Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

First things first. These are not for kids who wanna listen to all their hardcore screamo death metal at earsplitting volumes. These are not for people who have a 1000 watt sub in their car. These are not for people who take music casually. These are for recording. I don't claim to be an expert on what good headphones sound like. I've never had the money to try some 500 dollar audiophile phones. I am a very active musician; I run a studio in my bedroom and my bands practice room. I've been recording in my bedroom for about four years. I use Adobe Audition 2 as my main recording software. The Audio-Technica ATH M40fs headphones are THE BEST headphones I have ever heard. I'm sure they're not the best in the world. They're just the best I've used, and I'm pretty sure they're the best for the price. With these headphones I can hear subtleties and nuances that I never believed possible. I can hear breath noise on the flute intro to Yanni's Deliverance. I can hear the bass on Dreamgirl by Dave Matthews without it beng muddy. I can hear the rumbling lows on the intro to The Battle from the Chronicles of Narnia Soundtrack. These headphones are not bassy, nor are they harsh on the mids, they're not overly trebly either. They are very flat as far as I can tell. I love that I can hear all the different parts to music without any of them being over-emphasized. The downfall to these phones is that they let you hear ALL of the flaws in your own music; it's kind of depressing. If you want to sound like an amazing pro musician just by buying a new pair of headphones...look elsewhere, if you want to hear your mistakes so you can improve, and don't wanna spend a month's paycheck...then these are for you. The thing that mainly attracted me to these headphones was the frequency range which was wider than the Sennheiser HD 280 Pro's that I originally wanted. On top of that, the price was 40 dollars lower; hard to pass up. Another feature that makes these worth your while is the Field Replaceable parts. I don't know about you, but I don't have the money to buy a new set of headphones if my cable wears out. These have pretty good isolation. They won't block as much sound as earplugs but they block enough to keep your sound pretty pure. If you want to hear your music in a way that you never have then buy these headphones.