AudioTechnica ATH-M60x Studio Headphone Review

The ATH-M60x is around 5 dB more sensitive than other M-series headphones from Audio-Technica. The 38 Ohm load impedance of the headphone also suggests that the M60x is designed to be run from portable devices, which usually don’t excel in dealing with high impedance loads. One should take care to not power the ATH-M60x from high output impedance headphone jack as that would alter the tonal response; anything under 5 Ohms should be fine.

Audio-Technica must be commended here as the ATH-M60x shows a palpable increase in build quality over the M50x and its direct competitor, the Sennheiser HD25-II. The metal parts make it feel higher class, however, it remains to be seen how they would hold up against the wear and tear of fieldwork. The HD25-II, while made from plastic is famous for being nigh indestructible, as the plastic doesn’t mind bending without any lasting damage. As is customary with headphones of this price range, the ATH-M60x comes with a replaceable cable that seems to share the design of the headphone side jack with the rest of the M-series lineup.

Lose the dips and the ATH-M60x would’ve blown away the competition. Again – for everyday listening these dips at 700 Hz and circa 3 kHz wouldn’t deter anyone from enjoying the tunes, however, they present a blind spot for the engineer. The mid dip will make vocals and strings sound strange, once compared to an uncolored reference. Distortion effects on synth lines and guitars will have much of their crunch robbed away by the upper mid dip. The highs do appear peaky on the graph, but it is certainly not worse than what one gets from other pro-oriented headphones.

Unlike the ATH-M50x, this headphone has no channel imbalance to speak of. The slight discrepancy in the mids won’t be audible to anyone and the upper octave imbalance shouldn’t shift the position of overtones enough to lead any engineer astray.

The Audio-Technica ATH-M60x feels great on the ears. Unlike all of the other M-series cans, it uses a supra-aural or on-ear design to make the earcups smaller. The earpads are made from protein leather, which makes them less susceptible to cause sweating. On top of that this type of artificial leather certainly feels nicer than what’s found on the M50x. If one has tried the HD25-II with its pleather padding, the M60x will feel more luxurious, but won’t isolate as well. This makes these headphones less suitable for drummers and DJs who need SPL shielding, however, for location sound the isolation should be more than fine.

For 200$ these are a decent deal and compared to the HD25-II, the ATH-M60x trades isolation for comfort. Neither have an accurate tonal balance, yet the M60x seems to be class-leading in terms of harmonic distortion.