I got my W5000 back from my friend. I let him have the W5000 if he paid my car gas which was basically $50 for that one day. He let me borrow the W5000 for a week, in return, I gave him some Asian shrimp baked chips.
This ATH-W5000 is a little special compared to other ATH-W5000 since it’s been modded. The headband has been modified to be more comfortable and stays on a person’s head. The cable is now removable and you can insert your own 3.5mm headphone cable to it. I am using a ZMF pads for this one, forgot which one since its been 11 months.
It’s been about 11 months since I parted with the W5000. I will say that I was a little too harsh on the W5000. It sounded a lot better compared to my memory of parting it. But, my setup also had a lot of huge upgrades too since then like my Allnic HPA-5000XL amp, Mystique Evo B4B 21 DAC, and my NS1 streamer as source instead of my computer.
I also sat down with under my friend relaxing veranda and talk about music, catching up on life, and other things. I finally asked him what about the W5000 that he really liked since it’s been about 11 months. He told me a lot about Jazz music since I am unfamiliar with that genre.
- My Friend Perspective On Why He Loves The ATH-W5000:
A little background on the type of music he listens to is music that is typically American Jazz Trio, some European Jazz, and choir music. He is not really into high-BPM Jazz like John Coltrane. He is more of a Miles Davis, Bill Evans, and Oded Tzur type of guy. For European Jazz, he likes Tomasz Stanko and Marcin Wasilewski. The other type of genre he listens to is choir music, but he much prefers jazz on the W5000.
His setup is a regular laptop and Tidal.
He told me what he looks for in Jazz music is mostly in the midrange - highrange part of the music. He does prefer a bright signature instead of a warm signature for Jazz music. That is because the trumpet, keyboardist, and percussionist all benefit greatly from the midrange to high range. Of course, he would like some low-end for specific parts in the percussions and double bass, but the W5000 does a good enough job replicating the sound for those instruments.
- My Newfound Perspective On The W5000 With My Current Setup
My current setup: ROON Rock - Intel NUC 7i7 > EMM Labs NS1 > [AES] Mojo Audio Mystique EVO B4B 21 > Custom 45/6SN7 Tube Only Supratek Cabernet DHT > [RCA] Allnic HPA-5000XL > ATH-W5000
Headphone Cables: I was using the DHC Molecule Elite 19 cable. Then I switched it to a homemade copper cable because the 3.5mm input on the W5000 was pretty tight taking off and I didn’t feel comfortable putting something so tight in there as this is not my headphone anymore.
So I am giving the W5000 a 2nd chance because I recently purchased a W1000 for a pretty good price. From memory, I remember disliking the W5000 a lot and I think I know the reason why. It’s most likely me comparing it to the Sony MDR-CD3000 when I had it. Both the W5000 and the Sony CD3000 are fairly similar: they both show details; have good clarity; airy soundstage for a closed-back headphone; and both does vocals in an interesting way.
Let me say that these are the most sensitive headphones I ever used. I forgot how crazy sensitive these headphones are. My Allnic HPA-5000XL is usually really good on sensitive headphones, but I am pairing it with a DHT 45 Preamp. I have to be very careful turning up the W5000 as these can get really loud really quick. They are like IEM level of sensitivity.
Lets start with the positive. At first I tested the W5000 with some female jpop vocals from my Mysphere playlist. I knew these headphones were bright headphones. It would benefit a lot with songs that do well with the Mysphere 3.2 and Raal Sr1a where it’s acoustic music with female vocals on good recording equipment and a well-produced song. It sounded great. Not the clearest headphones I ever heard, but it was pretty good. 1 thing that bothers me is that the vocals were missing some weight imo and it can sound a bit thin. Sometimes vocals sounded pretty off and not normal to me, but nothing that really offended me too much. The W5000 was starting to become a pretty good headphone to my ears. I tried some of the Jazz music my friend recommended me like Oded Tzur “The Lion Turtle” and Mercin Wasilewski Trio “Diamonds And Pearls”, etc and the W5000 sounded really good with those music where the instrument sounded very clean. There isn’t a lot of thickness to them, but at the same time didn’t sound thin (probably why it sounded clean). I would probably compare it to a Raal SR1a, but a huge step down from it which the W5000 has a clean and realistic sound signature. My friend told me to really hear the brush strokes on the snare drum as Jazz players like to use a brush snare. The W5000 did a great job where it doesn’t sound too aggressive and captures its delicacies on the brush snares to my ears. Vocals can be a toss up for me, really depends on the recording. On some recording, it sound like the vocalist is on a phone call with me rather than me hearing that vocalist from a microphone. Other times, the vocals sounded nice and clean. So I think it’s very dependent on recording for vocal music to my ears. I randomly tried more modern rap songs like Jay Z “Empire State Of Mind” and Travis Scott “FE!N” and the W5000 did a pretty decent job with those songs. You can hear the bass and vocals were more in front as well. I tried some other old rock songs like Carlos Santana “Singing Winds, Crying Beasts” and “Black Magic Woman / Gypsy Queen” and Yes “Roundabout” and I think the W5000 did a decent - good job with those songs. I enjoyed Yes “Roundabout” a lot and was pretty impressed with the W5000 bringing the bass guitar in that song. I think what shocked me the most is that it did pretty good on the song Band-Maid “From Now On” which is a instrumental Jrock song that goes pretty hard. The electric guitar in that song had a lot of excitement from it and sounded great. Bassline was a little too much in the background from my taste, but you can still hear it. Drums sounded great. Overall in multiple genres, I really like the W5000 as long as vocals isn’t too involve or is the main selling point of the song unless its recorded very well.
I think if my main genre was Jazz trio or even Jazz quartet, I can see myself being very happy with the W5000.
Now lets get negative. Then I went to some old rock music like Jimi Hendrix “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”. Oh man LOL. I remember why I hated these headphones so much now. It’s not really the equipment for me, it was the type of music I liked to listen to earlier in the year. It feels like the bottom frequency of the music is just missing, electric guitar sounded too weird, and vocals sounded like it was recorded from a phone directly to a microphone. Which is weird because some modern/old rock songs sounded great, but I think the W5000 can’t handle Voodoo Child (Slight Return) which sucks because that is one of my favorite songs of all time. Then I tried classical orchestra which is Symphonie Fantastique Movement 4 and it sounded very disappointing to my ears. To be fair, classical orchestra is a very hard genre to please. The only headphones I really like that song is the Susvara and Onkyo A800. Symphonie Fantastique Movement 4 is very bass-heavy piece and if you are lacking in bass, that song is just ruined to my ears. The last negative is that some recorded vocals can get really bad to my ears. Like similar to Voodoo Child (Slight Return) where it just sounds like the vocalist is being recorded from a phone call to the microphone.
I think that is all I have to say about the W5000. I say more positives than negatives, but its really recording dependant and it really depends what kind of music you are trying to play it with. But yeah, overall the W5000 is a lot better from memory and I can appreciate this headphone. But I am also using it on a $10K plus MSRP setup and is probably a huge step up from my previous setup.
I will say the W5000 is not really comparable to something like the W10VTG or L3000 because they sound too different from each other. I say the W5000 is more comparable to headphones like the Sennheiser HD250 Linear I and Raal SR1a as those headphones are more on the bright side and the tonality is pretty similar to me on really good recording. I want to say the Sennheiser HD580 Jubilee as well, but the HD580 Jubilee is more neutral to my ears and not really bright. Also the tonality is way more accurate on the HD580 Jubilee vs the neutral bright headphones I mentioned.
Probably won’t use the W5000 for the rest of the day and the majority of tomorrow. My friend isn’t a audiophile so the gear wasn’t in the best condition since I gave it to him. I clean and apply wood wax on the W5000. I sprayed the case with Lavander water scent and closed it.
- Bonus Chapter: My Friend Perspective On The Onkyo A800
So I let him on listen to the Onkyo A800 about 2 sessions before. He told me that his favorite music with the Onkyo A800 is Pipe Organ music with a choir in the background. The reason is because the Onkyo A800 to him is a balanced headphone that does very well on the low end, but doesn’t lack midrange and high range. Because it does so well in the low range, music on the Onkyo A800 sounds very rich and pleasant to listen to. And because it hits great on the midrange and high range, there is this nice harmony that he really likes with the Onkyo A800. He does in fact really love the Mysphere 3.2 as well, but mostly choir music, but he couldn’t really say too much as he only had like 15 minutes with it 2 months back and it was on my Cayin N7 DAP. I let him listen to a certain $4000 wooden headphone and a certain $5000 planar and he wasn’t a fan of the tonality of those headphones. Me personally, I thought the headphones he dislike sounded great, but it didn’t stand out enough for me to keep them in the collection for that price tag.
. Then my brain got to thinking…what if I apply that same foam technique to a already bass can like the W10VTG! I think it will be a terrible idea and the W10VTG will most likely sound way too bassy for my taste. But that is something very interesting I found. Still never A/B the W1000 and the W10VTG. I had to go through 125 tracks (9 hour session) yesterday. Of course I use the Susvara the entire way since that is my reference headphone and it’s really comfy for a long session. So taking a break from music right now.
