Audio-Technica celebrates its 60th anniversary with premium headphones

By Shawn Chung - Singapore

For it’s 60th anniversary, Audio-Technica is celebrating the company’s analog heritage with a series of events worldwide, and unleashing a slew of analog devices for audiophiles, including two premium wood-backed headphones.

ATH-W2022

Announced in late September, 2022, the brand’s limited edition flagship headphones, the ATH-W2022, is already sold out.

This headphone featured hand-crafted maki-e (lacquer) mizume (Japanese birch) housings with a sakura (cherry blossom) design on the left earcup, and a hou-ou (phoenix) with mother-of-pearl on the right, while the interior incorporates a 58 mm driver diaphragm is made from 30-micron-thick pure titanium. The headphones also utilizes a newly designed magnet circuit that incorporates a pole and yoke structured from laminated pure iron plates to reduce back electromotive force (back EFM).

ATH-WB2022

Audio-Technica have now followed up with the brand’s finest high-fidelity audiophile wireless wooden headphones, the ATH-WB2022, which will go on sale in early 2023 for USD2,700, and is the world’s first completely balanced audio output system for wireless headphones.

The ATH-WB2022 features a unique flame maple, walnut and mahogany housing, provided by renowned Japanese guitar maker Fujigen, which yields excellent acoustic dampening for natural audio reproduction.

The ATH-WB2022’s newly-developed balanced audio output system is entirely unique and employs two leading-edge ESS ES9038Q2M DACs, one for each channel. Two top of the line Nisshinbo Micro Devices’ MUSES05 op-amps are used for each channel for the input and for the output stage, in a fully-balanced configuration to ensure unmatched channel separation, imaging, and transient response.

In addition, the ATH-WB2022 uses separate, rechargeable batteries for each channel, and this enables up to 9 hours of continuous use per charge. The balanced audio output system ensures remarkable clarity and resolution, with zero crosstalk or noise between the left and right channels. The ATH-WB2022 incorporates a new 45 mm driver with a powerful magnetic circuit and a DLC (diamond-like carbon) coated diaphragm. The headphones are compatible with the high-quality LDAC and AAC codecs and support high-resolution up to 24-bit/96 kHz audio playback via wireless audio or its USB connection.