Audio-Technica AT-705 Electret Condenser Headphone

Picked these up from a fellow just a couple of miles down the road a week or so ago. When I got home, plugged into the speaker outputs of a 5 watt tube amp that was handy. They sounded terrible......like playing through a tin can. Just about wrote them off as a bad buy (didn't pay much for them though, so wasn't too upset).

Today, plugged them into a Denon AVR-3600 receiver (110 WPC into 8 ohms) and gave then another shot. WOW!!!! What a difference. These things are power hungry like you would not believe. Had to turn up the volume to "00" (Dolby Reference Level) to get them to sing. Think they were made circa 1975.

Technical Specifications
Frequency Response: 10 - 25,000 Hz
Sensitivity: 98 ± 2 dB / mW ( at 1,000 Hz )
Maximum Sound Pressure: 110 dB
Cord: 1.9 m
Weight: Body 250 g , Transformer Box 570 g

Umm, you may want to give more ventilation to your receiver...

Electret electrostatics hit a dead end after only a decade on the market, which is a shame. There were some interesting ones, including some made by Audio-Technica. The AT-705 is the direct ancestor of the ATH-6. Be very careful when applying bass boost.

vincei said:

Umm, you may want to give more ventilation to your receiver...

Click to expand...

Good catch....the towel was just for the pictures.

I wore out a set of ATH-7 phones, great gear. still have them in the vain hope that they could be rebuilt (have an extra headphone amp for them too, just in case). I really miss their sound. - dan