Overview
The ATH-WP900 portable over-ear headphones feature beautiful flame maple housings for high-fidelity on-the-go listening and high aesthetics. Maple is a stiff, dense wood often used to make string instruments such as guitars and violins. Here, we’ve fused a thin slice of flame-grain maple on top of solid, machined maple to produce housings that ensure clear, natural sound quality. The flame maple finish, provided by Japanese guitar manufacturer Fujigen, brings out the unique grain of each housing for a one-of-a-kind beauty that will deepen with age. The headphones are equipped with exclusive 53 mm drivers with powerful magnetic circuitry, DLC (diamond-like carbon) coating, and top-mounted PCB construction for exceptional full-range audio reproduction. A specially designed angled baffle improves airflow between the front and rear of the diaphragm for better low- to mid-range audio reproduction, and also optimally positions the earcups over the ears for improved comfort and sound containment. The headphones also feature A2DC (Audio Designed Detachable Coaxial) jacks for secure connection to the two included 1.2 m (3.9′) detachable cables. One cable has a 3.5 mm (1/8″) gold-plated stereo mini-plug for use with smartphones and standard audio devices. The other cable is equipped with a 4.4 mm (1/6″), 5-pole gold-plated balanced plug for use with high-resolution digital audio players and balanced-compatible headphone amplifiers. The earpads and headband of the ATH-WP900 are made from smooth, synthetic leather for long-lasting comfort, and the earcups swivel-flat for easy transport in the included carrying pouch.
The Move to Hi-Res Audio
While many listeners may believe that high-resolution audio came along with the introduction of the Compact Disc in 1982, constraints on the discs storage space always prevented CD audio (standardized at 44.1 kHz/16-bit) from fully and completely reproducing the original recorded sound. The advent and subsequent popularity of MP3s only made this problem more pronounced the necessary compression of these files causes audio information to be lost, thus greatly reducing the audio quality. But with lossless audio file formats, faster Internet speeds, and storage space increasingly easy to come by (and in ever-smaller packages), the push is on to create audio equipment capable of capturing and reproducing true Hi-Res Audio, generally considered to be 96 kHz/24-bit or better. The Hi-Res Audio logo certifies that a product meets the Hi-Res Audio standards. Per these standards, headphones must have transducer frequency performance to at least 40 kHz. As a producer of these types of audiophile headphones since 1972, Audio-Technica is well-positioned to provide audio solutions that meet the demands of Hi-Res Audio media formats, allowing for the full reproduction of their extended sonic characteristics.
