Audio-Technica ATH-M20 Headphone Reviews

These cans are my main monitoring headphones for my recording on my laptop. The first thing that I noticed immediately was how comfortable it is, with thick paddings on the headband and soft pads that create a reasonable seal without feeling like a clamp. Coming from IEMs this is definitely a whole lot better, same can be said for the soundstaging, though in headphone terms they are only average, a decent open dynamic headphone will beat this. As a monitoring headphone I expected decent amount of detail from the cans, and I wasn't disappointed, almost on the same level as my $100 plus IEMs. The only real complaint I have is with the bass. The bass extension is quite deep, around 40hz from what I can tell by running test tones. However, like most headphones there is a significant treble roll off that makes the headphone seem bloated as opposed to truely flat (that you have to get the M40fs instead, those seem to have a totally flat response curve). To get a more balanced sound, I had to equalise in the mid to upper treble region to rescue the details that would otherwise be lost unequalised. Nevertheless, these headphones definitely beat the consumer spec headphones at this price level with the quality of the sound, the only sacrifice you have to make will be in terms of portability and maybe just a little dullness (perceived for someone coming from consumer grade headphones)in terms of sound. But I soon learned to appreciate the amount of details I get from this headphones