At the 2017 Spring Tokyo Fujiya Avic festival I had a chance to audition the latest version of Audio Technicas metal-cup headphones, the A2000Z. In the past, I’ve tried the A2000X, but I had trouble getting a good seal with the wing system. Even so, they sounded too “thin” to me, with not enough bass. When I tried the A2000Z, it seemed that the seal was fine and I didn’t have to bend or adjust anything to get it, which was a very pleasant surprise.
The tuning still has quite a mid-range focus and the treble is still not the smoothest — planers have wrecked me in that regard — but it wasn’t just acoustic music that they were good with this time, although the deep bass in something like Massive Attack’s Angel doesn’t have quite enough kick to be ideal. The Neil Young track, which I had in my test playlist was where it was at, along with Santana. Unfortunately turning the volume up on the Mojo made vocals somewhat harsh, so I think this one will be for the hardcore Audio Technica fans.
