I didn't find a proper thread to reply to, so I'll resurrect this old one.
I have a loaner pair of AD2000 right now and I really don't get why many people are enamored with these headphones. I had heard them at a few meets before, but the owner of this pair kept telling me that I needed to hear them in a silent environment to really appreciate them. Well, that's what I'm doing right now and I still think they're more or less crap. They do some things well, like a lot of air in the sound and excellent detail retrieval.
But to my ears the bad far outweighs the good. They are painfully bright in my system and the cymbals hurt my brain. They lack bass quantity big time and the vocals are a bit distant and not engaging at all. And I'm not sure how to put it, but they sound artificial in the treble, a bit like the Lambda Sigs I had a while ago.
It was truly a relief to listen to the same songs on my JH13 after a short session with the AD2K, the JH13 are some of the most balanced phones I've heard. Unless someone is looking for a very bright sound signature and/or is a cymbals-head, I really wouldn't recommend these headphones based on the listening I have done in my system.