Audio-Technica ATH-M40X Professional Studio Monitor Over-Ear Headphones (Black)

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! :-)

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.SCORESSound: 8/10Comfort: 6.5/10, 9.6/10 with the pads replacedSound stage: 6/10Imaging: 5.5/10Separation: 7.5/10Sound isolation, passive: 7.5/10, 8/10 with the pads replaced.