Now the thing we’re going to be looking at is the Audio Technica ATH CKN70 in-ear earphones now there’s a number of cool things about the CKN70 number one they use a micro driver and what that means is that they use a very small dynamic driver which is situated right at the tip of the Evo and supposedly the advantage of bringing the driver closer to the eardrum is that you can eliminate a lot of the resonances that can come from the body of the earphone as well as the interaction of the sound waves with your ear canal the other cool thing about the ckn 70 is that they use a carbon nanotube driver and what that means is that the driver diaphragm has been coated in a material known as carbon nanotubes they are a material which is similar to diamond and what that does is that it gives you a driver which has a higher stiffness and higher strength to weight ratio and that should translate to lower distortion and better sound quality especially in the high frequency areas the third neat thing about the secant 70 is a design feature called the ear loop and we’re gonna have a closer look at that what the e loop is.
It’s basically a ring of rubber that goes around the earphone so it helps stabilize the second semi in your outer ear and takes the pressure off the tip of the earphone in your inner ear so that’s quite a clever solution and it makes the CK and semi quite a comfortable earphone to wear even though the nozzle is actually quite wide in terms of the rest of the build we have this nice aluminium buddy here it’s got really nice classical audio technica build quality one thing to note is that it’s quite a long IM it sticks out it is quite a bit so you can actually forget about kind of lie on your side with this I am it’s not really well suited for that the CK and 70s usage a cable and what that means is that the left side of the cable is shorter than the right side of the cable the other thing about this you can cemani cable and this unfortunately something I really don’t like about the CK in 70s is that the cable quality is quite honestly rubbish it’s like the kind of papery thin noisy kind of cable that you would find on a much cheaper I am NOT a 100 dollar earphone as you can see I’ve had the CK in 70s for quite a long time now and they still actually have the bend in the cable that came from sitting in the box the way it was wrapped up so it’s a cable that retains memory like nothing else it just feels cheap and unfortunately because of the design of the ear loops where the the earphone has to hang down you can’t wear it the other way around cable noise is a huge problem you you’ll find that the cable noise from the wavy J cable bounces against your chest or about your neck is just a really noisy and distracting so if you are thinking of using the CK in 70s in the gym more or when you move around a lot unfortunately you’re gonna find that the cable noise is going to be incredibly disruptive now this is a real shame because otherwise the CK in 70 is a comfortable earphone that would be really nice at the gym or when you’re out and about now in terms of sound I didn’t actually like the CK and 70s out of the box I found that the treble section is very aggressive it’s very emphasized so what you get is you get this kind of metallic sounding quite raw and almost grainy high-frequency section that you know can almost sound irritating especially at higher volumes now we have some tracks this isn’t such a problem I mean with the acoustic core kind of mellow tracks you get a nice presentation of detail but with a lot of tracks especially modern recordings it actually sounds very aggressive and irritating now this is a problem especially with the included tips when I use something like Sony phone Claybrook tips so I use a different type of silicon tip I found that you could reduce the problem somewhat you can make the rawness go away to an extent but it’s still there’s a characteristic of the sound in terms of the rest of the sound of the ckn 70s you get a very emphasized very punchy bass response and it’s definitely not a neutral bass response but it is very punchy and fast bass and combined with the high frequencies and in with a bass you had a very V shaped sound which is very lively and aggressive and dynamic and a lot of fun with a lot of tracks but it’s not exactly the most neutral or balanced sounding of earphones in terms of what I recommend the ckn 70s I actually have a real difficulty recommending the seeking and settings because of the quality of the cable but if that wasn’t such a big consideration you will get a very exciting sound out of the city and 70s but something more balanced from around the same price point I would recommend the hi-fi man re for hundreds because the RE 400s are a lot more laid-back they’re more mellow and they work with a wider variety of music they’re very detailed and they have a much cleaner and smoother treble section but if you are a big fan on v-shape sounds you’re a big fan of aggressive sounding earphones the city and cemani is worth a lot anyway
