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#might do some more after the series but it wont be a daily thing anymore
karvakera · 8 months
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drawing gojo every day as stupid pet memes until THE shibuya incident: day 38
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tartagliaxx · 3 years
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i was wondering why everyone in my yt timeline was angry abt the anniversary rewards, so i decided to check it out. not a good choice. words cannot express how disappointed i am :))
this truly is the most gacha gacha game to have ever existed. even their anniversary rewards are gacha! (and it's not even 50/50, it's 10/90).
we have like 8 days left before it officially becomes 1 year, i rlly hope that they do smth to amend this bc i can tell that quite a bit of ppl who have spent money are either gonna turn f2p or are just gonna drop the game altogether.
it legitimately sucks bc genshin is truly an amazing game, but the company is just... not it. i dunno, for the amount of money i've thrown into this game (~$200), it just sucks that we get basically nothing back. i could've used that money to buy some genuinely better games on steam or smth.
i know that it's technically called a 'community event' but like, even for a community event it is pretty bad. if this truly is the anniversary event, i'll probably just never spend a single dime on genshin again. the fanbase is already pretty upset with their recent actions, but instead of placating them with decent rewards, they did the opposite.
i just can't fathom their actions, bc this just shows how greedy of a company they are (surprise, surprise) but that they just don't care abt their fanbase, especially the ogs that have been there since the very start.
— r. anon
ngl i am totally underinformed abt this topic. like for me, i’m dealing w so much alr i just chose to stay away from anymore yt and twt drama. tbh, i’d be lying if i said i expected anything from mhy. like sure maybe i was optimistic that they’d give more than the ten fates you get in the daily log-in but i realistically knew that other rewards would probably be contest locked and i didnt have any plans of joining any so in my head, there would be no more additional things to be given away.
i dont think i know enough abt gacha games to comment on this matter but i can understand the disappointment of the people. the top rewards that they plan to give based on the 4 minute video i watched to answer this ask properly is not even enough for one pull and im??? there’s smth obv wrong here? ngl the first place prize sound more like the consolation prizes.
alas, games are ultimately a business and ig they feel like they’re losing money if they give any more back (which might not be true in the first place? like personally, more rewards = more incentive to acc play and spend more bc it feels like the return is good value). i dont really spend any for games and i refuse to buy any more bc im saving up for actual irl things but i do admit at spending 9 dollars in the game. its not a lot and idk if its worth it but hey, at least i got childe. that’s enough for me ig😭😭😭
on a more serious note, i agree that this would’ve been the perfect time to make it up to the fanbase after the series of controversies they got involved in but they fucked up even more. i acc dk anymore im just standing here watching everything burn. i wouldnt say its entertaining but it does take my mind off the migraine im experiencing for the past few weeks so 🧍‍♀️
anw, genshin in a great game overall. i just hope that mhy wont waste that opportunity and do better w management and player retention.
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As a survivor, writer, and sexual abuse survivor activist, I participate in and observe real life and online daily conversations on the topic of sexual violence. Hmmm, the topic of sexual violence — like it’s just a topic, not crimes that affect people for the rest of our lives. That change the very structure of our cells, of our brains. Simply a topic of conversation.
Not a polite dinner conversation topic, of course. Yet, still a topic people bring up regularly, because you see, everyone is an expert (I call them the ‘Should Have Dones) on what a victim of a horrific sexual crime Should Have Done after she was brutally raped, sexually molested, abused, or harassed (unless you’re in the political arena and then it’s referred to as ‘sexual misconduct,’ that vague, gray area that cannot be defined, making it easy for politicians to talk in their circles and loopholes, as they are wont to do).
I refer to victims of sexual crimes (including myself) as survivors. Personal choice. We are, and have every right to refer to ourselves as, victims. Society loves to call us victims, in the negative sense of the word. That’s mistake number one so let’s start there.
Mistake #1: Victim Blaming Sexual Violence Survivors
‘Don’t be a victim,’ people spew at us. ‘Just get over it.’ ‘You just want the attention.’ Or my favorite (from a guy): ‘Why didn’t you just call 911? Seems easy enough.” (Well, I was only eleven at the time, and gosh well, 911 didn’t exist in 1975. Plus you know, the whole thing about how my abuser, the military dad next door, had a gun and had threatened to kill me and my baby sister if I told. So there’s that.)
Soooo easy.
One person on Twitter the other day said, ‘I’m not sure if I want to read your books. Are they an endless loop of hopeless reality, victim-mentality, woe-is-me? I prefer stories of go-getters!’
Funny thing is, I am a go-getter. I am ambitious. I’m pretty chill most days. I am also a victim of a serial child molester when I was eleven. Whether I ‘get over it,’ or talk about what happened and how I’ve dealt with it doesn’t change that he sexually abused me. I deal with that reality every day. It doesn’t define me — I don’t wear a label across my forehead, however, I don’t hide it anymore either. Shame no longer owns me.
If you look at the language people use, the focus is on the victim (I’m purposely using the word victim here so stay with me). Don’t be a victim. Get over it. Move on. As if we, the victims of crimes, have Done Something Wrong. As if discussing it means I’m still in victim-mode — which I’m not (because people do want to know); yet people assume that any victim of a sexual crime who discusses their harrowing real-life experience must be looking for attention because why else would we discuss something so private?
Here’s the bigger question: Why do you suppose people focus so much on the victim instead of the perpetrator? I’ve had years to observe this and here’s my completely non-scientific, non-random, non-controlled, non-trial, half-opinion, half-experience-based conclusion:
There’s more than one conclusion, depending on the person’s most treasured belief system. It’s uncomfortable. People don’t know what to say. They don’t want to get into the mind of an abuser, so to avoid that, they pick on the victim. They bully us. We’re accessible, easy targets. Defensive attacks are easier than compassion.
Victims are easy to blame because it’s harder and scarier to connect in any way with the mind of a criminal rapist or child molester — there might be something lurking there they don’t want to see — themselves.
There’s another school of thought (much more scientific):
“Our tendency to blame the victim is ultimately self-protective. It allows us to maintain our rosy worldview and reassure ourselves that nothing bad will happen to us. The problem is that it sacrifices another person’s well-being for our own. It overlooks the reality that perpetrators are to blame for acts of crime and violence, not victims.” (Source: Psychology Today)
I’d really love to see that paradigm shift. Instead of asking victims of sexual crime anything — because we the public are entitled to know nothing about the victim — let’s ask perpetrators why they perpetrate crimes against others. Is it anger? Is it hormonal? Is it societal? Is it mental? How can we fix this?
We know it’s not about sex. We know it’s about power and control. Examining power and patriarchal structures and how we break these down is a start. According to the latest studies, here’s what we do know about men who rape and sexually assault women:
Heavy drinking, perceived pressure to have sex,
a belief in “rape myths” — such as the idea that no means yes
A peer group that uses hostile language to describe women.
Men who are highly aroused by rape porn.
Narcissism magnifies odds that men will commit sexual assault and rape.
What about the idea that rape is about power over women? Some experts feel that research into hostile attitudes toward women supports this idea.
Rejection in high school and of looking on as “jocks and the football players got all the attractive women.”As these once-unpopular, often narcissistic men become more successful, [he] suspects that “getting back at these women, having power over them, seems to have become a source of arousal.” (Source: New York Times)
In the wake of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings and the sexual assault revelation by Dr. Blasey Ford:
“This is what we will expect from the congressional committee:
She will likely be asked to detail every moment of the alleged attack. How much she had to drink. Why she went upstairs. What she was wearing.” (Source: Washington Post)
And she was. That’s exactly what happened.
People feel righteous and justified, as if her drinking or clothing gives Kavanaugh a pass for his (alleged) ‘misconduct.’
**Postscript: we all know the result of that entire situation.
How does what any woman/person wears or drinks justify someone else’s criminal behavior? It doesn’t. In any situation. It simply doesn’t.
Mistake #2: The Language We Use
As I mentioned above, in Western society we focus on the victim:
Mary is a battered woman.
Rachel is a CSA (childhood sexual abuse) survivor.
Joe was raped.
Where are the perpetrators (usually men) who did the abusing in these sentences?
(For the purpose of this discussion, I’ll use men as the perpetrator, though I acknowledge #NotAllMen are abusers so please, let’s not go down that road. It is a well-known and researched fact that men do the majority of abusing (please read the full linked report for more data*) — of women, children, and other men. My point here is not to bash men; simply provide an example. I’m not in any way condemning men exclusively and I acknowledge that women can be abusers too, so everyone breathe.)
*Sex of Perpetrator in Lifetime Reports of Sexual Violence:
Most perpetrators of all forms of sexual violence against women were male. For female rape victims, 98.1% reported only male perpetrators. Additionally, 92.5% of female victims of sexual violence other than rape reported only male perpetrators. For male victims, the sex of the perpetrator varied by the type of sexual violence experienced. The majority of male rape victims (93.3%) reported only male perpetrators. For three of the other forms of sexual violence, a majority of male victims reported only female perpetrators: being made to penetrate (79.2%), sexual coercion (83.6%), and unwanted sexual contact (53.1%). For non-contact unwanted sexual experiences, approximately half of male victims (49.0%) reported only male perpetrators and more than one-third (37.7%) reported only female perpetrators (data not shown).
**For an in-depth discussion on gender symmetry, look at the work of Sherry Hamby, Ph.D.
(“Violence against women, men, and children is a men’s issue, not a women’s issue” — it’s not even a gender issue, according to Jackson Katz. Watch his TEDTalk — an excellent summary of how gendered language is endemic in our society and how we view violence against women and others, perpetuated primarily by men.)
There’s also an assumption (never a good thing) that survivors, especially female survivors, are liars. We must somehow want attention. Women must have ulterior motives for reporting sexual crimes (which violate our civil rights).
Look at the language people use when describing the multitudes of women who accused Bill Cosby in a criminal trial — they must want money or fame — misunderstanding there’s no money or fame to be had, as many of them remained anonymous, he was only convicted for the crimes against one woman, and a criminal trial does not award money.
This is especially true if the victim was drinking or drugged (more on that below). As Jim Hopper mentions in his work, our brains are flooded with chemicals during any kind of intense, traumatic situation, in particular during a sexual assault:
This part of our brain is responsible for executive functions, including focusing attention where we choose, rational thought process and inhibiting impulses. You are using your prefrontal cortex to read this article and absorb what we’ve written, rather than getting distracted by other thoughts in your head or things going on around you. But in states of high stress, fear or terror like combat and sexual assault, the prefrontal cortex is impaired–sometimes even effectively shut down–by a surge of stress chemicals. (Source: Lisak & Hopper, TIME Ideas, 2014)
Mistake #3: Expecting/Demanding a Hero Story
Like the reader above who expected my book to be about a woman who pulls herself up by the bootstraps and conquers the world, we are conditioned, particularly here in the West, to expect and might I even say demand, a mythic hero’s journey. From sitcoms to TV movies to series to Marvel and DC Universe to epics to The Olympics every two years — we are spoonfed heroes journeys at every turn.
Look at Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter — classic if clichéd examples of The Hero’s Journey (with male protagonists and male best friend side-kicks…plus the the oh-so-important scrappy, brilliant yet with not enough screen time female secondary character, who was never completely fleshed out as well as the guys and oh, always became prettier as the series wore on. Think Hermione — whom I love, yet still.). We do love a flawed underdog who grows to a champion!, finds the strength within themselves despite difficult circumstances, defeats the bad guy (ta-da!), and ultimately gets the girl…and, of course, yes, and they lived happily ever after.
Survivors of sexual violence are my heroes. We get up and live each and every day despite living with some combo of anxiety, depression, flashbacks, dissociation, nightmares, insomnia, triggers, hypersensitivity, hypervigilance, migraines, any number of immune disorders, addiction, and all kinds of other shit we are at higher risk for solely because we were a victim of sexual violence at some point in our lives.
PTSD is common in anywhere from one-third to one-half of sexual abuse survivors six months after the attack(s). 94% experience symptoms within the first 24 hours.
If and when we choose to share our survivor experience, we don’t owe anyone a hero story.
Life is hard enough as it is. Navigating it as a survivor adds other layers ‘normals’ cannot possibly imagine. Your expectation that we must live our lives according to your heroic expectations is not our issue.
And if I (or other victims) are still in victim mode — so what? Some victims are so traumatized by the crimes against them, the effects are devastating:
some repeatedly attempt to kill themselves — and often succeed,
become addicted to drugs/alcohol (did you know 75% of addicts and 90% of alcoholics were sexually abused as children? Source: The Right Step),
develop mental health issues (personality disorders, OCD, anxiety, depression, body dysphoria,
have lifelong weight issues
are at higher risk of immune disorders
can retreat to another mental universe completely (e.g., DID or other personality disorders).
If struggling to get through each day is the best we can do — so what?? Who is anyone to judge us?
Mistake #4: The Perfect Victim Myth
People blame victims for not being perfect. If she wore that red dress, if she was drinking, if she didn’t fight back, if she met the guy and they had sex (how dare a woman want sex #gasp), if she was out late walking, if she was asleep in her own bed in a nightie or even naked in her own home! If, if, if.
When you first hear about a crime, it’s our natural curiosity to want to find out more. “What happened? Who was involved, what were the circumstances, is everyone okay?”
However, in a sexual violence situation, many people immediately ask, “What was she wearing? Was she drunk? Was she alone?” This is our go-to. Because it’s somehow her fault for being imperfect. She’s to blame for putting herself in the position to be victimized (and yes, I’m using this passive language on purpose).
Again, with the victim-blaming. Yet the perfect victim expectation goes far beyond that. We’ve all watched enough Hollywood tropes to have been brainwashed into thinking that victims should be thin, virginal, pretty, helpless creatures who are perfect in every way (good), OR they are vampy vixens dressed in leather whom we know have it coming because they ooze sex (bad).
In reality, women are not caricatures (surprise!) and are sexually violated at all stages of life and in all stages of clothing.
Cases have been dismissed entirely because the victim didn’t cry sufficiently or wasn’t hysterical enough (if you recall, PTSD used to be referred to as ‘shellshock’ for a reason). Our brains can react in a multitude of ways during and after sexual assault — see Jim Hopper’s comprehensive work to get the neuroscientific background in understandable terms. As Jim points out, investigators have to learn how to talk to victims differently based on the latest scientific studies on how the brain reacts to intense trauma.
Memory gaps are common — why? Because of the pre-frontal cortex impairment mentioned above. Details can be hazy and remain hazy. The best scientists in the world don’t know exactly why, yet lawyers, judges, and juries demand definitive proof a victim isn’t lying (and even with proof, rape kits are collecting dust. Again, whole other post).
No. Let’s discuss it. If there’s DNA present, the victim can undergo the process of having a rape kit done (commonly referred to as a SAK: Sexual Assault Kit). After being raped or sexually assaulted, a victim must again open themselves up to strangers to be intimately examined.
Then there’s this fact: Most kits are never tested unless there’s a criminal investigation. Go ahead, read that again.
Are all SAKs tested?
No. While there are a few cities and states that automatically test all sexual assault kits, in general, SAKs are not tested unless specifically requested by a law enforcement agency for a criminal investigation. There are a variety of reasons that a kit might not be tested including:
A decision by law enforcement due to a variety of reasons — such as not prioritizing sexual assault cases or a perceived lack of victim credibility or cooperation — not to further investigate the case.
A decision by law enforcement that the results of the kit would not be significant to the investigation. This occurs most often when the suspect does not deny physical contact but instead claims the contact was consensual.
Backlogged crime labs. Due to resource issues, some crime labs may take up to a year or longer to test a SAK.
Lack of funding for DNA analysis. Some law enforcement jurisdictions, including crime laboratories, are underfunded and may be unable to test every SAK. (Source: National Center for Victims of Crime)
Dissociation (aka, spacing out or acting differently) is common after an assault, sometimes for years — even decades (something I still experience now, forty-plus years after my abuse as a child).
I experienced dissociation each time my abuser molested me (not realizing that watching myself as he abused me was not abnormal). I dissociated frequently throughout high school and college — it was normal for me to watch myself from above. Now that I know what that feeling is (something I can do on command), I’m much more aware. Sometimes, though, it happens and I don’t realize it at all. My family knows, though. My guy says he can see me ‘going under.’
You may also find this PTSD visual helpful (Souce: Daily Cardinal) and read more on PTSD here.
As for whether a woman decides to drink, do drugs, wear whatever she wants, meet a guy for sex — she is allowed to do all those things and still does not deserve to be raped. No man deserves to be raped. No child deserves it. No LGBTQ-identifying person. No human.
A person is raped because someone raped them.
By accusing a survivor who is brave enough to come forward for not fitting into the perfect victim myth you’ve come to expect, or accusing them of lying, it’s as if we are all having the wrong argument. What we have here is a faulty car engine (the brain, which in truth isn’t faulty at all), yet you’re accusing, discrediting, and blaming the driver.
When in actuality, the one causing the entire mess is the guy who ran the car off the road.
Allegedly.
Mistake #5: Sexual Violence is Political
Social media is rife with conspiracy theories about the Ford/Kavanaugh situation — which I won’t dignify by going into here on this post. The #MeToo movement, which has brought forward incredible, heartbreaking, brave voices sharing horrific stories of sexual violence, is now being attacked as men vs. women, as right-wing vs those ‘heathen, liberal left’ (never mind the number of priests, GOP’ers identified as child molesters and rapists, Fox News?). Some of the people involved in spreading and believing these stories are tin-foil hat ridiculous.
Geez. See how easy even I lowered myself into the mud? It’s an ugly look, isn’t it? Mud-slinging makes dirty people. Dirty people spread more dirt.
Add to that the conspiracy theorists, fake news, fake accounts, Russian whatevers, bots, and fundamentalists on all sides…we might as well be rolling with the pigs…or is it dogs or fleas? Besides, shouldn’t you be writing instead of arguing politics on social media?)
Which is why I refuse to discuss politics and sexual violence together in the same tweet or post.* I won’t argue with anyone about sexual violence and politics. They are completely separate because my focus is and always will be on the survivor. And if you work with The Joyful Heart Foundation as I do or RAINN (also wonderful), you’ll see they are not political, either (except to help get funding for rape kit testing or more services for survivors).
Advocating is about helping others. Politicizing sexual violence negatively, to further some politician’s career, doesn’t help anyone.
(*If there’s a bill, contributions needed, or volunteering to help or fund services for survivors — then I’m all in to help out survivors).
Making what a survivor goes through, after any kind of assault, fit into some political party ideology is ludicrous to me.
Compassion and kindness are my ideology.
Mistake #6: Assuming All Victims of Sexual Violence Are Liars
One more, on the house.
As I already mentioned above, the other part of politicizing sexual violence is the assumption that all sexual violence survivors are liars (ONLY if the survivor is hurting your candidate). Why do you suppose this is? Because diehard party-line believers and supporters cannot afford to question their own familiar belief system (this topic brings in fallacies, which you can read more about here). Whole other post.
“Why didn’t she report? She had plenty of time!” Such an easy question to ask. So simple. As easy as asking a domestic violence survivor why she didn’t just leave, right? Surely, violent, criminal situations can be explained away with a tweet. I hope this sounds as ridiculous to you as it does to me, yet that’s what people demand from survivors, particularly women.
I’ve shared above how parts of the brain shut off during trauma. If the victim chooses to come forward immediately, investigators must be trained to question survivors appropriately, keeping this in mind. The victim may not answer in a way politicians or the public would ‘expect’ a perfect victim to answer — yet the knowledge of how the brain responds to trauma is not widely known or understood.
The general public is a different story altogether. Zero comprehension of the brain on trauma. Therefore, we see these brutal social media attacks ensue due to unsatisfactory answers to questions the public has no right to ask.
Shame is another reason. It can take decades for a survivor to speak publicly about their sexual trauma (if they ever do at all). It took me three and a half decades to write Broken Pieces and then Broken Places (Broken People will be available soon-ish).
Fear of retaliation (and considering 90% of sexual violence is perpetrated by someone we know, this is an incredibly valid fear). More specifics from RAINN:
Of the sexual violence crimes not reported to police from 2005–2010, the victim gave the following reasons for not reporting:
20% feared retaliation
13% believed the police would not do anything to help
13% believed it was a personal matter
8% reported to a different official
8% believed it was not important enough to report
7% did not want to get the perpetrator in trouble
2% believed the police could not do anything to help
30% gave another reason or did not cite one reason
Read more statistics about perpetrators of sexual violence.
I won’t go into the details of my own sexual abuse here, but I will share this: as someone who did report (eventually) and testified in two trials at the age of twelve (civil and military), I can tell you it was one of the most terrifying, humiliating, and shameful experiences I’ve ever had, facing the man who abused me, having to explain what he did to me while others scrutinized every excruciating, embarrassing detail for further questioning and cross-examination.
Sure, I was young. Younger than both my kids are now. Too young to know the words I was about to speak.
For the record, he got eighteen months.
  Do you need help right now? Contact RAINN 800.656.HOPE (4673). Here are 67 resources for sexual assault survivors via Greatist.
  This post originally appeared on Medium.
  Read more about Rachel’s experiences in the award-winning book, Broken Pieces.
She goes into more detail about living with PTSD and realizing the effects of how being a survivor affected her life in
Broken Places, available now on Amazon.
  The post 5 Mistakes People Make When Discussing Sexual Violence appeared first on Rachel Thompson.
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hear-bose · 6 years
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Audio-Technica ATH-A990Z Art Monitor Closed-Back Dynamic Headphones: Electronics
I have owned the Audio Technica ATH-A990z for just under two months and have been using it daily. It really surprises me that this doesn't have any reviews considering the success of the previous iteration of this headphone, the ATH-A900x. I really don't often do reviews but I really think this headphone does deserve praise. Here is a bit of background and context of where I'm coming from. If you don't care just scroll down to the (SOUND) portion.I mostly listened to open backed headphones. My first real headphone where my Audio-Technica AD900 (the original open back, non Xs). They had an amazing midrange, soundstage, and imaging. But they had absolutely no bass and highs that were very accurate but on the edge of being sibilant. I ran them off a Yamaha AV receiver that had a decent headphone output and it really brought down the highs to acceptable levels. I used tone controls included in the receiver to bring up the bass up to enjoyable levels. I also added extra padding in the ear cups to stop the drivers from toughing my ears That was my daily driver for nearly 3 years before I broke them from constantly sitting on them accidentally when ever I left them on my computer chair. I absolutely loved they sound of theses headphones (after modifications) and is partly the reason why I decided to get the A990z. I had gotten the raved Phillips SHP9500 to replace my old workhorse, but those sounded extreme boring and dull compared the AD900. Very comfortable and nothing sounded wrong on them, but they made my entire music collection sound the same and nothing stood out. I wanted to experience that Audio Technica magic again, and I also need a closed backed headphone this time (my noisy little nephew lives with us now!). I look into the newly refreshed Art Monitor Z series, the A990z being right in my price point. I also have the TEAC AI-301DA headphone out as my new source audio output. I mostly listen to electronic (Aphex Twin, BOC, Chris Clark, etc..) music with some occasional instrumental orchestra or jazz.(SOUND [with stock pads])Simply put, these headphones are fun and exciting sounding while still being very accurate and concise. The imaging/sound separation and soundstage is pretty good for this closed back headphone (These work very well with gaming!). Despite what the title and name say these are not that good for sound monitoring and engineering (although they are much better than ATH-M50x in that regard). The sound is V shaped, emphases on bass and highs but not overdone. The bass goes deep and has quite a bit of impact. These are not bass cannons but was I pleasantly surprised at much low end it pumps out (though maybe that's just my open back preference showing). Mids are still very present and wonderful, but not on front stage and like my old AD900. High are emphasized but nowhere sibilant like Audio Technicas of past and is very accurate. It also remained me of my AD900, but without the harshness. As with most closed headphones, these do indeed sound closed. There is soundstage, but not a whole lot and not enough to WOW most people like really good open backs. Imaging is very good, like AD900, but I clearly remember the AD900 being better(COMFORT [with stock pads])If you know anything about AT's 3D wing system then you know that comfort might be a hit more miss (fortunately it's usually works with most people, myself included). There are some problems to note. The headphone will feel like its sliding off your head at first, though once you break them in and start wearing them after a while that feeling will subside. One thing that didn't subside was a pinching feeling on the pads. The pads themselves are quite comfortable and soft, made of high quality faux [?] leather. I personally don't like like any type leather touching my ears, I've been more inclined to cloth or velour pads. But the real problem is that they are too shallow to offer any support on the head and the inner diameter of the ear hole is too small for most. My ears are not big and they fit uncomfortably tight in them. I would image anyone with larger ears would simply not fit in these. Fortunately, you can change the ear pads, thought most pads that are not made specifically for the Art Monitor series will be a REALLY tight fit. Some wont fit at all, but will some will (Like HiFiMAN Pads and Brainwavz Pads). The stock pads are the only flaw that come with the A990z.(DESIGN)There not much to say if you familiar the AT design with their A series of Headphones. 3D wing design. Up, down, left, and right articulating earcups. Angled drivers. These also have a really nice fixed single 3 meter braided cable, which is curiously exclusive to the A990z within its own line up. The higher end models also don't have Up and Down articulating earcups for some reason. These are not the best in isolating sound, but it works well enough and keeps crying children noises at bay, more so that any open back. These are very efficient and not hard to drive. They can be driven off a most smartphones or a PC headphone jack to unsafe levels of loud. Be warned though, they are quite sensitive will pick up noise if your audio output is sub-par or dirty. These can actually pick up a constant low hissing in my TEAC AI-301DA, which I never realized was there with my Phillips SHP9500. I really have no idea if the A990z will scale well with high end equipment, but it certainly wouldn't hurt. The cool dark green and reflective chamber ring is very nice (the pictures don't do it justice).(SOUND and COMFORT [with Brainwavz Hybrid Memory Foam Earpad])So I got tired of using the stock pads and constant pinching sensation it had. Brainwavz Hybrid Memory non-angled pads was one known pad that was able to (barely) fit on AT Cans. These are pain and will take like 20 mins as you struggle to get them on, but persevere though and you will get them on. Having smaller hands also helps. I only hoping for a comfort increase and not much else, but I got much more than that. The sound did change for the better in my opinion. The soundstage increased, really helps it sound less closed and congested, not to really big levels like my AD900 but it gets damn close, especially for a closed back design. The imaging/sound separation and mids is now FANTASTIC and really reminds me of AD900. Highs didn't really change that much but does sound a little more spacious and accurate. Bass is much more tight and accurate, particularity in the lower spectrum. There is less low end bass slam which makes it sound more neutral over all (the low bass was quite accentuated for my taste). Midbass still punchy and tight. Comfort is simply perfect now. My ear fit in the cups now, there is no sliding sensation with the headphones anymore. No more pinching feeling on my ears and the pads are much more breathable. For just a little extra, these pads are so worth it.(OVERALL)Again, the only thing that holding these back from a 5 star are the flawed earpads. The would be great if they gave it more depth and made more room for the ears. Other than that, these are fantastic closed back performer. The sound is really geared towards fun, but still that Audio Technica precision that most audio snobs will enjoy. AT struck a really good balance here, whether it was by accident or design.The lower end A550z are said to sound like a improved A700x, but are not made in Japan. The higher end A1000z is said to sound just same as the A990z, but with a littler more of everything (At double the cost no less!). And the flagship A2000z are said to be a VERY different headphone from all the rest. For the asking price, I say its well worth it. And personally, I will see no need to upgrade past this headphone in the coming years.
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