The ATH-DSR9BT over-ear wireless headphones employ Audio-Technica’s new Pure Digital Drive system, which allows the headphones to operate without a sound-degrading D/A converter that conventional wireless headphones rely upon. Instead, the ATH-DSR9BT utilizes Trigence Semiconductor’s Dnote chipset to receive the digital audio signal from a Bluetooth wireless transmission, process and transfer it to the driver where the digital pulses of the chipset move the voice coil and diaphragm forward and backward to create the sound waves heard by the listener.

The Pure Digital Drive system likewise depends on a re-engineered 45 mm True Motion Driver, which features a lightweight diaphragm with DLC (diamond-like carbon) coating for superlative fidelity and extended 5 Hz – 45,000 Hz frequency response. The driver’s 4-core twisted OFC-7N voice coil provides precise control of the diaphragm displacement, and an acoustic resistor controls the airflow in front of and behind the diaphragm to ensure smooth, natural audio reproduction across the entire frequency range. The entire driver assembly is housed within a layered aluminum structure that minimizes unwanted resonance and isolates the electric circuitry from the housing’s acoustic space, resulting in optimal phase and transient response.

The Pure Digital Drive system also enables the ATH-DSR9BT to overcome the sonic limitations of conventional Bluetooth wireless transmissions by supporting the 24-bit/48kHz Qualcomm® aptX™ HD audio codec. (aptX, AAC and SBC codecs are also supported.) The headphones can reproduce Hi-Res Audio when connected to a computer or other digital playback device via the included 2.0 m (6.6') USB cable.

The ATH-DSR9BT is equipped with a microphone, volume control and simple tap control for answering/ending calls and playing/pausing music on a smartphone or other device. Three LED indicators allow you to easily monitor pairing and charging status, battery level, and the codec currently in use. The headphones’ internal lithium polymer battery provides approximately 15 hours of continuous use (up to 1000 hours in standby mode) and can be recharged using the included USB cable.

About High-Resolution Audio
In Brief: The Move to Hi-Res Audio
While many listeners may believe that high-resolution audio came along with the introduction of the Compact Disc in 1982, constraints on the disc’s storage space always prevented CD audio (standardized at 44.1 kHz/16-bit) from fully and completely reproducing the original recorded sound. The advent and subsequent popularity of MP3s only made this problem more pronounced – the necessary compression of these files causes audio information to be lost, thus greatly reducing the audio quality. But with lossless audio file formats, faster Internet speeds, and storage space increasingly easy to come by (and in ever-smaller packages), the push is on to create audio equipment capable of capturing and reproducing true Hi-Res Audio, generally considered to be 96 kHz/24-bit or better. The Hi-Res Audio logo certifies that a product meets the Hi-Res Audio standards. Per these standards, headphones must have transducer frequency performance to at least 40 kHz. As a producer of these types of audiophile headphones since 1972, Audio-Technica is well-positioned to provide audio solutions that meet the demands of Hi-Res Audio media formats, allowing for the full reproduction of their extended sonic characteristics.