Audio Technica wants to make its high-end headphones a little more modern. The company has taken the wraps off of an updated version of the much-loved Audio Technica ATH-M50x headphones — called the Audio Technica ATH-M50xBT headphones.
The Audio Technica ATH-M50 series of headphones has evolved a lot over the past few years. First, there were the Audio Technica ATH-M50 headphones, which had a fixed cable. The headphones then evolved into the ATH-M50x headphones, with a removable cable and excellent sound quality. Now, there’s a new model — a pair of headphones that do away with the cable altogether.
According to Audio Technica, there’s almost no sacrifice on audio quality too. That’s good news for audiophiles — usually, headphones that have wireless connectivity sacrifice on audio quality at least a little. Thankfully, however, the headphones do still have a 3.5mm audio jack, so you can use them in wired mode too.
Under the hood, the headphones are pretty tech-focused too — which is good news. They connect to your listening device through Bluetooth 5.0, and they’re rated for a whopping 40 hours of use on a single charge — which is huge.
Unfortunately, there is one aspect of the Audio Technica ATH-M50xBT headphones that is a little dated — and that’s the choice to use a MicroUSB port over a USB-C port. There’s really no excuse to do so — Audio Technica says that the point of using the dated standard was to ensure that the headphones don’t get too expensive — but the fact is that adopting USB-C probably wouldn’t have costed too much more. Thankfully, however, the company does say that it will adopt USB-C does the line — but there’s no word yet on when that may happen.
The Audio Technica ATH-M50 lineup has never included active noise cancellation, and these headphones are no exception to that rule — so keep that in mind. Apart from that, however, the headphones look to be a worthy successor to the ATH-M50x headphones.
You can buy the Audio Technica ATH-M50xBT headphones for yourself straight from Amazon, where they come at $199.