Audio Technica ATH-M50X Review (Closed Headphone)

[solderdude]

I used techflex on my M50X. Those headbands are really an issue.

Too bad I don't have it in the original color.

Amir's measurements closely mirror mine

My measurements show a little less energy in the 1-4kHz range. This is because the drivers are angled (slightly) and my rig having no pinna.

 

[infinitesymphony]

I used techflex on my M50X. Those headbands are really an issue.

Whoa, very funky. I dig the peanut butter & Techflex look.

 

[JJB70]

I have always found these too bass heavy for my taste, I'll admit that from time to time if I listen to certain music a bass heavy headphone is good fun and for such moments these are very good, but it's not the sort of tuning I listen to most of the time (though the reason I keep my Sony MDR-Z7 is just for those moments). These are relatively inexpensive, robust and they do what they do pretty well so I can understand why they're so popular even if they're not really for me.

 

[Longshan]

I have always found these too bass heavy for my taste, I'll admit that from time to time if I listen to certain music a bass heavy headphone is good fun and for such moments these are very good, but it's not the sort of tuning I listen to most of the time (though the reason I keep my Sony MDR-Z7 is just for those moments). These are relatively inexpensive, robust and they do what they do pretty well so I can understand why they're so popular even if they're not really for me.

I agree with you. I have a pair, and the other thing I'd say is that their soundstage is extremely narrow for some reason. At the same time, they've been a good workhorse for me. They're great for tracking, and they've been reliable.

 

[rsoffer]

Listening to these now while working out of a coffee shop and I'm reminded by how much I love them. Years later, thousands of dollars in headphones later and these still get me tapping my feet like the best of them.

I'm somewhat of a basshead, and I think the bass on these is great. The Sony XM3s had way too much bloated bass for me. These are much more balanced and controlled. The bass doesn't have the texture or quality of say the Focal Clear, but it's fun.

Many complain about the metallic treble on these, but I love it. They're an exciting pair to listen to. EDM and hip hop is so much fun with these.

 

[ehabheikal]

If i wanted an affordable can that has very low distortion and has a frequency response that when corrected will not mess up the distortion. Also it should equalize easy as in have no parts in the frequency response that is hard to equalize.
Which should i get the Audio technica M50X or the Sennheiser 569? I already have thesuperlux hd668 and would prefer a closed heaphone. plus after eq the 668 looses a lot of distortion in the base region. I can spend more if there is a better measured headphone or earphone.

 

[ehabheikal]

I got mine yesterday.
It is built like a tank using good plastic and metal.
I listened to it without eq, not that great but not bad, sound is like it is coming for an empty hall which i think is all in the middle frequencies.
Being lucky Wavelet app works perfectly on my android phone ( ios users eat your hearts out lol ), so i selected m50x and it automatically equalized the music and wow, close to perfection for me. Plays as loud as you want without distortion, bass is great. overall if you can eq your cans lol then this is a good headphone.

 

[thecity2]

These are apparently what Beyonce uses.

 

[Palladium]

I briefly auditioned them on my Note 9 native 3.5mm output long ago and I still remember they were awful.

 

[markanini]

I briefly auditioned them on my Note 9 native 3.5mm output long ago and I still remember they were awful.

I wouldn't call them awful, but it has a V shaped coloration in the mids.

 

[ehabheikal]

Anyone using the Android EQ app called "wavelet"? It said to correct HP response to the Harman curve and they have 2300 models in their bank available to anyone who upgrade to the premium version. It also has all sorts of manual fine-tune options as well. I have BT version of this HP and the Auto EQ does a great job IMO to make this HP sound great with no obvious peaks and dips.
Sonarworks's Tru-Fi was a great option too [for Windows], but they renamed it and changed it to "Sound ID" but basically the same concept. They measure the headphones and create a compensation curve to load it whenever the user selects a headphone that is in the bank.
The gray curve is the measured response the orange flat line represents the reference "curve". The correction values are not provided.
Wavelet only shows the corrected curve applied on that screenshot.

Wavlet is indispensable to me.

 

[ehabheikal]

This is a review, detailed measurements and equalization for the Audio Technica ATH-M50X. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $149 on Amazon including Prime shipping. There are an incredible 24,000 reviews on Amazon! It averages 4.5 stars

Nothing looks fancy here:
View attachment 115764

The fit was more or less the same as other closed headphones in its class with cups a bit rubbing against my ears. The cable is removable:
View attachment 115765

The sample I had was well used with some of the pad surface starting to disintegrate.

Note: The measurements you are about to see are preformed using standardized GRAS 45CA headphone measurement fixture. Headphone measurements require more interpretation than speaker tests and have more of a requirement for subjective testing as a result. In addition, comparison of measurements between different people performing it using different configurations requires fair bit of skill. So don't look for matching results. Focus on high level picture. Listening tests are performed using RME ADI-2 DAC and its headphone output.

Mounting the headphone on my test fixture was challenging, resulting in quite a lot of variation between channels and overall response. I optimized this as best as I could but like there are some error in low frequencies.

Audio Technical ATH-M50X Measurements
Let's start with frequency response of M50X and comparison to our preference target to figure out tonality of the headphone:
View attachment 115766

Due to the dip around 425 Hz, I actually referenced this headphone to the response at 600 Hz (otherwise the whole curve would be above our target). Once there, we see good agreement from 500 Hz to about 3000 Hz which is very good. Sub-bass is nice too unlike many headphones I measure. The hump centered around 150 Hz of course is a glaring fault as are a couple of peaks between 4 and 6 kHz.

Subtracting one curve against the other we get:
View attachment 115767

I liked the impressively low distortion from midrange up:
View attachment 115768

View attachment 115769

After we pull down the hump around 150 Hz, distortion should improve even more there.

Group delay shows some indication of why the response is so clean from 500 Hz and up:

View attachment 115770

Impedance is dead flat and low so look for amplifiers that have good current capability:
View attachment 115771

Sensitivity is very good:
View attachment 115772

My RME ADI-2 DAC could drive the M50X to ear bleeding levels.

Audio Technical ATH-M50X Headphone Listening Tests & EQ
Without equalization the sound was fine. Bass was exaggerated a bit depending on content. Spatial qualities were low with sound on each side of the ear. You could live with it if you didn't have EQ. I have EQ so I went to work on that.

View attachment 115773

Getting rid of the bloat in upper bass let more of the detail in music to be heard. There was too little bass though so I put in the other two boost filters around it. I found the treble a bit annoying so dialed in two small filters for the two peaks we saw in frequency response.

At this point, the sound was quite good. Power handling was superb with me not be able to find the limits of the headphone as noted earlier. You can put an early end to your hearing without the headphone complaining with heavy distortion.

Note: I did not spend too much time fully tuning the filters. I got the results I wanted so I stopped there. Due to large difference between the two cups, more optimization may result in slightly better response.

Conclusions
There is no feeling of fanciness here which goes with the cost of the unit. Performance without equalization benefits from lots of good bass but that can be too much of a good thing. Equalization took the headphone from just "OK" to "yeh, this is sounding really good!"

I am only going to recommend the Audio Technical ATH-M50X with equalization.

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

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I calculated the sinad of this at 1khz taking the db values visually
the sinad is -76db or 0.016% at 94db
This headphone needs good electronics of above than that sinad to give its best.

 

[WickedInsignia]

I briefly auditioned them on my Note 9 native 3.5mm output long ago and I still remember they were awful.

They're not "awful," as much as internet hyperbole would like to think. They're good for price all up (build, comfort, SQ), especially for consumers that simply aren't all that fussed about perfect target compliance.
They're meaningfully compliant to Harman but with some nips and tucks that make for a noticeable V-shape. Compare the M50x EQ'd to Harman via Oratory1990's config and then stock tuning and the difference really isn't that large. There's just slightly more contrast/presence and a midbass hump in the stock tuning. It's a punchy signature (too punchy and contrasted at louder volumes for me) but otherwise perfectly listenable at lower levels.

 

[HissingFree]

I have tried them and I am very impressed by how comfortable they are and how well they fit in my ears, with other headphones like DT770 Pro 32 and K701 it is much more difficult to get a good fit and there are different positions where you can put your ears on, if that makes sense, more backwards, more forwards, etc, with different sound characteristics, with these it's like a perfect fit and position right away. Also I like the build quality a lot, I have only owned these headphones mentioned though.
In terms of sound, I like that the treble is not harsh to my ears unlike DT770, I seem to be very sensitive to 9-10k.

 

[HissingFree]

I love how they sound with Oratory eq preset (check on Reddit), with a few tweaks like increasing bass more in the 50-90Hz and reducing -3db in 9500-9700Hz area to reduce harshness, probably depends on the person, I used a sine sweep and that was the area that bothers me a lot.