JANUARY 2022 MACWORLD 97the trombone, and
clearly delineated
orchestral sections.
The orchestra on
Concertos & Fairytales is
relatively modest in size,
so for something larger, I
turned to one of my
favorite symphonic
pieces of all time, “Pines
of the Appian Way,” the
fourth movement of
Respighi’s The Pines of
Rome. There are many
great recordings of this
massive symphonic tone
poem; in this case, I chose the Philadelphia
Orchestra under Riccardo Muti. As I had
heard before, the GW100 v2 had a big,
open sound with a wide soundstage and
excellent imaging. In addition, the
headphone’s dynamic range did full justice
to the piece, which grows from a whisper
to a roar.
COMPARISON WITH CLEER
FLOW II AND DALI IO-6
Unfortunately, I didn’t have any other
open-back headphones on hand to
compare with the GW100 v2 during this
review. The closest I could come in terms
of cost was the Cleer Flow II ($199.99) and
DALI IO-6 (fave.co/3Gp9EVl; $499). Both
are over-ear, closed-back, wireless
Bluetooth headphones, and both provide
active noise cancellation as well as
passive isolation with earpads that seal the
ears. (DALI also offers the IO-4 [fave.
co/32X6QjU], which does not offer ANC
and lists for $399.)
I listened to each track on all three
headphones, making sure the ANC on the
Flow II and IO-6 was deactivated. As you
might expect with closed-back, over-ear
designs, the sound of the Cleer and DALI
was much more “inside” my head with a
smaller soundstage. The Flow II still had a
clear, open sound quality but with slightly
less bass than the GW100 v2.
The IO-6 had a warmer, richer,
creamier sound than either of the other
headphones, with a slightly closed-in,Grado Labs believes active noise cancellation compromises audio
quality, so it doesn’t build the feature into its headphones.