V-Moda M200 Headphone Review

[amirm]

This is a review, listening tests and detailed measurements of the wired V-MODA M-200 closed back headphone. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $300.

It it just me or does this thing look homely? It is a small headphone as well so fit is not the most comfortable. It is light though.

The company uses lofty words to describe the M-200: "a reference over-ear studio headphone for precision listening, mixing and mastering." Let's see if it delivers on that.

V-MODA M200 Measurements
While I could get excellent matching between the channels at my reference 425 Hz, I could not even get close in bass. Searching online I see another review complaining about poor matching there so this is a defect that is built-in. So let's go with that and see the full frequency response:

What mix of good and bad news. Nice compliance in mid-range but terrible above and below. Other reviewers match the rest of the spectrum and complain about "forward mid-range." I say it has midrange but little bass and high frequency energy. As such you absolutely need equalization:

Parametric EQ will be hard to do by eye but I did take a shot at it as you will see in listening test results. There is some good news in very low distortion when it comes to response above bass:

Group delay is good which is likely due to small cup and parallel drivers:

Impedance is flat and low:

When combined with high sensitivity, you should be able to drive the M200 with just about any source:

It is the second most sensitive headphone I have ever tested!

V-MODA M200 Listening Tests and Equalization
The response as predicted was comprised entirely of mid-range which while clean, was not remotely satisfying. So I started to work on it with EQ and this is where I finished:

All corrections were "gross" levels and conservative. Still, they made a huge difference in pulling the headphone out of the gutter. Fidelity was now good but you could not crank up the volume much, forcing me to move the bass correction forward (as seen above). Left down at 20 Hz it caused static at fairly low playback levels. Likely needs a cut off at or below 20 Hz to avoid that.

Conclusions
The M-200 personifies the wild west of headphone frequency response where anything goes and any and all things can be called studio reference. This headphone is not remotely in that class. The response is one of the worst I have heard. Fortunately as with every headphone, you can push the response to be a lot more correct and hence usable.

I can't recommend the V-MODA M200. Company needs to go back to the drawing board and design a proper headphone especially at the asking price.

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

Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

 

[Entropy]

Well.. What else can be expected? Disappointed but not surprised...

 

[JSmith]

Poor effort V-Moda, as there are many other decent options in this price bracket... good to see this exposed by @amirm.

Ok, so who voted great? (disgruntled owner?)


JSmith

 

[pavuol]

"Featuring 50mm drivers with neodymium magnets, CCAW voice coils and fine-tuning by Roland engineers, the M-200 faithfully reproduces frequencies up to 40kHz to create a sound so detailed and accurate that it’s Hi-Res Audio certified by the Japan Audio Society (JAS)."

Dear headphone manufacturers/designers, please deliver perfect 10kHz out-of-box Harman curve for reasonable price, many customers will be so happy then to not care what you did with the rest three quarters of the spectrum

Anyway great to see another brand for ASR reviews lineup and many thanks to CEO for years of hard work (chief eq officer)

 

[PeteL]

My view on V moda. They entered the market at the right time, with good marketing. Like 10 years or so ago there was maybe a bit more of a lifestyle vibe to them. It was just a cool thing for teens and young adults to walk around with bigger more visually loud cans. And a certain price tag to show off a bit. Dre’s Beats where everywhere but they where so damn boomy that V moda found somehow some love for the non basshead.You could drive them from anything. Senn’s and AKG still didn’t have this youth vibe, there was some seriousness to them and Sony was kind of representing the past gen with Walkmans and such, fundamentally not cool. Bose was somehow very adult, rich people stuff, overly techy. V moda where ok sounding but nobody really cared or knew about Harman’s back then. M50s where for the one that had an interest in fidelity somehow. Now that‘s an exemple of what lifestyle is about, they didn’t adapt, evolved and are completely irrelevant nowadays ans definitely slowly but surely heading to disappearance. But they definetly had their time where money was flowing.

 

[DanielT]

Thank you Amir for your review.

I'm a bit curious, how will the combination of Impedance is flat and low.....When combined with high sensitivity, you should be able to drive the M200 with just about any source be combined with that you EQ up by 10 dB. I mean 10 dB is a lot and should require a lot of amp power, right?

I'm not exactly a headphone guy, so I don't really know anything about combination EQ, headphones and associated headphone amplifier, but I'm still curious.

 

[solderdude]

That's a big departure from the M100 and the crossfade II-wireless. The M100 was muddy and dark sounding, the crossfade II was decent sounding.

This is more of a 'technical look/fashion' brand than a serious headphone manufacturer in the sense of 'hifi'.

 

[Maiky76]

This is a review, listening tests and detailed measurements of the wired V-MODA M-200 closed back headphone. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $300.
View attachment 261447
It it just me or does this thing look homely? It is a small headphone as well so fit is not the most comfortable. It is light though.

The company uses lofty words to describe the M-200: "a reference over-ear studio headphone for precision listening, mixing and mastering." Let's see if it delivers on that.

V-MODA M200 Measurements
While I could get excellent matching between the channels at my reference 425 Hz, I could not even get close in bass. Searching online I see another review complaining about poor matching there so this is a defect that is built-in. So let's go with that and see the full frequency response:
View attachment 261448

What mix of good and bad news. Nice compliance in mid-range but terrible above and below. Other reviewers match the rest of the spectrum and complain about "forward mid-range." I say it has midrange but little bass and high frequency energy. As such you absolutely need equalization:
View attachment 261449

Parametric EQ will be hard to do by eye but I did take a shot at it as you will see in listening test results. There is some good news in very low distortion when it comes to response above bass:
View attachment 261450
View attachment 261451

Group delay is good which is likely due to small cup and parallel drivers:
View attachment 261452

Impedance is flat and low:

View attachment 261453

When combined with high sensitivity, you should be able to drive the M200 with just about any source:
View attachment 261455

It is the second most sensitive headphone I have ever tested!

V-MODA M200 Listening Tests and Equalization
The response as predicted was comprised entirely of mid-range which while clean, was not remotely satisfying. So I started to work on it with EQ and this is where I finished:

View attachment 261456

All corrections were "gross" levels and conservative. Still, they made a huge difference in pulling the headphone out of the gutter. Fidelity was now good but you could not crank up the volume much, forcing me to move the bass correction forward (as seen above). Left down at 20 Hz it caused static at fairly low playback levels. Likely needs a cut off at or below 20 Hz to avoid that.

Conclusions
The M-200 personifies the wild west of headphone frequency response where anything goes and any and all things can be called studio reference. This headphone is not remotely in that class. The response is one of the worst I have heard. Fortunately as with every headphone, you can push the response to be a lot more correct and hence usable.

I can't recommend the V-MODA M200. Company needs to go back to the drawing board and design a proper headphone especially at the asking price.

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

Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Here are some thoughts about the EQ.


Notes about the EQ design:

• The average L/R is used to calculate the score.
• The resolution is 12 points per octave interpolated from the raw data (provided by @amirm)
• A Genetic Algorithm is used to optimize the EQ.
• The EQ Score is designed to MAXIMIZE the Score WHILE fitting the Harman target curve (and other constrains) with a fixed complexity.
  This will avoid weird results if one only optimizes for the Score.
  It will probably flatten the Error regression doing so, the tonal balance should be therefore more neutral.
• The EQs are starting point and may require tuning (certainly at LF and maybe at HF).
• The range around and above 10kHz is usually not EQed unless smooth enough to do so.
• I am using PEQ (PK) as from my experience the definition is more consistent across different DSP/platform implementations than shelves.
• With some HP/amp combo, the boosts and preamp gain (loss of Dynamic range) need to be carefully considered to avoid issues with, amongst other things, too low a Max SPL or damaging your device. You have beed warned.
• Not all units of the same product are made equal. The EQ is based on the measurements of a single unit. YMMV with regards to the very unit you are trying this EQ on.
• I sometimes use variations of the Harman curve for some reasons. See rational here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...pro-review-headphone.28244/page-5#post-989169
• https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...pro-review-headphone.28244/page-6#post-992119
• NOTE: the score then calculated is not comparable to the scores derived from the default Harman target curve if not otherwise noted.

Good L/R match, LF measurements?
I have generated one EQ, the APO config file is attached.

Score no EQ: 38.6
Score Amirm: 74.3
Score with EQ: 96.3

V-Moda M200  APO Score Full EQ Flat@HF 96000Hz
February012023-144004

Preamp: -12 dB

Filter 1: ON PK Fc 28.85 Hz Gain 5.86 dB Q 0.41
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 84.85 Hz Gain 5.10 dB Q 1.45
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 126.08 Hz Gain -2.54 dB Q 2.10
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 1084.78 Hz Gain -1.29 dB Q 2.88
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 4176.77 Hz Gain 12.27 dB Q 0.93
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 5147.44 Hz Gain -9.10 dB Q 5.83
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 6659.34 Hz Gain 6.41 dB Q 2.41

 

[IAtaman]

Frequency response looks not too different from that of LCD-X 2021, and distortion figures are not too far either so how come LCD-X transforms into great headphone with EQ and M200 does not?

 

[Metronomy]

I bought it, after 10 minutes returned. Something you can't hear.

 

[uwotm8]

Looks ugly, cheap and uneven, both FR and visual appearance. I'd prefer $15 Sennheiser HD 206 to it.

 

[Robbo99999]

One of the worst headphones we've measured I believe! It's the crazy frequency response that kills it, very difficult to EQ properly, actually probably impossible to arrive at a good EQ result with this headphone. Deserves a panning in the vote, which it's getting. Fair enough!

 

[Bam!]

Why waste valuable time on V-Moda? Why not dedicate it to Etymotic ER4SR (once Amir liked it very much, is that still so?), DT 1990, Edition XS, Bose 45 (35 /45 = 600/650? )Moondrop S8...

 

[solderdude]

Why waste valuable time on V-Moda? Why not dedicate it to Etymotic ER4SR (once Amir liked it very much, is that still so?), DT 1990, Edition XS, Bose 45 (35 /45 = 600/650? )Moondrop S8...

Because it has to be measured to see if it is a worthwhile headphone.
Also, unless headphones are sent in to be measured they won't be.

 

[Talisman]

As ugly as the 15 euro headphones found in low-end Chinese electronics bazaars, frequency response consistent with the look.
price like Hifiman Sundara.....

 

[Bam!]

Because it has to be measured to see if it is a wrothwhile headphone.
Also, unless headphones are sent in to be measured they won't be.

Good point. AFAIK Amir owns/ed the Ety 4, and the Bose 45 and Moondrop S8 were sent to him. DT/XS I don't know.

 

[IAtaman]

One of the worst headphones we've measured I believe! It's the crazy frequency response that kills it, very difficult to EQ properly, actually probably impossible to arrive at a good EQ result with this headphone. Deserves a panning in the vote, which it's getting. Fair enough!

What makes it one of the worst measured headpones? Because to me FR graph does not look very different to that of LCD-X 2021 for example, other than obviously disastrorus LR mismatch. If anything, it has much lower distortion than many other headphones so looking at the FR I'd think it should be salvagable but sounds like it is not. Why is that?

View attachment 261480 View attachment 261482

 

[Koeitje]

My view on V moda. They entered the market at the right time, with good marketing. Like 10 years or so ago there was maybe a bit more of a lifestyle vibe to them. It was just a cool thing for teens and young adults to walk around with bigger more visually loud cans. And a certain price tag to show off a bit. Dre’s Beats where everywhere but they where so damn boomy that V moda found somehow some love for the non basshead.You could drive them from anything. Senn’s and AKG still didn’t have this youth vibe, there was some seriousness to them and Sony was kind of representing the past gen with Walkmans and such, fundamentally not cool. Bose was somehow very adult, rich people stuff, overly techy. V moda where ok sounding but nobody really cared or knew about Harman’s back then. M50s where for the one that had an interest in fidelity somehow. Now that‘s an exemple of what lifestyle is about, they didn’t adapt, evolved and are completely irrelevant nowadays ans definitely slowly but surely heading to disappearance. But they definetly had their time where money was flowing.

In terms of wireless headphones that I see it's mostly JBL (cheap), Sony (mix of cheap and the wh1000xm) and Bose. I spot a rare Apple headphone sometimes, but the three brands I mentioned earlier probably have 80% of the wireless headphone market.

 

[bunkbail]

One of the earlier sets of headphones I own before I got into the hobby, they are truly horrible to listen to nowadays (back then they sounded agreable to my ears). EQ'd ZX110s run around these cans any day of the week.

 

[Badunn]

I would have thought, with the relatively limited variables to fathom out (ie no room correction needed - just peoples lug and head size) we should be getting close to solving the headphone conundrum, just as the DAC [godbless SMSL et al] problem has been solved.

Just look at the bling keeping the headphone together - it seems it's still about the visual rather the aural. It's a no from me.

Great reviewing as always.