I will watch the video, but he’s a bit late to the party! It’s been one of my favorites since I got it! 
I have the launch version in aged oak/copper, sounds great and elegant looking too.
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I’m really digging my new Ash Atrium Closed so far. I’ve had them for about a week, and I stuck to the stock pads until last night. I got 3 sets of alternative pads at Zach’s recommendation, the Caldera Suedes, Bokeh Suedes, and Auteur Suede Solids.
My main headphones are the Meze Elite, so I was looking for maximum contrast with the Atrium Closed. With that in mind, I feel the stock Lambskin Caldera Thin pads offer the most bombastic sound. Bass is most present and impactful with the stock pads. At first this was a bit overwhelming, but whether from driver or brain burn-in I felt things became more balanced and less fatiguing after a few days. The bass is amazingly deep and textured. It’s very impressive and managed to change the way familiar songs presented themselves at times.
The Caldera Suede pads took a little bit too much of the magical bass away for my preference. They still sounded like an AC, but a bit more balanced and less fun. If these were my main headphones, I’d probably be more likely to consider these as a viable option. I have my Elite with Angled Alcantara pads for when I’m craving a more-balanced presentation.
Next up was the Bokeh Suede pads. Zach recommended these to me as a third option when I ordered my AC. Physically, they’re like a Suede Caldera Thin with solid inner walls vs perforated inner walls on all the Caldera pads. These have a little bit less bass than the stock pads. The bass reduction was just enough to lessen the minor fatigue I was experiencing from the strong bass profile of the stock pads after a long listening session. These Bokeh pads were pretty hard to fit on the AC, and I found them less comfortable than the stock or Caldera Suede pads. Sound wise they might end up being my sweet spot.
The last pads I tried were the Auteur Suede Solids. These were the most comfortable for my largish ears, but unfortunately I didn’t find the sound to be as good as the perforated pads. They sounded a bit more closed in and the bass level was still a bit too much for my liking. I think the heavy bass presence of the stock pads is mitigated by the fact that they are perforated and very open sounding. I’ll probably sell these pads since I don’t foresee myself using them again. I know a few AC owners like these, so it may be be an issue of system synergy.
Here’s some glamour shots of my beauties:
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Thanks, that’s really useful. I prefer the Caldera suede pads to the Caldera lambskin thins, but as you say, but I’ve been hoping that Zach would create something that sounded in between those two, with just a bit more bass presence than the suedes. It sounds like the Bokeh suedes are the goldilocks pads, so I’ll order a pair for myself.
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Zach described the Bokeh Suede as a middle ground between the Lambskin Caldera Thins and Caldera Suedes, and I think he was spot on in his assessment.
As a small update, after a few more days I have gone back to the stock lambskin pads. The bass seems to have settled in at a level that is pretty much perfect for my preferences with the stock pads. Even two days ago I was pretty much settled on the Bokeh Suedes as a means to scale back the bass just a bit. AC owners should be sure to try different pads after 100+ hours of burn-in to see if their pad choice might change. Mine sure did!
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I bet it does! I love my Atrium. 
It also sounds pretty damned great on a DSHA-3FN! 
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Hi Guys,
Need some help here.
I have a set of Atrium closed that I absolutely love and are one of my favorite headphones.
The other day while doing my normal night listening session the left hand driver just stopped playing bass and sounds a few db lower than the right hand side.
I tried changing the cable from left to right tried a diferent amp/dac etc and confirmed driver has failed but not completely.
I tried contacting various times ZMF via there website form but had not response.
I then tried another email but no luck. I then tried sending them direct emails and still nothing.
Email I used is: “support@zmfheadphones.com”
How long does it normally take for a response? Weeks? months?
I don’t mind paying for any repairs but not confident I am going to be getting a response.
Does anyone have a better way of contacting zmf for a repair?
A bit lost on what to do.
Edit: I also tried contacting Acorn Audio as they are the UK distributors but they email back with this:
Hi ,
Unfortunately we can only do service/repair requests for our direct sales.
Kind regards,
Unless there was a show in progress, I don’t think I’ve ever had to wait more than 24 hours for a response via email.
Are you sure they’ve not responded and it has just wound up in your spam/junk folder?
If not, I’d drop a polite note on the appropriate thread on head-fi.org saying something to the effect of “I have a repair issue, but don’t seem to be getting a response from support” and tag “zach915m” in the message.
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Most of my queries were same day, but it’s been a while since I exchanged email with them.
They might just be busy ATM.
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Newbie here, and to amps. I was driving the atriums out of a thx 887, an amp with low output impedance.
I would get a tube amp if the funds were there, or maybe a high output impedance solid state. My question is, if you add resistors in series to the amp, such as through a 3.5mm impedance adapter, would this effectively increase the output impedance of the amp as seen by the headphone?
I saw through some measurements online that there was a bass resonance in some impedance measurements on the atriums around 70 or 80 hz. If I were to add an 80-100 ohm impedance adapter, would I hear similar behavior in the frequency response of the atriums?
I would test it myself, but I sent my pair in for repair (they were bought secondhand and had some issues with the headband chassis)
I also found a beyerdynamic A20 amp which has 100 ohm output impedance (I know zach has recommended this amp as a solid state option).
So, is my reasoning with the impedance adapter completely off? I know that DMS for example has discussed using a 100 ohm impedance adapter with his Omegas, and I’ve seen measurements online boosting some of the bass region. I know that uses a peerless driver, but could I expect something similar with an atrium, being that it is a dynamic driver?
Sorry again if these are stupid questions, I am a novice afterall.
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You can increase the output impedance for a headphone with resistors, but the easiest way by far is just to get an impedance adaptor like one of these: https://penonaudio.com/3.5mm-impedance-adapter.html
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Opinions on tweaks, like an impedance adapter, will vary, but objectively, anything you put in the signal path is going to (at least slightly) degrade the signal. That can vary a lot, depending on what the tweak/adapter/element is, and I won’t claim to know how much an impedance adapter does in terms of signal degradation - probably not too much. In general though, unless you really feel like it’s needed to fix a problem that’s audibly bugging you, there isn’t a reason to do it.
Having a low output impedance amp isn’t an issue, even if your headphones have a high impedance. Raising output impedance past a certain point, in a ratio to the input impedance of your headphone, can start to affect the frequency response of the headphone, most often in the bass region. You can do this on purpose, and might even find it desirable, but ultimately, you’re altering the “native” behavior of the headphone.
If you like how the Atrium sounds out of your THX 887, you shouldn’t feel like you need to do anything.
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An impedance adapter will have basically the same impact as the higher impedance output of an amplifier, with the caveat, amp impedance does vary a bit by frequency and a resistor in a box won’t do that. It will mean you have to turn the volume up to get the same output level which will increase distortion as well (how much depends a lot on the amp design, tube amps in particular have distortion that rise with output level).
Basically you get a voltage divider between the load impedance and the output impedance, if the output impedance is small relative to the load impedance you basically get a voltage source, so the output you get is the measured frequency response into a constant load, even though the actual load isn’t constant across the frequency range.
If the Output impedance is in the same ballpark as the load impedance then the FR is no longer flat it to some extent follows the Impedance variation of the load (headphone). So something like an HD600 where the impedance rises pretty dramatically in the Bass and Treble regions, you get a lift there in the FR from an amplifier that has a higher output impedance. And it’s commonly the case you get a bit of a bass boost for Dynamic drivers because they all increase in impedance in the Bass frequencies. In some cases this can come across bloated and uncontrolled, which is why the ratio of load impedance to output impedance is often described as an amps ability to “control” a driver.
In effect the higher output impedance is basically partly acting as a current source rather than a pure voltage source.
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