AGAINST THE GRAIN: Audio-Technica ATH-WP900

These wood-finished wonders are a star-studded well, wood-studded) audio delight

A 'revival' is all well and good, but a good revival picks and chooses - it doesn't just take wholesale. The Audio-Technica ATH-WP900 A over-ear headphones aren't just wired: they feature extensive use of wood in their construction - although there's nothing old-school about the asking price. Expensive, portable, wired over-ear headphones - is it a revival too far?

For once, here's a pair of headphones you wouldn't mistake in line-up. And, what's more, the ATH-WP900 manage to be distinctive and good-looking without being any great departure from the long-established over-ear headphones design template.

Certainly it's business as usual where the hanger, headband and slider mechanism are concerned. Everything feels robust in a nicely weighted manner, and both the padding and the synthetic leather wrapping of the headband is comfortable and tactile in equal measure.

It's the earcups themselves that set the WP900 apart, though. Audio-Technica has constructed the earcups from wood: solid, machined maple with a thin slice of flame maple fused on top.

Wood has impeccable acoustic credentials, of course, but the fact it makes the ATH-WP900 look lustrous, expensive and distinctive certainly doesn't do any harm either.

The ATH-WP900 are an admirably coherent and consistent listen. If they have a comfort zone, its boundaries are so far away as to be invisible. The soundstage they create is open, organised and properly defined. Each element of a recording gets more than enough elbow-room to express itself, but at the same time relates to and integrates with every other element.