Only seemed to work well if you had a really wide head lol, otherwise they put alot of pressure on the bottom of my ear, thankfully the new versions are not like this
I look at hi-end headphones as like super cars. They need to look great and also knock out the sound on as many levels as they can. Also be really comfortable. Everything needs to come into play.
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For me sound is no1, but if comfort goes below meh, it’s a no go lol
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Dear God… I was missing out on so much in music with the Eather CX. I love my CX but this is on another level of wow. It’s like I opened a door from a muffled room into a room full and deep and open with music all around me. I have base now… 
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The song by the band Avenged Sevenfold called Diamonds in the Rough… Wow everything about this song is diff. The highs and lows… Well worth the money. I love the 789 but some times you need to step away from THX to something like the RebelAMP…
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how does the AWKT fair with THX AAA?
Well I think it sounds great. The only other amp I have it’s the tube hybrid so I need another amp and dac to test against. My DAC is the R-2R DAC. The THX is harsh but the R-2R calms the harshness of the 789 a lot. The AWKT screams with so much details in songs I never could hear. The little things and all. It’s made me start to replay music etc to find new things.
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Thanks guess the THX by monoprice is so much better than the THX by smsl which is the only THX I’ve ever gotten. the SP200 888 just made the AWKT sound flat. Good to know.
If anything I think the only complain I can see is that the AWKT is too flat in the bass(although personally I like it at this balance) for some. IMO the texturing and microdetail in being able to hear the minor sounds and the general sense of space more than makes up for it. Vocals are a real treat on the AWKT especially. From the base to the suprano they are all so clear and every rasp and other imperfections are captured for your enjoyment.
Such a nice overall sound. I think this can be shilled as a “cheap” verite that is easy enough to drive off portable sources and scales nicely with nothing to complain about besides the weight maybe.
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Honestly it’s a more techincal alternative to the verite imo, I wouldn’t sell the awkt short
I can’t wait to hear my AWKT on the Rebel amp. From the vid of Z hearing it and all. I think it will go great with my R2-R DAC. I love the THX but some times I want old school level A amp stuff. The THX is great but to me it’s missing a character. It does what it was made to do very well like a brain sergon works well. I want to add character to the AWKT.
What tube amp would you recommend for the AWKT?
Hmmmmm what price range would you be thinking?
Well I heard the Dark Voice is a good one and not bad on price. Then the price can go nuts with higher tear ones. Maybe like 500 and up.
Personally I would not rec these on the dv, it would sound pretty bad. For under 1k, for something neutral and refined, the hagerman tuba is a great pick. For something warmer tuned that’s a bit smoother, the cayin ha-1a mk2 is pretty great. For something a bit more fun and thickly tuned the eddie current jr or woo wa6 2nd gen is a good pick
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Why not the DV?
First off, the darkvoice doesn’t work well with lower impedance headphones, they tend to just sound wrong (poor bass response, wacky treble, bloated midrange, that’s because it’s an OTL headphone amp and it has a very high output impedance of around 120 ohms which is way too high for lower impedance headphones like the awkt (I think it’s around 50 ohms), you want to be at least in the 300 ish range ohms for quality sound with the darkvoice.
2ndly, imo the darkvoice is decent but it’s still pretty clearly an entry level amp. A tube amp doesn’t have to sound sloppy and unrefined, lacking detail and control, or just generally pretty messy, most higher end tube amps are very different from things like a darkvoice or little dot where they are clean, refined, controlled, but still have the spatial recreation and presentation (as well as timbre) of a tube. For the tier of headphone you are driving, you really want to have an amp that is at least close to the same level of performance, which I don’t think the darkvoice would offer (even assuming it would be a decent match in the first place). You would just get so much more out of a higher end amp in this case imo
Imo the darkvoice is a decent choice depending on what price you can get it for to try out with a beyerdynamic 880 600 ohm or sennheiser 6xx, give them a different sound and experience, but even with those headphones if you try them on some of the higher end tube amps the experience can be vastly different imo (and very worthwhile)
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I finally got around at takening some pics of my AWKT. The sound and everything about them to me is top notch. The way the driver is so angled back into the ear and not flat on. The wood… 
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I have to now say the THX 789 made the AWKT sound flat. I went to the R2-R DAC and then to the CTH+SDAC and the diff is crazy. The 789 did make the headphones sound muffled and held back. The sharpness was there on the 789 but the warm and the wow pop was not. These headphones sound ALIVE.
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I asked Z and also Joshua Valour if they wanted to do a review of my ATH-AWKT headphones. Now the wait…
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You never see anybody doing reviews of higher end Audio Technica. Hope someone takes you up on it. 
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