The venerable Audio Technica ATH M-50

[97tbird]

Got them for $104 with coiled cable. (amazon)
This will be a present for my nephew, but I am helping to break them in before I actually give them to him

hehe.

Always heard good things about them, and I like them a lot - Very balanced, good vocals despite slight mid-scoop, and clean and clear sound with very well controlled bass, and natural. Sounds more like some $300 headphones I have listened to in the past.

Solid build quality overall for the price, and very comfy (I have a slightly smaller head I must add, than most people)

Haven't tried them with the Music Hall amp and CDs yet - THAT should be the real test.
(for now, just ipod and laptop with low bit rate - Gah! - mp3 - even those sound very good, and one can actually hear the limitations of bad stuff revealed)..

Blows away my (a lot cheaper) 11 yr old closed Yamahas and my portable AT H-35M Audio Technicas (very fun portable cans) as far as pureness of sound, but that is a rather unfair comparison.

I am thinking of some Beyerdynamic DT-770 Pro 80 ohm OR perhaps some old Austrian made stock of AKG K240 55 ohm for myself someday if I replace the Yamahas...(wish Beyer made cans with detachable cables like AKG does a lot)

 

[Quattro Pete]

I love my ATH-M50 headphones. Sadly, it seems I rarely ever use them.

 

[97tbird]

I had a feeling you posted about them before...
I'd buy them for $50

j/k - I have developed an itch for some German cans lately.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: 97tbird
I have developed an itch for some German cans lately.

HA! I just bought some wireless Sennheisers for my grandma so that she can watch TV without disturbing others as her hearing isn't that great anymore. Sound quality isn't the best, but they'll serve their purpose.

 

[97tbird]

Yeah- there are good senns and very bad senns these days..

-but overall company has stepped away from the serious offerings (except their very top end models) and have started catering to teen-style a lot more these days, and from what I read QC has gone down a lot.
Most of their current offerings seem very distant from the Senns I listened to in Germany in mid-late 90's.

It's like E46 and F30...

AKG has also largely shifted production to PRC - their current images of some models are photo-shopped to erase that famous 'made in Austria' lettering (officially admitted by AKG rep on a HP forum). But one can still find used old stock that was Austrian made.

 

[Quest]

Good stuff!

Enjoy!

Q.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

I got a new pair of Samson sr850 to add to my vintage akg240/600ohm and mdrv6 stable.

Absolute best value in phones out there.

 

[apwillard1986]

Glad to see this. I just ordered a set this morning as a Christmas gift for dad.

 

[kkreit01]

Nice review. So now you're giving your nephew a used set of headphones for Christmas?

 

[97tbird]

LOL - no he's pretty well into audio stuff and he knows the importance of break-in, but told me he has no patience for it. I told him I would do it for him, and he said no prob. AND due to a past experience he wanted me to make sure that they work right out of the box. (someone had once given him a set of HPs for a b'day that were DOA)

He lives overseas and i will see him next yr in March
He doesn't have access to this model AT phones where he lives, and he wanted to give me money to buy it, but I told him it's on me since he did so well in school exams

 

[kkreit01]

^ Cool. I was just teasing. That's a nice gift. It would be a bummer to have a DOA set.

One year we got our girls a fancy wooden dollhouse for Christmas. Of course it was missing a key part, so we couldn't assemble in until after New Years.

 

[97tbird]

i know you were teasing, kkreit.

That must have sucked for the girls, not having the doll house ready when they needed it.
Bad thing is: now that i have been listening to these HPs, I have gotten the itch to upgrade my own headphones

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: 97tbird
Haven't tried them with the Music Hall amp and CDs yet - THAT should be the real test.
(for now, just ipod and laptop with low bit rate - Gah! - mp3 - even those sound very good, and one can actually hear the limitations of bad stuff revealed)..

Have you tried them with a high quality source material yet? It's rather painful listening to low bit rate material with these since they're so revealing, as you noted. But AAC tracks even as low as 130-150 kbps sound pretty good already, at least to me.

 

[97tbird]

yeah I wonder if there's a way to convert all MPGE tracks I have on itunes to AAC...AAC will be bigger in file size, right? so...i wonder if my iphone will fill up when I sync it the next time...

I have yet to try them with the Music Hall amp/NAD CD changer w ext DAC.
plan to do tonight, and will update.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: 97tbird
yeah I wonder if there's a way to convert all MPGE tracks I have on itunes to AAC...

If the source MPEG files are of low quality to begin with, converting them to another format will not help. In fact, it will make it even worse.

Quote:

AAC will be bigger in file size, right?

Depends on which bit rate you use. You can have a 48 kbps AAC which will be very small, or you can have a 320 kbps AAC, which will be pretty big. For portable use (my phone) I typically convert everything down to 150-ish kbps AAC.

 

[97tbird]

I might need to transfer all my CDs again onto itunes

When I first did that years ago, I wasn't very educated about the whole process and wasn't very picky - I must have selected some low bit rate...they're mostly 128 or 240-ish...

 

[Quattro Pete]

Are they 128 kbps MP3 or AAC? AAC at that bit rate actually sounds decent (to me) if you used the built-in Apple codec.

 

[97tbird]

MP3

 

[Quattro Pete]

I see. Yeah, you might consider re-ripping then. Back when I started ripping my CDs, I used MP3 VBR2, which gives a variable bit rate of around 192 kbps, and that's quite OK actually. It'll spike up to 320 kbps during busy/complex passages. I was trying to make my entire CD library fit on my laptop, so space was somewhat of an issue back then.

 

[97tbird]

So I didn;t know one get ATH M-50 with a detachable cable from here, they're authorized AT dealers, too>
(click on DETAILS tab on the page):
- I have asked them if they can do this to other HPs they said they can only give me an estimate when they can actually look at the HPs I have in mind - Beyer DT770 - some people have done in on head fi)...

Anyway here's the link to modded ATH M50s: (price not bad at all)
http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/ATH-M50mkII

video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysXmjyeD8eY