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« Quality at an affordable price, with some compromises. »
Published on 06/29/11 at 20:20The Audio-Technica ATH-M20's are unbelievable. I say that not because they themselves are incredible headphones; in fact, I find them unbearably (for me) flawed.
When I went to my friend's to try them on for the very first time, one quality absolutely dominated my attention: They were tight. Very tight. Unbearably tight for my purposes. Granted, this accomplishes a couple of things. They help prevent a lot of sound leakage, and they stop them from falling off. These are two nice qualities that I would prefer to be accomplished by better design, rather than brute tightness, but for $20, it's a quality that other headphones can't really touch. Unfortunately, the headphones still leak quite a bit, especially when the volume is turned up past a low-medium level.
As I review these, I have to keep in mind to mention the mundane things that I, an owner of higher-end headphones, have begun to take for granted. The first is the coiled cord. This is a hugely wonderful thing, as it makes the cord only about as long as they need to be. The tension in this cord is a little much when using it to listen to an iPod or a lighter device, as it pulls the device along. With heavier studio equipment however, this becomes a non-issue. Of course, most people who would use these pair of headphones all the time likely don't own a bunch of heavy equipment, so it would have been nice to see a looser cord.
The outputting to a 1/8" with a 1/4" adapter is nice, as it facilitates consumers not having to deal with the hassle of an adapter if they choose to use it for more consumer-oriented things like computers and mp3 players.
As for studio use, its tightness is wonderful; if wearing while recording, there's just about no fear of them falling off. I would never use them to mix however. Even if you get over the disadvantages of not having monitors, the Audio-Technica ATH-M20s are not at all suited to it; the higher-tier models will be better all-around for that.
However, since this sits right in a consumer price point, the Audio-Technica ATH-M20s are FANTASTIC value, and if you were doing a lot of this, I would not hesitate to grab a pair of these at all. If you were in a studio, I'd say shell out a bit more for the next tier up, the ATH-M30's. If you had money to spend, the ATH-M50's are unfairly good. But that's a whole different ballpark. The ATH-M20's are a great pair of headphones.
When I went to my friend's to try them on for the very first time, one quality absolutely dominated my attention: They were tight. Very tight. Unbearably tight for my purposes. Granted, this accomplishes a couple of things. They help prevent a lot of sound leakage, and they stop them from falling off. These are two nice qualities that I would prefer to be accomplished by better design, rather than brute tightness, but for $20, it's a quality that other headphones can't really touch. Unfortunately, the headphones still leak quite a bit, especially when the volume is turned up past a low-medium level.
As I review these, I have to keep in mind to mention the mundane things that I, an owner of higher-end headphones, have begun to take for granted. The first is the coiled cord. This is a hugely wonderful thing, as it makes the cord only about as long as they need to be. The tension in this cord is a little much when using it to listen to an iPod or a lighter device, as it pulls the device along. With heavier studio equipment however, this becomes a non-issue. Of course, most people who would use these pair of headphones all the time likely don't own a bunch of heavy equipment, so it would have been nice to see a looser cord.
The outputting to a 1/8" with a 1/4" adapter is nice, as it facilitates consumers not having to deal with the hassle of an adapter if they choose to use it for more consumer-oriented things like computers and mp3 players.
As for studio use, its tightness is wonderful; if wearing while recording, there's just about no fear of them falling off. I would never use them to mix however. Even if you get over the disadvantages of not having monitors, the Audio-Technica ATH-M20s are not at all suited to it; the higher-tier models will be better all-around for that.
However, since this sits right in a consumer price point, the Audio-Technica ATH-M20s are FANTASTIC value, and if you were doing a lot of this, I would not hesitate to grab a pair of these at all. If you were in a studio, I'd say shell out a bit more for the next tier up, the ATH-M30's. If you had money to spend, the ATH-M50's are unfairly good. But that's a whole different ballpark. The ATH-M20's are a great pair of headphones.