ATH-M40x

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Excellent Headphones for Music Production I am very happy with the Audio-Technica ATH-M40x. The sound is clear, balanced, and detailed. Bass is controlled, mids are natural, and highs are crisp without being harsh. It helps me hear every small detail while mixing and mastering. The build quality feels solid, and the headphones are comfortable for long sessions. Noise isolation is also good. If you are serious about music production, recording, mixing, or simply want accurate sound, I highly recommend the ATH-M40x. It offers excellent value for money.

Firstly, I'll thanks Amazon for their quick and hassle free delivery. The package was delivered neatly and with good amount of package protection. Got the package within two days of ordering the product. Kudos Amazon! Starting with the product, the box itself is HUGE. The dimensions make you think again whether you ordered a headphone or a subwoofer in it. But the contents inside are arranged properly and makes you think how much care Audio Technica has taken to deliver the product propely without damaging it during delivery. Inside the box you'll find the headphone itself along with a pair of detachable cables(one 1.2m coiled cable and another 3m long straight cable), a 6.3mm adapter for connecting to various external amplifiers and DACs if required, a nice leather pouch(does the job of carrying the headphones on-the-go) and some paperwork. Both the cables have gold plated jacks along with the 6.3mm adapter. The cables are pretty thick and seems like a military grade construction. No questions in mind about the durability of the cables. They'll surely last for a long long time. Coming to the heaphones themselves, the headphones seem to have pretty good construction too. They are made of plastic but it isn't evident after having the headphones in hand. They surely don't seem cheap and are quite flexible to fit all head sizes. The cushioning of the earpads and the headpad is pretty good too. I've been wearing these headphones for more than 2 hours straight without any fatigue or any excess heat development in the pads. I've read a few complaints from other users about the headphones being tight on their heads but I haven't faced any such problem so far. Now the most important part of the review, the sound quality. I'm not a studio mixer or any audiophile as the term is getting used to for everyone. I've been looking for a portable headphone solution which will give me pure original sound without any coloring of the sound. Biggies like Sennheiser and Sony do tend to color their music to a specific sound tonality. Audio Technica might be a new company for people but it has been producing some of the best headphones you can get, with a good range of in-ear headphones and over-the-ear Studio Monitor headphones. Studio monitors are meant for a specific purpose of producing accurate and neutral sound for studio monitoring. The ATH M40X have been specifically tuned extremely flat and neutral to produce sound as close to source as possible. This means you'll be able to hear every single instrument playing in the sound which maybe you might have never heard before. And these headphones do deliver extremely accurate sound. The soundstage is good enough, the mids, the highs and the lows, all the frequencies are laid down accurately. All the genres of music will sound awesome on these cans right from classical music to heavy metal and jazz music. And for those who might be confused whether these headphones have enough bass or not, these cans produce just the right amount of bass that needs to be produced. You can easily enjoy your EDM tracks too on these headphones and if you still need more bass, you can easily tweak your equaliser settings. But if you are looking for a flabby bass signature which most of the headphones out there are delivering, either change your mind or change your choice. I've seen some people posting that FLAC music is a must. They are not totally wrong. FLAC music tracks will sound the best on these headphones and the experience is worth a shot. However, if your mp3s are at 320kbps, it will still just pass. Mp3s don't sound that bad too unless the recording has been utterly downsampled to a very low frequency bitrate. In all, the headphones sound pretty awesome and will take your music experience to a whole new level. Now this question has been popped quite a lot of times whether M50s are better than the M40s. It's a convention usually that higher the price of a product, the better it performs. But that's not always true. Both the headphones have almost similar construction, almost the same packaging with the M50s having a extra 1.2m staright cable for portability, the impedance, the frequency range, the padding and cushioning, it's all pretty similar. But there's a difference in the way both these headphones sound. The M40s have been tuned extremely flat for accurate monitoring of sound. However, the M50s have a 2 to 3 dB extra low frequency response. What that means is that the M50s have more bass production in their sound, which also makes the sound a bit more bassy and muddy than they should be. I've tried both the M40s and the M50s and the M40s sound better. Both the headphones have been advertised as Studio Monitor headphones, but the M40s do the better job. The M50s don't sound bad at all. They just sound a bit more heavy on bass than they should be and you don't get anything significantly extra and anything better for the extra 3000 rupess you'll end up spending on the M50s.The M40s are a better choice if you want a more natural and accurate sound. You can head up to sonic sense to listen the music reproduction of both the headphones. And finally, the production of the music not only depends on the headphones but also on the source of sound. So if your phone doesn't seem to have a good DAC or if the headphones don't sound loud enough, invest in a good amp or DAC. Mobile phones will drive the headphones just fine for home use and outdoor use but only to a certain limit because of the relatively high impedance of headphones. A portable amp will definitely drive these headphones in a better way and will help to crank up the volume of these headphones. Now if you search for a portable amp or even DACs within a budget, Fiio is one of the only names in the market. I've been using the Fiio A3 as my portable amp and trust me. It's worth the price. So that's it for the review. Hope that it solves all the doubts of anyone who's thinking of investing in a good pair of audiophile grade cans. Go for these headphones guys. It's the best you can get for the budget and is easily worth more than twice it's price. Buy these and enjoy the mesmerising audio experience which you've never experienced before! :-)

When I first bought them, I was having a lots of expectations from these cans as everyone on internet was raving about how good these sound. As soon as I got them, I blasted some music from my redmi note 4 into these.. and they sounded absolute garbage, worse than my 2 yr old hd202ii. I was utterly disappointed. There was no separation, no details and everything sounded like a broke stereo setup and all voices were muffled. So, I thought to plug it into an audio interface, which is Scarlett 2i2. Again it was same shitty sound, treble wasn't there, bass was loose and boomy and mids were not defined. I was like " man! these are the cans everyone was talking about?". Now I was like my 202 is far better than this and this time I'll buy 3-4 units of them as those aren't durable(cable esp.). So, I returned them. After couple of days, I again bought them, as I was having a faith that AT isn't that shitty in audio as I've heard m50x, m20x before and they were great, Maybe the one I got was broke or defective. So, I ordered it again. And guess what happened this time? It was that same shitty headphone again. I plugged them into an iphone se, note 5 pro and what not? so I placed a return request and packed these. There was a song which was in my 3 yr old htc desire 526g+ which I desperately wanted to listen, but can't as my 202 was broken. So I unpacked m40x-es and played it through my htc. HOLY LORD!! all my negative thoughts about these went away when the very first note came in. The music soon surrounded my face and I felt like sitting in a studio listening to near field studio monitors... nothing sounded in middle of my head. What took me by surprise was its tonality, these are a very natural sounding headphones, little narrow buy WAYYYYY better than my 202 in every regards. They fully encompasses my ears... clamping force took some time to loosen up and after that they just disappears on my head. Built quality is okay and can't be expected more at this price bracket. removable cable makes them more durable then you'd expect. You can play with some pad rolling, if you're not okay with comfort. Coming to the sound... They absolutely destroys every headphone in terms of value and neutrality under 12k. Things can't be bettr than these unless you're going high-end. Bass.. coming from 202, which isn't a bassy or warm headphone, bass has a good impact and extension. It isnt bleedy and vocals and guitars in mix can be easily separated. Bass isn't their main focus so can't rave about them. Treble.. 202s were quite trebly and sibilance was there in most songs.. but treble on these is slightly rolled off. But after removing the foam shields, it was pretty good. cymbals and hi-hats have a character.. but extension and decay was okay-ish or good depending upon your taste. Mids.. this was the area where I was sold on these. And Celine Dion's My heart will go on is a base song that I use to check the scaling and tone of hp. This song always made me emotional, but on these I got goosebumps. Ellie goulding's first time, love me like you do.. made me feel like sitting in a professional studio environment. Sam Cooke's A change is gonna come surrounded my head with music. I mostly listen to Indian classical and world fusion which sounded amazing on these, inspite of them being closed cans.(these genres sounds the best on 598 se though). All in all, these are a keeper and I will probably keep them even if I'll own a personal stereo setup. Let me remind you.. if you're going to buy these make sure you use a dedicated dac/amp with these to get the best outta these, I've bought q1 for them and they have improved their character and added a little warmth to them.

TLDR: Amazing headphones. Buy it and I promise you won’t regret it, as long as you like accurate audio and not a basshead. But also spend a little extra and get the Brainwavz earpads. Just don’t forget to transfer the thin grey foam pieces (see the images) into the new earpads from the old stock pads. Final scores at the bottom. Here’s the detailed review, after over 2 years of use: SOUND: If you look at the frequency response curve from rtings, you’ll notice that there’s a very slight emphasis on the low end and the high end, giving it a very slight V curve, which you can definitely hear. But it’s very minor and the headphones are extremely accurate. Some people say more so than the m50x, but looking at the frequency response curve it’s evident that the m50x is more flat and more accurate. However, the m40x is not inaccurate by any means. If anything, they’re more pleasant to listen to and even for critical listening. I haven’t had as much time with the m50x, but I have had a few hours to test them out. But I didn’t mix anything on them, only listened. They seemed very revealing but I will not comment further as I haven’t had enough time with them. Judging solely based on the frequency response curve, I’d choose the m50x for mixing if i had the extra cash, but I’ve been using the m40x for over 2 years now and I can comfortably say that they’re more than capable of being mixed on them. Of course you’d want proper monitor speakers to mix anything but you get what i’m saying, right? The sound stage is narrow, which is to be expected from a closed back. The imaging is okay, though nothing spectacular. BUILD AND COMFORT: The build quality is excellent, though it’s to be noted that the pleather does wear out after a while (took me just over a year) depending on how rough you use and how oily your scalp is. But the good news is that the pleather layer can easily be rubbed off and removed completely, and in my opinion the grey cloth layer looks much better than the black pleather. Nice contrast it creates. The stock earpads aren’t great. Get any pair of brainwavz pads that fit, preferably the sheepskin pads they make. They’re immensely comfortable and durable. In my opinion they also reduce the boomy bass a tad due to the larger size, which makes the m40x even more accurate. However it’s extremely important to not remove the grey thin slices of foam that come with the headphones, placed between the driver and the earpads (check the images I added). You can easily pull it out from the stock pads and insert them into the new pads. It cuts some of the highs and without them the highs become shrill. Overall they’re built to last and I've had no major problems. The pleather does wear out but that’s what pleather does. SCORES Sound: 8/10 Comfort: 6.5/10, 9.6/10 with the pads replaced Sound stage: 6/10 Imaging: 5.5/10 Separation: 7.5/10 Sound isolation, passive: 7.5/10, 8/10 with the pads replaced.

Bought these years ago and still works like charm.. totally worth every penny i spent on it... Hope the make more durable headphones coz the Hinges are not that great and break easily.. while the sound quality is top tear.. no doubt this headphone is one of the best out these for music production and sound engineering... I also use these for gaming and the panning and sound quality is dope..

Flat tuned and I am listening to EXACTLY what the sound engineer wanted me to hear! I have a Onkyo 5.1 at home and a Harman Kardon in my car. But hearing this direcly from my Marantz CD transport is BLISS! Android mobile SGN9 & iPhoneSE (thats right, I didn't junk my phones just because some moron decided to junk the headphone jack!) too are fantastic as I have listened to Gordon Lightfoot, Camilia Cabello & Buddha Bar, AC/DC and this headphone is just wonderful! Wish AT gave a 6m cable too, now I REALLY want to connect this to my Sony TV to hear what I'm missing from the streaming channels! Mobile phone movies thru streaming apps sounded great too for eg. Ad Astra & Greyhound. The coiled cable is in my bedroom for mobile and the straight cable is in my AV room. I only move about with the headphones in its soft sack. Comfortable to see a movie for an hour or two. I use reading glasses when working or watching on mobile. Absolutely no problem for an hour or so. Very good build. PROPRIETARY 3.5mm cable connection to the headset as well as 3.5mm to 6.3mm adapter which is included. Gold plated contacts are nicely done. Overall a great addition to a music & movie aficionado like me. BLOODY ADDICTIVE! Must remember to keep my phone handy in case wife wishes to 'connect' with me!

There are lots of long technical reviews on the net, I am posting a normal/average end customer comments after couple of days of use. The not so good points. 1. These are not comfortable to wear, I have a 12 year old wired Bose [$150 ] and they are just way better off in that department. Long period of wearing it causes my ears [next to the ear] to ache. Probably it will get better with use but the quality and softness of the ear pads are not going to change. Even a Rs. 1000 - 2000 Philips feels much better. 2. Sound as they claim is flat response, what it means to the end user is that if you have good quality source of the music it will sound better. Better than the Bose I have, but the smallest noise/distortion in the input can be felt as harshness which the Bose hides. So if you have all CD quality music then this is actually plus point. 3. Nitpicking here : The wires that come long feels heavy and cannot take these out for a jog. The good parts: 1. Noise isolation and leakage is awesome. You can't mostly hear anything from outside and nothing leaks out. 2. No distortion at full volume, every instrument is crystal clear [provided the input music source is good]. Old Mp3 are strict "no-no" 3. As claimed everywhere sound quality is good but I keep emphasizing on the point of the input source. Not bass heavy but it is there when needed, even EDM/hip hop etc sounds nice. 4. I could hear subtle difference in the same music when played through these as compared to Bose. Bottom line. Will I recommend these, at Rs 6500 yes. What I long for is better/softer ear plugs and more comfortable fit.

To start with, I was looking for a pair of active noise cancelling headphone to cancel airplane engine noise since I can hardly hear the movies. Going through a lot of research and reviews, I found out that ANC headphone are costly and still compromise on audio quality. So I shifted my focus to best headphones and the constant favorites were M50's & M50x. M40x is nearly 3k less but not much different than M50x. So decided to take the plunge and buy these. And a great decision it was! M40X is a very powerful set of cans which really change the way you listen to music. I am no expert, so I can't comment on the highs, lows or mediums. Also don't have a reference to compare as they were my 1st set of high end headphones. But what I can say for sure is that this pair deserves all the accolades. For someone looking for a good pair of headphones with my budget, would definitely recommend these. You do hear a lot of details not available in your common cans. Plus it also gives a pretty decent sound isolation. The external noise is very slightly dampened with no music playing. With any sound on, noise isolation is really good (can hardly hear any external sounds). Even movie voices are very clear. Keeping fingers crossed for the real test in flights to see if this isolates airplane noise with movies on. If it works, would be great, if it doesn't, I will still have a brilliant set of cans which elevate the music experience otherwise. A little surprising is to see people saying that it has less bass response. I felt that it has a pretty good bass. Also they are quite comfortable and do not bother me even with my specs on. I would recommend these over M50s in case budget is a consideration for you. The bang per buck is definitely the highest for M40x.

I love and hate these headphones. I love being able to change cable, 2 cables inside, also lot of cables available to buy, even with microphones. I love and hate this free angle design, sometimes is annoying and sometimes is good to have. Sometimes my skin gets caught when opening. Build quality is great, read that they can break easily but can't say anything after a month use. When using for monitoring, perfect. Bass is flat which means it's not bass heavy. Lets just say if the bass is boomy on these, something is terribly wrong. So the sound is really flat. I mean really "terrible for listening" flat. Middle is really there. They can be really loud because of lower bass. You can hear all the mistakes, even if you never knew there were any. Stereo imaging is awesome, if something is out of balance you know it and you hate it. Highs are flat. You can hear the clarity, but you feel like you need to volume up. But you don't need to. I have had a lot of headphones and this ones are something different. Let's now say something about normal casual listening. Loudness is good on iPhone 6. On iPad mini 2 is great. MacBook Pro - excellent, even too much power to handle if used with Boom 2. Lack of bass and lower ohms mean they can be used as standard headphones but I suggest buying shorter cable with thinner 3.5 jack. I have Spigen case on my iPad and jack can barely connect. If you try to be smart and really boost the bass, you can slightly hear the difference between two ear cups in lows. Probably because of socket which is using some space in one earcup which is free in another. Probably that's why they're cheaper and less bass boomy than M50x. So don't think you can outsmart them, pay more money for m50x if you need more bass. Also, comfortable as presented. I don't sense them on my head, light and enjoyable. Would not use them only for DJing. Would rather buy Technics RPDJ1210 again. They block a lot of noise from outside, that is true, but they are not as good as Technics. Can be used for DJing, true, but there are better choices. Also, even if they're on your head, people around you can hear what you're listening. If you're sharing room with someone, they will hear the music. So overall, great headphones for under 100. Great flat sound for monitoring. If you like bass go for m50x. If you need flat monitor headphones buy these. ============================== So after more than a year a review still stays. Sound is amazing. Build quality amazing. Comfort is not the best one though, however that's always problem with closed headphone, read the below for more information. Just to add I have tested M40x and M50x one by one on the same source and I can tell you M50x sounds different with more bass and treble. They ARE NOT that much better. If you are more into casual listening, M50x would be better choice. However, true flat sound is coming through M40x, not M50x's. I can easily confirm that. I can change my headphones to M50x's as that is "Better" model but I will not do that as M40x have more balanced sound. M50x is more as HiFi choice by far as per comparison. So only issue I can add after more than a year of using them is that they are NOT comfortable, not at all. First I thought they are good however I have tested other brands in a while and there is a huge difference. They are really tight (had same issue with DJ headphones however that is good, not bad) and you just cannot used to have them on your head after some time, it's just frustrating to have them for a longer period. However sound is something you will absolutely love or hate. If the score is between 1 and 100 I will give them 94 without any issues. After them K240 MK2 Studio headphones sounds dull and with something missing. However K240's are 10 times more comfortable to have on head. ======================= Update 03.01.2019 With sad news after more than 2 years I can say I no longer have these M40x. I just don't need them anymore. It's like an old car which you don't need once you both latest BMW. I have moved to M50x and I can say that although there is a lot of hatred going to them, M50x is still an upgrade from M40x. M50x has more treble and more bass, some people say that is unnatural however it is just different and actual improvement. Driver moved from 40mm to 45mm hence the difference. I can say that after a while I haven't even realised that big change as the change isn't that big. So if you will not miss bass or high treble then spending less for M40x is better choice as I noted before. Only thing left is that M50x does feel more expensive than M40x. You get extra short cable (which you don't get with M40x) so if you count that cable being £20 then difference falls in really narrow field. ONLY thing I can say now that much MUCH better choice which I can say replaced my M40x sound is SHURE SRH840. This headphones are amazing, sturdy design, Excellent balanced sound and flat response. I use them for monitoring. Not as portable as M40x due to different build but damn, these SHURE's are something. I should do some webpage review as now I have Magni 3 for a proper review and have tested DT770, DT880, K701, K240 mk2, SRH840, M40x, M50x. I still stick with K701 with bass mod as best causal home listening headphones however others still have significant use in other cases like monitoring/producing/mastering. Also, I will touch one thing which this headphones are like selling which is FLAT SOUND. You will NEVER get Flat sound in headphones. NEVER. There is either Middle spectre based Headphones which these are, or V shaped Bass/treble headphones. Reducing Bass does improve flatness of sound however also removes sound picture and extensive response. If you truly want FLAT sound go to Monitors with sound isolated room. I can for sure say that there is much much more image and sound with DT880/DT770 than from M40x, hell even from M50x. On 250ohm version these show something that you will not hear even with super extra expensive monitors. That is the reason I will not part ways with them as for critical listening they are as brilliant as it gets. However listening youtube videos on them is so bad experience that I don't wish anyone to experience. Run away from them if you do wish to do that. Or buy Sony.

Very useful for mixing and monitoring as it's frequency response is very flat. Not that type of fancy or fun headphones. These are headphones for surgical mixing tasks. Highly recommend.

I use this with a Yamaha Clavinova. The sound is just amazing. This is really the kind of use it is made for. The sound is so clear and balanced, you can hear the timbre of each note and all the nuances of varied touch on the keyboard. On a side note, tried it with music on my phone, and it does not do so well with this kind of use. Buy it if you're looking for something for your digital instrument - it really is excellent for that.

Fone chegou 1 semana antes. Com certeza vale a pena, utilizando no celular a qualidade de áudio é ótima. Mas quando eu utilizo no meu micro system da Aiwa com a conexão P10, que espetáculo de som! Podem comprar sem medo, ótimo acabamento, confortável e resistente. E uma dica...procurem limpar a parte das almofadas com lenço umedecido caso queira prolongar o material macio. Recomendo!!

Good for mixing and video work. Real sound.