Last month I posted a headphone survey that asked the question, “which headphones do you prefer?” The survey only provided a few options, but left space for write-in answers, knowing well that audio pros wouldn’t need prompting to go into detail about their choice. The goal was to get a simple answer.
As you know though, the answer is hardly simple. If you work in audio you probably have a favorite pair, a go-to set that handles 80-90% of your needs. But what about the rest of the time? What should you be using to cover those jobs?
To try answering that question, the survey went out to forums, groups, and subreddits, aiming for diversity. Looking for the bigger trends across multiple disciplines. What’s popular for specific tasks, and which are the most versatile? With 430 responses so far, it’s been very interesting.
Headphones are hard to review, being such a personal choice. How they sound, on your head, with your ears, it’s hard to show much in a video that’s worth watching. Instead of another YouTube headphone shootout, with questionable scientific merit, we’re starting with your survey responses as a baseline.
We’ll be going through the list, using them professionally and giving an honest opinion of how they work and where they might fit in your toolbox.
In this video, we’re looking at the top pick from the survey, my personal favorite and current go-to pair, the Audio Technica ATH-m50x.
