KZ ATR Review

Popping the KZ ATR’s in your ears feels great; the nice fit of the silicon tips is only hampered by some fairly audible cable noise.
Soundstage and High-End:
The sound of the cables are soon forgotten as you power these IEM’s up and a wonderful soudstage emerges before you.  I was fortunate enough to begin my listening session with these and The Dave Brubeck Quartet’s ‘Three to Get Ready’ (Brubeck).  I was instantly impressed by the seperation of instruments and the way they unfolded seemingly in front of my ears.  This transportation to a seat in front of a spacious Jazz Club stage flowed through crisp and smooth high-end, it represented convincing and realistic snare drum and impactful, accurate sax.
Mid-Range
Amongst this wide soundstage and moving on to Blind Melon’s ‘Change’ (BM) I found that the mid-range of the electric guitar was somewhat lost or pushed to the back of the great instrument seperation.  This midrange back-off was somewhat rectified when vocals were involved; they sounded clear, smooth and emotive in the same song.   Moving on to Alphaville’s ‘Big in Japan’ (BIJ) I revelled in the continuity of the mid-range into the higher registers.
Bass:
The bass was the most lacking area of these headphones.  The subtlety of great jazz standup bass was almost entirely lost (Brubeck).  More balanced songs with driving bass rectified the situation a bit (BIJ) but still did not satisfy my urge for much more impactful bass.  Moving on to Dr. Octagon’s ‘Earth People’ helped the bass out even more but still lacked the detailed and moving power required to truly enjoy such a track.
Genres:
As a genre-specific IEM the ATR’s excel with vocal and jazz tracks without an emphasis on bass
Build-Quality/Design:
Overall decent build but gaps on housing seams are noticable and detract slightly.
Over-ear wires would help greatly with cable noise (ATE and ZS3 nailed this one).
Conclusion:
These IEM’s have a fantastic soundstage with smooth and detailed mid/high registers only hampered by deal-breaking sub-par bass.
Brubeck sounded lovely as i could pick out each instrument and enjoy its clear reproduction.
The soundstage and imaging perfectly captures a Jazz Quartet