After years and now having other headphones to do my job, I decided to leave a review for one of the most well-known headphones.
The build quality is mediocre, especially the plastic parts, which are inferior compared to Beyer, Senn, Focal, Bose, and Sony headphones that I own. There are several creaks over time, and the earpads are of poor quality. In my opinion, they should be replaced immediately with Dekoni or Yaxi pads. In addition to the quality issue, there is also the durability problem. The awful leather they have breaks within a short period of time.
In terms of sound:
A) For studio use, these headphones are not suitable, and this is clearly evident from the frequency response (FR) that you will see. There are spikes all over, muffled mids, overly bright highs, and excessive mid-high bass for monitoring. If you want monitoring headphones, then go for the Audio-Technica R70X, which are flat and have the necessary 5K spike to identify the flaws you want, or the DT 770 Pro, DT 880 Pro 600ohm, which are cheaper and definitely more suitable for monitoring. The Focal Listen Pro headphones also surpass these.
B) For home music listening, you want something comfortable, with good vocal reproduction, and not a large soundstage. Velour earpads are recommended. Unfortunately, even in this aspect, the M50X headphones do not perform well. The mids and vocals are nowhere to be found. I would recommend the AKG K371 and HD 569, which are warm and without exaggerations. If you want to step up your game, then go for the Meze 99 Classic for closed-back or the HD 600, 650, 660s for open-back.
C) Let's move on to gaming. Here, you need two things: soundstage and imaging. It is well-known that the M50X headphones are not good in either of these aspects. If you want a large soundstage from closed-back headphones, then the DT770 Pro 80ohm is the way to go (although I would never recommend closed-back headphones for gaming because they lack the soundstage and imaging of open-back headphones). If you want open-back headphones, then go for the HD 599, Audio-Technica ATH-AD500X, or the AKG 612, 701, 702.
Finally, I must say that not everything is negative. Obviously, for them to sell for so many years and be liked by many, it means they are doing something right. In my opinion, what they do well is:
- DJ use, as this V-shaped frequency response (FR) is the best for DJs to mix in a noisy environment. In such cases, you need strong bass and piercing highs. It is no coincidence that all DJ headphones have such an FR, for example, the HD 25. They also have good sound isolation, thanks to the leather pads, and they are very portable since you can fold them and put them in your bag. Additionally, the drivers are very durable, as I have not heard of anyone with a broken driver.
And finally, the most important thing is that they have a sound profile that is full of excitement when someone who has no experience with headphones listens to them for the first time. They definitely impress, just like they did with me when I first heard them. However, in practice, someone who is not a casual listener will always feel that something is missing, that something is not right.
PS. For DJs, these headphones are easily 4 out of 5 stars. However, for all other uses, they do not perform well.