welcome to another episode of head to head today we're going to look at the audio technica headphones the m40xs and the m30xs all right so let's crack these babies out and take a look all right so now that we've got these out of the box let's take a look at what comes with them each individually so we've got the 30x and this is a cable design so this cable is built into it um it's non-removable unlike the 40s that's my first thing i want to point out is that that's kind of a bummer if you
have a cable issue over time headphones do wear out and cable is often the first thing to go at the connector or up here in the ear i find those wear out the fastest so one of the greatest things i think they did was integrating that removable um cable in their line because it's very convenient i use the 50s almost daily that's one of my favorite features is being able to go different lengths they include the long cable and the coiled cable they don't include the short cable which i actually use the most with my
50s 50 x's and um it'd be nice if those were included the 30 x's fold up that was kind of a big letdown in my opinion as far as getting the lower models i always just would push anybody who was asking or if i needed another set somewhere i would always push for at least uh the 50s because they would fold up i don't don't think the 30s ever folded up maybe they did i don't know if you remember evan so the m40s are really kind of hanging right there with the m50s as far as
build and um design uh audio quality we're gonna check it out in a bit but i think at 120 versus 100 around 180 for the m50s x's it's quite a jump in price for visually i'm not seeing a huge difference and i think what it's going to come down to is that driver that's inside of that headphone so i'm listening on spotify with high quality on and i'm using a focusrite scarlett solo um it's good to listen through a better headphone amp the scarlet's got a much better headphone amp than any you know standard 3.5
millimeter jack on the side of your laptop or your mac or your pc or whatever else um focusrite's our go-to uh interface for getting in or out of computers so um i'm going to start with the 30s and work my way up all the way up to the 50s i'm using the 50s as kind of my anchor point for quality because i use them every day so i'm going to really see what the difference is with all these headphones with closed back headphones one consideration is how much isolation you get from the headphones sealing over
your head so my hat is kind of tucked up just for this test to hear exactly what they sound like um i have a smaller head so i'm almost always scrunched all the way down on the headphones but they're very comfortable these are i would say the lightest out of all of them just from what i've seen but they're really comfortable i wear the 50s all day all the time so i'm pretty used to a set of headphones on my head and these would be i'd be very satisfied with these on my head as well
they're very comfortable so let's get listening it's important to have a good playlist that you know well that you've heard in many places i have one it's just called reference tracks it's 44 songs that i've had on here since 2015 that i've listened on almost everything as a test so let's take a listen [Music] overall first listen first impression really really great i think they're stepping up the game on their lower end as far as audio quality goes and the build is great too and that's always a consideration but low end frequency response not as
good as the 50s i think that's just given it's a different driver um mid-range detail not probably as accurate as you know your higher ends um headphones but nothing was missing for me i could sit and listen with these and be super satisfied and more importantly being here hearing it for what it really is and that's what i think these headphones are all about is getting a un altered you know non-hyped up version of what you're listening to um these are targeted for people editing video people producing music and what you want there is the
most clean and accurate and non-influential version of what you're doing or working on and i think these offer that at a at a really great price for what it is so i'm gonna work my way up so this was the 30s kind of our lowest model we're looking at today and i'm gonna be shocked if i can see a big difference up the line all right so now i'm going to move on to the m40x is and my favorite part plugging in is a cable so this cable you kind of push it in home it
in its keyways and twist to lock that's super great all right so now i've got my 40xs plugged in um i'm gonna put them on make sure i get a good seal again and then obviously make sure the left's on the left but the cables always on the left for the audio technicas it's a quick way to know just kind of kind of know that at this point i don't even think about it just know that the cable's going to be on the left side um i'm not sure what it is if it's just my
hat or something but right away i don't feel as much seal on these ones as i did the 30s it's odd but it almost feels like they're just smaller kind of ear covers and width but uh yeah let's take a listen let me just all right let's take a listen to the m40xs now [Music] so i would say that's overwhelmingly the same aside from maybe me liking the 30s a little bit more i don't know what it is i feel like it's just the way they sat on my head or the seal like i said
but not bad still don't get me wrong i think it's very even and very accurate um i didn't see any boost as far as low end response um but very even very clear and very much audio technica in the accuracy of them and i'm i'm just i'm here to say that i don't think they're that different as far as sound quality goes at least from what i can tell i'm only listening to three songs quickly here and maybe there's something i could discover later but i would say as far as making a decision on which
one audio quality wise there's no make or break there between them so i've been listening to the 30s and the 40s here and i just want to go back to my old trustees daily drivers 50 x's just to have a reference to what i've been listening to super nice here i can just take this cable swap it right into mine so let me take a quick listen there's a much bigger difference between the 40s and the 50s than there is between the 30s and the 40s as far as audio quality jump goes these are way
better in the moment we've all been waiting for this episode's edition of heads to heads blind test we have some beautiful candidates today that are going to sit in this chair and tell you which set they think sounds better but here's the catch they're not going to know which one's on their head because their eyes are going to be shielded by a blindfold [Music] up first the illustrious and illusionist michael chopra i don't know what either of those words mean i hope they're good the song i chose was johann sebastian brock's brandenburg concerto number three
movement one in g major um and the reason i chose this was because there's a lot of instrumentation in that and i wanted to kind of see the richness of tone and how well each instrument shines through each pair of headphones so off the bat number one in my opinion very rich tone uh really showcased uh the music the best i think in my opinion so number one is my winner because of riches first of all richness of tone um i could hear each instrument clearly and also it just had a very full resonant sound
and there was a lot of there wasn't i mean the depth wasn't um too much but it was it was good enough to where uh i wanted it to be number two the headphones number two they sounded kind of flat in my opinion um it just wasn't as rich as number one i could one pluses that i could hear and discern every instrument clearly but to a lesser degree than number three the problem with number three is that it wasn't exactly flat per se but there just wasn't a lot of depth to the sound um
in terms of it you know resonating and having richness um so my cl my uh the winner for me is number one and now our next contestant evelyn the brave it's between the first and the third i think that i think the third was a little better it just the second one felt less i don't know how to describe it other than saying like it felt less like colorful through the music it was very like like a dimmer it felt like it was dimmer not exactly in like sound but just in like it was very
like flat compared to the other two i thought that the first one was pretty good but i think the third one won because it was very had like a lot of life that i think i don't even know the difference between the first and the third that i can remember so the only thing that really stood out to me the most was just how different the second one was from the first and the third the first and the third felt very very very similar um but i didn't like the second so there is the blindfold
test results um i think i have a few things that i think about their results and let me tell you them so michael was a fan of number one i think some of this has to do with his selection of music but the tropernator really liked uh number one being the 40xs and that's you know that's his opinion so it was pretty obvious that both of them knew which ones were the budget option the 30 x's were described by both of them as flat and i think michael said that it missed some uh some color
i think is the word he used or maybe that was evelyn's word but i think what they're getting at there is that um it just wasn't as clear you know when i say flat i'm generally talking about the low end not fighting the mids or the high end not fighting the mids or you know that kind of thing it's a flat frequency response that's what we think of when we say flat but i think what they were getting at with flat is that it just wasn't clear it wasn't popping it wasn't um as i think
accurate as they could have been but overall in my opinion all of these headphones are flat as in a flat frequency response i think some would maybe argue that the 50s are hyped in the low end but that's what i prefer so it actually always seems better to me i like a little more beef on that stick you know what i mean i think the biggest thing to take away from this with any set of headphones is getting to know them it's very important with any sort of listening experience that you have if you're trying
to listen critically if you can only afford the 30 x's don't fret they're really great headphones and if you just spend some time with them and listen to a variety of sources and a variety of styles you can start to understand what they sound like and i think i always think the 50s sound so great because it's all i ever wear and i just know them so well i know their quirks i know the ins and outs of them so i think that's the important takeaway here is that all of these headphones are great and
the cost is representative of a jump in quality both standpoint of build quality and sound quality and a blindfold test has proven today that the results are somewhat accurate the test was accurate that's the results no the results are that they matched up you know what i meant so when you get right down to it with sound quality the 30s and the 40s in my opinion aren't that different our blindfolded test shows otherwise they unanimously agreed that the 30s sounded flat and the 40s sounded great so that's you know a consideration but for me what
puts it over the top is the build quality with that removable cable i think that is worth way more than the price jump you're gonna save money in the long run getting the 40 x's because i believe that cable is the first thing to go and if you break a cable on the cheaper model you're just gonna have to buy them again whereas with the 40s you can keep them get a new cable which is going to be not inexpensive and make them last longer which is you know really the point i found with most
of these headphones you can outwear the ear covers multiple times over before you need a new set of headphones as long as you take care of them put them in the bag and give them the love they deserve well thanks for watching everybody this has been hunter from black valve media and i hope you learned something today about these headphones if not at least solid features that you maybe didn't know they had and uh uh hit that like button if you liked it so much hit that dislike button wink wink and comment if you have
any questions about any of these headphones we're happy to answer them and give you any more insights on them thanks for watching [Music] you
