Apos x Audio Technica ATH-R70x Refine Headphone Review

Discussion in 'Headphones' started by purr1n, Sep 16, 2024.

  1. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Apos x Audio Technica ATH-R70x Refine Review and Measurements.

    I know Apos requested some adjustments. I haven't had the chance to listen to the original R70x, so I can't comment on it. Honestly, I expected my experience to range from "meh" to just pretty good, but I was pleasantly surprised. Over the weekend, after testing it with various setups, I concluded that the ATH-R70x is fantastic. I believe the R70x will perform well with higher-end tube amps, but I'll need to explore that later. It sounded good directly from my laptop, and the same goes for the iFi Gold Bar. From the Magni and other mid-tier amps, it was excellent as well. I also noticed significant differences when using better DACs and uncompressed music from Qobuz, especially in comparison to Spotify. All of this suggests that the R70x has the potential to scale up nicely.

    R70x Define.jpg

    When I say "fantastic," it may not hold the same meaning for everyone. Let me provide some context for readers. Many years ago, I had a great experience with the ATH-AD2000 (https://www.changstar.com/www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,31.0.html). The AD2000 needed an appropriate upstream chain to prevent it from sounding lean or bright. It was tuned in a way that was reminiscent of Grados, although it offered a more mature and refined experience. While it had less of the Grado crunch, it maintained a similar tonal balance and arguably provided slightly faster transients and a greater sense of openness.

    The R70X Refine maintains the quick transients and exceptional openness of the AD2000 (it sounds as spacious as the Sony MA900). I eventually sold the AD2000 because it didn't provide the resolution I desired, especially with higher-quality upstream gear. To my surprise, the R70X not only surpasses the AD2000 in resolution but also offers a very nice tonal balance. The presentation feels fairly neutral, with a slight dip in the midrange and some edge definition. Although the transients are a bit heightened, it never comes across as harsh or difficult to listen to. It’s as if someone skillfully applied a sharpen filter in Photoshop with a subpixel setting. I plan to conduct a CSD test later to further analyze its performance.

    For a headphone that offers such an open sound, the bass extension is quite impressive, nearly reaching the 37Hz drop in Daft Punk's "Doin It Now." While it doesn't completely hit that frequency, it's very close and doesn't produce the distortion, often referred to as a "fart," that typically signifies an inability to reach these low notes. The bass may not be overwhelmingly heavy or impactful, but the textures are clearly discernible, and the start-stop articulation is exceptional for a dynamic headphone, coming surprisingly close to that of electrostatics. (I have a Koss ESP950 alongside the R70X Refine, which I have been using for gaming).

    Apos x Audio Technica ATH-R70x
    Frequency Response
    BLU and RED
    Compensated to diffuse field 1db downward slope
    upload_2024-9-16_13-41-29.png
    Note excellent driver matching. Nice Sennheiser like slope in the lows to mids. Uplift toward mid-treble.
     
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    Last edited: Sep 16, 2024
  2. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    edit: pretty sure that's a flat plate measurement (I could be wrong), but is it raw or is it comped to B&K 1dB/oct curve?

    Distortion surface is always fun to try and draw correlations with but I'm a fair bit more curious about burst response for this one TBH, the more open designs of those A-T headphones have always been pretty lithe sounding to me, just lacking that sense of massive momentum you get with the Focal kids. Curious how well this one scales going up the ladder because I know one person who mainly uses these and prefers them to the HD600s and is currently lurking this thread (sup hah), but they're more "objectively inclined" so shame that these benefit from tubes (unsurprising though, the ADX headphones always seem to have a bit of an edge that need blunting).

    How much brighter is the treble relative to a stock (JAR?) HD600 though, and how well does it do depth *layering* compared to the same on a setup that can actually do spatial presentation? Kinda curious if these have the same sort of responsive feel that the higher-end supra-aural Grados-- I figure you'd be the best judge of that.

    LMAO that sharpening effect sounds familiar. Guessing less heavy-handed in how it does that compared to the old HP-3? No microdynamic compression going on with these, though, or loosey-goosey flabbiness in the driver transients?

    Shame this is just a limited run of 1k, wonder how close you can get pad rolling the originals to approximate these.
     
  3. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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  4. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Added indications to above graph description.

    Burst response will be interesting for sure.

    It actually doesn't sound any brighter than HD600 in the mid-treble. Sure from a measurement respective it's brighter, but the presentation of the mid-treble from the R70X Refine is gentle. I guess the presentation is almost like a stat!
     
  5. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Apos x Audio Technica ATH-R70x
    CSDs
    upload_2024-9-16_14-57-0.png
    upload_2024-9-16_14-57-29.png

    Note ton of "blue sea". Indicates lack of internal cup interactions (a well as any significant ringing). As I said, the R70X Refine is a very open sounding headphone. There are a couple of short lived ridges just below 4kHz, at 7kHz, and just under 13kHz, all are shorted lived.

    Some thin foam, but there's basically nothing standing in way back out.
    IMG_2135.jpg
     
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  6. TomNC

    TomNC Friend

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    I fully agree with @purr1n that this is a great product--nice saturated but non-fatiguing tonality, open sound (impressive soundstage width), plus the absence of HD650's veil. It has effectively diminished my desire to get JAR650. Additionally, it is quite light and comfortable to wear. Overall, the sound signature is like that of an MJ3 in the headphone realm.
     
  7. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    I'm out of the loop... is "Apos" a rebranding of their lineup? a designer/massdrop style collab?
     
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  8. Biodegraded

    Biodegraded Friend

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    Apos is primarily a retail company but has recently started doing collabs somewhat in the style of Drop:

    https://apos.audio/collections/apos-x

    Somewhat unfortunate name - have to remember it's Eh-pos, not a-POS :D
     
  9. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    I just remembered there's also Epos that's done stuff with Sennheiser. Mildly confusing.
     
  10. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    I liked the OG R70x back in the day. Felt pretty bass-light but reasonably neutral and it imaged better than the HD6XX-series. Good to see that someone's resurrecting them. And they had super high impedance/sensitivity combo which would make them interesting for OTL drive.
     
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  11. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    @purr1n This is a purely selfish request borne of curiosity thanks to chats I'm having with other folks at the moment but have you ever tried checking differences in distortion at the transducer level out of different amps? The Piety v Midgard comparison showed no difference in distortion put out by the JAR600 but that's not too shocking because it's -90dB vs -115dB THD+N i.e. pigeon fart-levels.

    ONLY IF you have the time and inclination and this won't hold a tour up: I'm kinda curious how distortion surface or even just the old 2D distortion visualisation on the R70x might change between a measurements-first amp and e.g. an OTL.
     
  12. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    Too bad it’s North America only. This headphone ticks a lot of boxes for me
     
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  13. TheIceman93

    TheIceman93 El pato-zorro

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    Nice to see that the R70X is still getting some attention. I'm really curious to hear this revised version. I owned the original and I really liked it. I sold it for a dumb reason though. There was very little aftermarket cable support and I could not find any balanced cables. I honestly wish I still had it. I might pick the Apos version up.
     
  14. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    For the most part amps don't really matter when it comes to distortion, at least from a measurement perspective. This is why I rail against ASR. The fact is, distortion 9 (in voltage) from transducers is a magnitude higher than a decent tube amp and several magnitudes higher than a "measly" 95db SINAD Piety.

    Distortion / SINAD / THD+N isn't additive. One must first convert the distortion to voltage, sum the voltages, and then convert back to db or THD+N.

    For example, a dynamic headphone with 50db SINAD in the bass (at reasonably loud-moderate listening levels) coupled with a "SOTA" (as Amir loves to refer to the latest TI chips with massive global negative feedback) Topping 120db SINAD (bass) amp will equate to -50db SINAD at our ears (distortion of amp and headphone combined).

    Now let's take a Piety at roughly 90db SINAD (worse case assumption). The resultant SINAD at our ears is still 50db. The reason is that 90db is 1/100 of 50db with respect to voltage. The distortion contribution from the Piety ain't nothing.

    Where amp distortion may apply with at higher listening levels with tube amps of the low power variety. But even then, let's do the math:

    50db SINAD in the bass with a headphone (moderate-loud levels) coupled with a decently designed tube amp that is 65db SINAD at such a level.

    The result is 49.865db of SINAD at the ears. Can we distinguish between distortion between -49.865db and -50db? This is why Amir is so full of shit when he does "blind" testing, cranks up the volume, and purports to hear "distortion" between 88db @schiit gear and 115db Topping gear. The fact is, he is imagining such things. It's called confirmation bias or what Solderdude at ASR often says: people gonna believe what they believe, and that's fine.

    It's funny how this objective argument actually scientifically works against the "objectivist" mindset. Objectively, it's distortion at the ears that matters and the weakest strongest determinant of distortion by orders of magnitude is the transducer.
     
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    Last edited: Sep 17, 2024
  15. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    Hah! May be worth spinning this convo off to another thread but really, this all does tie in with the few times I've gotten to try "horrible" measuring tube amps over the years (nevermind that some nonetheless sounded alarmingly clean, moreso than a lot of well-measuring SS amps I've tried).

    This is honestly just more just me being a proper butthead and asking whether there were graphs and measurements I could present to folks who can't demo stuff for themselves or, even then, use that selfsame confirmation bias to decide for themselves even before listening to something that it'd be a distorted mess when the topic of tubes comes up.

    In other words: feel free to ignore. I just figured the R70x was a particularly interesting headphone to try and test that out because of how it's effectively suspended in free air with that open baffle, and I was genuinely curious whether the original R70x's high D2 rise in the low bass (not sure how the new one will compare) might be exacerbated by a lower damping factor.

    I might try and be useful generating my own measurements of the HD600 out of an OTL if I can get hands on one, just none too familiar with places where I can demo one (at least a quiet enough space that I can get somewhat useful distortion measurements, even if only on the MiniDSP EARS rig).

    Sorry for the off-topic, back to lurking this!
     
  16. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    @Lyander: this one is for you and good call to want to see these before distortion.


    Apos x Audio Technica ATH-R70x Refine
    Attack and Decay Envelopes for 10 Cycle Bursts
    B1696 R70X Refine.wav_burst.jpg

    Red circles: Curious is the small little spikes (and fast decay, likely because of its very "open baffle" configuration) correlate to the tight articulate bass. The rise doesn't quite square off but instead rises gradually - perhaps indicative of less heft?

    Green circle: The rise is at time = 1. Usually a rise at time = 2 may equate to prickliness, grain, needles with respect to transients, but we see none here. Typically we see a sharp overshoot with fast headphones (planars), but here it's rounded. Probably explains why I felt the 70X Refine sounded fast and snappy, but without it being prickly - actually rather gentle with how it came about its transients.
     
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  17. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    This is a keeper for sure. I will take some quick distortion measurements (will try to calibrate with other headphones because I am in my other place in San Antone right now) and get this out on the loaner ASAP. For dynamic fans, I believe the Apos R70X Refine is extremely worthy of SBAF consideration.

    The only caveats (on construction / ergonomics):
    • People with large heads may have fitment issues. I had to bend the headband outward overall and bend inward the spot next to the cups to account for my bigger and wider head. Even then, I wished there was a 1/2" to spare because I prefer wearing headphones low and to the front slightly. Folks on the loaner may want to bend the headband back.
    • I wish the fit and finish were better, along the lines of the OG AD2000. The R70X is a like cut-down slightly smaller sized physical version. Put the R70X into a real headphone assembly, and I would gladly pay $600 for this.
     
  18. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    The burst response is probably some of the more intriguing things that I think warrants more exploration, much more correlatable with how things sound than the old steady square waves InnerFidelity used to publish stuff with and yeah this seems to track well with your old subjective impressions of the older R70x and other folks' impressions of the same.

    Your conjectures about red circled points' implications seem to hold up when looking at another open baffle design but one that seems to kick a bit more readily. Have never heard an Elex but the Elear and Clears I've gotten to demo seem similar in that they aren't shy about smacking you upside the face but don't necessarily over-linger (at least out of the amps I got to pair them with at assorted points, can't remember details). The Elex has that point in attack at basically all points sans circa 1500Hz :

    [​IMG]

    Kinda reminds me about this actually, yeah you actually want a bit of overshoot that's quickly damped:

    upload_2024-9-18_1-22-12.png

    SOURCE: https://www.stereophile.com/content...-dt-880-250-ohm-and-dt-880-600-ohm-headphones
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2024
  19. darmok

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    These showed up a lot quicker than Apos promised in their pre-order process, so kudos to them for that. The ZMF Caldera pads I ordered at the same time weren't in the box, so presumably those will arrive later.

    Just to get this out of the way up front, the stock cable is nads. It's super microphonic across a regular cotton t-shirt, and I really don't like how it sounds either. I ordered a set of these adapters up front and I'm glad I did. Once the cable situation was sorted, the sound profile is... fine, and I suspect that breaking in either the drivers, the stock pads, or both will be beneficial. Comfort is exceptional, in part just because it's so light.

    Plankton/micro-detail is present but takes a step back compared to more resolving headphones like the Clear OG or HE6se. Whether that's actually a loss of resolution or just a matter of the presentation not being as in-my-face about it is something I'll have to determine over longer listening sessions. Bass is fairly well controlled for a dynamic driver but doesn't have physicality to it, nor is it as precise as the Clear or HE6se, or even the DT 1990. Vocals have a hint of shout in the higher ranges and are otherwise reasonably natural. Upper mids into lower treble are fairly energetic, too much so with the stock cable to the point of fatigue. Upper treble/"air" sounds like it has some unevenness to it, which probably correlates to the present but not accentuated transients. Soundstage is great but not exceptional, and imaging takes a bit of a hit due to the more relaxed presentation of details/transients.

    I'll keep these at my desk for the week, and hopefully by the end things will have loosened up a touch and the positives will start shining through. Right now I'd summarize these as being a bit like a dynamic Edition XS but without the crap build quality, which is very reasonable for the asking price as it is.
     
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  20. darmok

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    I'm going to take exception to this. The important thing to remember about distortion is that it is nonlinear. That means that it's introduced by processes that don't obey the laws of linearity, and you can't assume that it remains linear under composition either in the voltage or the frequency domain. Even putting aside the non-compositional nature of it, the two systems might also be introducing counterphase distortion, meaning that you could actually end up with less distortion overall instead of more.

    This is why measurements of distortion are just that: measurements in one particular scenario. They can't be used to characterize a system unless you know and can model the mechanism by which the distortion is introduced.
     

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