AUDIO-TECHNICA ATH-SR5BT HEADPHONES

HEADPHONES

Available in two versions (with Bluetooth and without), it turns out the Bluetooth version of Audio-Technica’s ATH-SR5 headphones has the edge… or rather doesn’t!

Two Audio-Technica headphones, one traditionally-cabled (the ATH-SR5) and a Bluetooth version: SR5BT. They look identical (except for the headshell controls on the Bluetooth version) and boast remarkably large-diameter drivers (45mm), along with specially reinforced construction. Both have foam-filled soft leatherette ear cushions and are designed to be on-ear designs, but roughly a quarter of the people who tried them on for this review found they didn’t sit on-ear, but totally enclosed them, and reported that as a result, comfort was slightly less than for larger headphones. Which to choose?

THE EQUIPMENT

Both versions can be used with the supplied 1.2-metre-long cable, which has in-line play/pause controls and a microphone for making calls, but the Bluetooth version can also stream from your smart device or laptop via Bluetooth, which here includes both the AAC and aptX codecs to raise quality above the base-level SBC codec for both Apple and aptX-equipped Android devices. They can pair conventionally or by NFC and Audio-Technica promises an impressive 38-hours of Bluetooth playback.

The non-BT versions are labelled ‘Hi-Res Audio’ and indeed quote a frequency range from 5Hz right up to 40kHz. You won’t get such highs when using Bluetooth, of course, so Audio-Technica has sensibly not labelled the BT version as high-res, even though they will deliver the higher frequencies if you use the cable. Both headphones claim a nominal 45 impedance and a sensitivity of 103dB.

To power up the BT version you need to charge them, then use the power switch on the right ear-cup, to be greeted with a rising tone and a tiny burst of Mellotron choir. I was initially baffled by the combined track and volume control on the left ear-cup—press to pause, yes, press and hold for Siri, slide up for next track, down for previous, all fine. But volume? Whatever I tried, it just jumped tracks. Turns out for volume you have to nudge the same control up one little nudge at a time—too long and you’ll jump a track. It’s a pretty daft system, and the volume increments are coarse, but I got used to it soon enough (except for the irritation of beeping and level-ducking at every notch). As often with Bluetooth headphones, I found the maximum volume level to be only borderline adequate to present a cogent image over road and engine rumble on the daily bus commute.

In quieter environs, in the office or home, the SR5BT’s Bluetooth balance was lovely. The very lows were lifted but genuine; it not only delivered the bottom bass of Neil Young’s ‘Walk with Me’, but also presented the depth and tone of a bass guitar, rather than the entertainingly vibrant but exaggerated resonances that many headphones deliver on this track. Above the bass lift, things stayed laudably flat all the way. The vocal of Leonard Cohen on ‘Going Home’ was held together in a single unit with its bass content underpinning its rasp and rattle. The very highs are curtailed, so that the sound is closed rather than airy—this is surely the Bluetooth transmission rather than the headphones’ own response, as becomes evident when you switch to cable. But still the strings soared as the Berlin Phil launched the Jupiter, sufficient dynamics jumping the Bluetooth divide to deliver a suitably emotional ride.

Via cable the sound opens up significantly, the detail and the spaciousness much improved, the available level far higher, the ceiling for ambience opened to a far greater height—this is a high-quality low-distortion headphone. But I did find the cabled balance excessively edgy on a great deal of material, the lower mids recessed, so there was a thinness and a peakiness to many male vocals, Leonard’s voice now splitting into bass and a separate now dominant rasp… and used on a rumbly bus commute, the masking of bass made this doubly apparent. The sound of the standard SR5 model matches this; I spent three weeks commuting with this model to see if they calmed down as they ran in—a little perhaps, but still edgy at the end.

CONCLUSION

Of these two models, I’m going to recommend you go for the Bluetooth version because with it, Audio-Technica has successfully overcome the inherent limitations of wireless Bluetooth through effective audio design. The SR5BT offers a lovely Bluetooth sound, long battery life, slightly annoying volume bleeps and you always have cable playback as your fallback position should the impressive battery life be exhausted. Jez Ford