Info about Home Audio
The Audio Technica ATH-M40: Great Headphones For Mixing or Monitoring in the Studio
The Audio Technica ATH-M4 headphones are enclosed and sit on the top of your ears, instead on covering them completely, like some do. There is a small sized bass port that can be seen on the outer part of the earphones. On the inside, you’ll find Neodymium-driven capsules which have a pretty wide frequency response, but the spec doesn’t show you how much of the deviation you can expect in that range. You’ll find aluminum wire that is copper clad in the voice coil, with a diameter of 40mm. The headphones will handle a maximum of 1.6 watts of power, with 60 ohms as impedance. The sensitivity is 100dB, but since there isn’t any power level to reference, this doesn’t mean anything to me.
The headphones are very comfortable and well padded. The headband is adjustable. The ear pads are made of some material that is leather-like and soft, sitting on your ears pretty snug, but not too snug that it’s uncomfortable. The earpiece on the right side can be swiveled 180 degrees to monitor with just one ear.
The only problem with earphones that are enclosed is that they tend to sound a bit boxy, even though their bass levels are far greater. But there are some makes that are an exception to this. And the Audio Technica ATH-M4 is one of them. They are actually very accurate and clear.
In trying these out, I’ve found that they sound surprisingly similar to listening to a medium sized, high-quality pair of loudspeakers. It’s wiser to use the loudspeakers when mixing, because the bass heard through headphones can be perceived differently depending on the person’s outer ear physiology. But, because of how high quality these headphones are, a lot of mixing can be done on them. You might want to check the speakers though occasionally to make sure the bass part is sounding right. This is a great thing to be able to do if you have a home studio, where the noise level can’t be too loud.
These headphones are good enough for doing some serious mixing or monitoring work. They are very accurate. And because these are enclosed, you get a pretty solid bass sound and barely any sound leakage, which is important when overdubbing acoustic instruments or vocals or when recording. The only reservation that I have about the phones is that they don’t have a plug-in lead. But, if that really bothers you, then I’m sure you can fit an in-line stereo plug-in that is small into the socket of the lead that is close to the phones. But, despite that, I think that these are one of the best sounding phones that are enclosed.
Also, for those who are bass players and drummers, there is a version of these headphones by Audio Technica called the ATH-D40s that do have an artificial lift located at the bass part so the sound is more powerful. The headphones are identical with even the same price, but the boost for the bass does make the ATH-M40s not work if you’re mixing. But, if recording some louder instruments with plenty of bass, then this kind is very useful.