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Final Words and Conclusion
Our experience of using the Future Sonics Atrio has been very enjoyable and more than a little interesting. For those who take time to read the specifications and marketing material expectations are set quite high.
First impressions go some way to backing up the marketing claims of this being a quality product as the packaging and manual are informative and well written, especially so the sections of how to get the best sound quality from the Atrio. We are then impressed further by the selection of earpiece sleeves which are provided along with a cleaning tool and travel case... the build quality of the actual product left a little to be desired though.
First we have Quietcable, the name suggests there should be no noise from this area however when listening at low volume vibrations from movement on the cable travel up into the earpieces and are noticeable. We were also a little disappointed by the earpieces themselves, despite them feeling reasonably solid. Upon close inspection the use of rubber tails along with a plastic body results in a slightly untidy seam between the two, something which does not fit well with a $199/£95 price tag. Coating the entire top section in the same rubber would have been much more desirable.
Sound quality is what this product is all about though and in this area we were given plenty to consider. One of the most impressive aspects of the Atrio is their ambient noise rejection, with no sound playing through the earpieces very little of the outside world can be heard and with music on we were unable to hear anything to the point where people can easily walk up and start talking to you out of the line of sight and there is no audible indication they are there. We also found the clarity and natural sound of the earphones to be of an exceptionally high level. Our orchestral test was a particular highlight with the product squeezing every ounce of quality and emotion from the track. Other highlights were the quality of the vocals on many of the songs we listened to, given the right source it is very much like being in the same room as the artist. Our final positive observation was that in day to day subjective listening with lower bitrate MP3’s the Atrio perform very well.
Unfortunately there is one aspect of the product which causes us a significant issue and that is the bass performance. These earphones have a substantial level of bass available to them by default, it is quite staggering on first listen but this often translates into being overpowering during many styles of music, especially those which are feature a large amount of detail or instruments. Clearly this can be adjusted by changing the EQ levels within devices or software however this would have to be continually tweaked for each type of music and the question is, for a product of this price, should the end user have to do so much?
If Future Sonics can slightly redesign the Atrio to offer a manual way of adjusting the bass level they will be on to a real winner with the product, gold award standard actually. With the current requirement for fine tuning on a software/device level we therefore give the Atrio an Editor’s Choice award.
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