio-technica.com.sg/ath-ad10.html Gerg's headfi review *http://members.cox.net/yrogerg/headphones/AD10%20rev1.pdf my old ATH-A500s review http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=10399 music mentioned in review madlib's shades of blue http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/arti...2568316,00.html sade's stronger than pride http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000051XX...v=glance&n=5174 erasure's best of http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/arti...2803596,00.html colin hays' man at work http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00009Y3O...v=glance&n=5174
