Audio-Technica ATH-M50x Perspective From a Non-Audiophile (Deprecated)

[jiyeon]

 

 

Hi, and welcome to my experience with the Audio-Technica ATH-M50x, a pair of headphones which I've longed after for over four years, and I've finally been able to afford them after months of working at my new job.  I bought my white ATH-M50x for £113 from Amazon UK, and after using them for a bit, that is about as much as I'd pay for them at retail price.

 

Disclaimer before I pitch in my two cents, yes I know there were other options out there that are far superior in terms of sound and build quality, but my decision to buy these particular headphones boiled down to these things, in no particular order:

• Aesthetics - the white aesthetic of the headphones are beautiful
• Portability/Flexibility - the fully-rotatable earcups that fold up to boot, as well as the detachable cables
• My desire for new headphones
• Admittedly, the sheer popularity of these headphones

With that out of way, I'll pitch in my perspective, as a non-audiophile, on the Audio-Technica ATH-M50x.

 

 

 

Firstly I'll talk about the design and build of the ATH-M50x. When I first got them, I was struck at how large they were since I had never seen a pair of ATH-M50x in the flesh before buying them, even the box it came in was much larger than I imagined.

 

When I first took them out of the box, I felt the nice materials that Audio-Technica had used, and was also greeted to the three detachable cables which are a neat touch for the portability of these headphones. The detachable cable was one of the most compelling features of the M50x in my mind, and it certainly paid off and now I use the coiled cable for desktop use and the shorter two for other uses such as using the headphones with my phone.

 

Additionally, the fully-foldable earcups were one of the top three features that I was anticipating for these headphones, and they didn't disappoint. The foldable earcups make for portability that I've never experienced before, they're so compact and fit into the included pouch nicely.

 

The design of the headphones are amazingly-beautiful too, it's fully white with silver accents, it looks super classy. The headphones themselves are larger than I expected and thus look a slightly large on my head as well as feeling heavier too, but the design is definitely not something I'm ashamed of.

The headphones have quite a modern design to them, althought the headband and the hinges look quite dated to me, which actually contributes nicely towards the timeless design of the M50x.

 

 

 

Onto the main reason why I bought these, the sound quality.

 

It's a contradictory statement because again, I had never touched or seen these headphones with my own eyes before I bought these, but coming from standard consumer-grade headphones such as the Status Audio HD One, Sony MDR-ZX310, and some earphones such as the Sennheiser MX365, Sennheiser MX375, and the Samsung AKG earphones, I had no doubt that the M50x would tower over them all.

 

I'm not the best at explaining things, so I'm going to put some songs and I'll talk about my experience with the songs while wearing these headphones.

 

A bit of background on the type of music I listen to:

• Korean Pop
  • Bubblegum - Twice, Apink, Red Velvet etc
  • Dancehall - KARD, BTS, (G)-I-DLE, Got7, Stray Kids, Day6
  • Ballad - BTOB, Cheeze, EXID, Taeyeon

I'm not too great at explaining specific terms, so I'm going to try my best at explaining parts of songs using my own terminology.

 

I'll be listening to the YouTube music video versions of these songs, so the timestamps displayed are for those.

 

Song 1 (Bubblegum Pop) - Apink - Eung Eung

• 0:12 - The intro synth jumps up and down and is so pronounced and clear, then slowly gets accompanied by drums and a light lullaby of a female vocal which is super soothing to hear, everything is balanced and everything has its place on the sound stage.
• 0:45 - The female vocals accompanied by what I can tell is a light synth and a faster backing synth form harmony nicely to keep the pace of the song flowing as well as keep the female vocals in the spotlight, I can hear the faster background synth nice and clearly which is amazing.
• 0:59 - The background chip-tune is high and pronounced which gives so much body to the verse, especially since the vocalists at this section is so crisp and clear.
• 1:12 - I love that it all comes together nicely, with the chip-tune accompaniedby the intro synth and again the beautifuly-pronounced female vocals. I could hear every bit of it including the light bass reverb, the vocals again stand out the most here.
• 2:44 - I really love how much the female vocals shine in this section, I can hear every chord and it's entrancing how soothing they sound, especially since they are accompanied by a light chip-tune.
• 3:12 - This part is pretty much an enhanced intro and I love every bit about it. The synth is so sharp, the drum hit is so much more pronounced, and the soft hum by the female vocalist is a beautiful set.

Song 2 (Dancehall/EDM) - Stray Kids - District 9

• 0:20 - The hard-hitting synth and bass combo is a blast of metal to my ears, quite literally, because it sounds so metallic and rough, accompany that with the harsh raspy voice of the vocalist and it's quite a badass combination that is so energetic
• 0:42 - The second the vocalist just tears up the scene and the bass and drums just explode, it is an amazing listening experience, the drum hit is so pronounced, the vocalist is so clear, and the guitar is so rough and gritty, it makes for an energetic and soulful chorus
• 1:04 - Hearing the vocalist say "District 9" followed by a piercing synth, heavy bass, and light synth in the back is again such an energetic vibe.
• 2:32 - Hearing this vocalist's exceptionally low, growly, and raspy voice accompanied by the synth, guitar, and light clapping is such a badass moment to hear, followed by a build-up to the chorus that just finishes on an epic note.

Song 3 (Pop Rock) - Day6 - Shoot Me

• 0:06 - The melodic vocal flow combined with the drums and the synthiser makes for an ominously-low sound which is excellent given the vibe of the song.
• 0:34 - I absolutely love the drums replicating the gunshot, it stings my ears every time and it's epic, especially since it's followed by a series of guitars, synths, and light bass which makes for an awesome head-banging rock metal song chrous.
• 1:14 - The raspy dirty guitar riff is so rough and gritty accompanied by the vocal's indeed rough and gritty vocal tone, with the symbals in the off-beat.
• 1:15 - The harmony of the vocalist's mid notes with the symbal hits and the light guitar run is so light and crisp and makes for an amazing low note.

 

 

Okay so that ended up being more of what I appreciate from K-pop music, but the TL:DR I suppose is that, I can hear everything in such clarity and sound signature than I used to be able to. The sound is impeccable for the type of music I listen to, where female vocals generally dominate the scene, or else it's the backing instrumentation that steals the spotlight. The instruments are so pronounced and the vocals are so clear, it's great.

 

I want to touch once again on the build and design, these are super portable headphones, and it has an amazing design to boot. These are super stylish headphones especially in white, at least to me.

 

I hope you can appreciate that I am by no means an audiophile or even anything close to a music producer/analyst, as you could tell from my terminology in explaining parts of songs.

I'm simply a music lover, I take what I want that provides me with the best listening experience I can get for my type of music whilst also having headphones that look classy and premium, and the ATH-M50x ticks all of those boxes.

 

[DrMacintosh]

The M50Xs have been the only pair of "real" headphones that I've owned. I've had nothing but good things to say about their sound quality. The only bad thing about them imo is that they have fake leather ear cups. I've had my pair for a few years and the cups have started to flake. Thankfully you can buy replacements and the cups are easy to remove. 

 

The 3 types of cable (and the fact that the cable is detachable) are very very nice. 

[food158]

On 3/16/2019 at 2:45 PM, seoz said:

-snip-

K-pop, and much of modern music, is more compressed and not extremely well mastered/recorded. You're not an audiophile, so I won't penalize or berate your decision. It's fine to buy m50x's, but I feel like you're missing out by opting to buy these over Massdrop 58X Jubilee's because you mention the main impetus to buy them m50x's was sound quality.

 

I own both m50x's and recently got a pair of AKG K712's.

[SolarNova]

They benefit greatly from a good source, onboard sound for example isnt great, neither are most 'budget' sound cards. I for one use a FiiO X3K as my DAC (originally bought for portability 'DAP') for when i listen to music and its night and day vs my Xonar D2X sound card.

 

I have the M50S , a slightly lesser version of the X, but none the less they sound great.

 

My advice however is this, buy urself some replacement ear pads, the stock ones wont last long, the pleather will degrade, crack, and disintegrate within a relatively short period of time. Shure 940 velour pads are what i replaced them with and they are much more comfy.

[jiyeon]

On 3/16/2019 at 3:00 PM, DrMacintosh said:

The M50Xs have been the only pair of "real" headphones that I've owned. I've had nothing but good things to say about their sound quality. The only bad thing about them imo is that they have fake leather ear cups. I've had my pair for a few years and the cups have started to flake. Thankfully you can buy replacements and the cups are easy to remove. 

 

The 3 types of cable (and the fact that the cable is detachable) are very very nice. 

On 3/16/2019 at 3:29 PM, SolarNova said:

My advice however is this, buy urself some replacement ear pads, the stock ones wont last long, the pleather will degrade, crack, and disintegrate within a relatively short period of time. Shure 940 velour pads are what i replaced them with and they are much more comfy.

Yeah, I do intend to buy some replacement ear pads, but for now I'm content with the ones that they come with, after I did just spent £113 to get these headphones in the first place. I'm not entirely sure about flaking being an issue because I'm extra careful with my technology, but we'll see if the test of time proves me wrong on that one.

 

On 3/16/2019 at 3:03 PM, food158 said:

It's fine to buy m50x's, but I feel like you're missing out by opting to buy these over Massdrop 58X Jubilee's because you mention the main impetus to buy them m50x's was sound quality.

My holy trinity for a good pair of headphones (in no particular order) was:

• Sound
  • I wanted the best sound I could get for my money - £113 for the M50x which I've being eyeing up for years is not bad, but I will mention once more that this is probably the most I'd be willing to pay for these headphones.
• Form
  • I wanted headphones that are flexible - M50x ticks this box for being fully-foldable and having detachable ear pads.
• Design
  • I wanted headphones that look great - M50x easily ticks this box for coming in white.

[food158]

On 3/16/2019 at 5:35 PM, seoz said:

My holy trinity for a good pair of headphones (in no particular order) was:

• Sound
  • I wanted the best sound I could get for my money - £113 for the M50x which I've being eyeing up for years is not bad, but I will mention once more that this is probably the most I'd be willing to pay for these headphones.
• Form
  • I wanted headphones that are flexible - M50x ticks this box for being fully-foldable and having detachable ear pads.
• Design
  • I wanted headphones that look great - M50x easily ticks this box for coming in white.

I don't disagree with the last two.

 

On 3/16/2019 at 5:29 PM, seoz said:

 

Yeah, I do intend to buy some replacement ear pads, but for now I'm content with the ones that they come with, after I did just spent £113 to get these headphones in the first place. I'm not entirely sure about flaking being an issue because I'm extra careful with my technology, but we'll see if the test of time proves me wrong on that one.

Flaking happens much later down the line, like three years down the line.

[LukeSavenije]

On 3/16/2019 at 9:03 PM, food158 said:

K-pop, and much of modern music, is more compressed and not extremely well mastered/recorded. You're not an audiophile, so I won't penalize or berate your decision. It's fine to buy m50x's, but I feel like you're missing out by opting to buy these over Massdrop 58X Jubilee's because you mention the main impetus to buy them m50x's was sound quality.

but except if you have the sources to the higher bitrate records, you won't notice the difference by much if you're just listening via Spotify or YouTube.

 

i won't go further against you for now, i want this to be as harmless as possible

 

~a semi-audiophile

[XR6]

On 3/16/2019 at 8:03 PM, food158 said:

K-pop, and much of modern music, is more compressed

What difference does it make to the average user? The review was written from the perspective of a non-audiophile; it makes no sense to bring up things like compression because let's face it - the majority of people aren't worried about that type of thing when they buy headphones.

Quote

I feel like you're missing out by opting to buy these over Massdrop 58X Jubilee's because you mention the main impetus to buy them m50x's was sound quality.

@seoz is happy with her purchase, so there isn't any need to buy new headphones. Why pay more money when you're already happy with what you have?

On 3/16/2019 at 8:03 PM, food158 said:

 You're not an audiophile, so I won't penalize or berate your decision.

Even if @seoz was an audiophile, why would you bother doing that in the first place? It's a bit of a rude thing to do, don't you think?

[food158]

23 hours ago, XR6 said:

 

@seoz is happy with her purchase, so there isn't any need to buy new headphones. Why pay more money when you're already happy with what you have?

I didn't say there was? Simply added my thoughts on the m50x compared to alternatives.

23 hours ago, XR6 said:

Even if @seoz was an audiophile, why would you bother doing that in the first place? It's a bit of a rude thing to do, don't you think?

I worded my sentence poorly. Berate is extreme, I admit.