Every home studio I’ve been in has a battered pair of these hanging off a monitor stand somewhere. That’s the ATH-M20x in a sentence: the cheapest headphones a working person will actually admit to using. Audio-Technica has sold them for over a decade at around fifty dollars, and the pitch is simply that they don’t flatter anything. Forty millimetre drivers, closed backs, a tuning aimed at hearing what’s really on the recording, a long straight cable, and a snap-on quarter inch adapter for an interface. No app. No Bluetooth. Nothing to charge.
The tuning sits close to flat with a mild lift down low, and that’s the entire reason to own them. Vocals land where they should, a bad mix sounds bad, and nothing is sweetened to trick you into liking a rough take. What you give up is excitement: the treble is soft, subtle detail rounds off, and everything happens in a small space right beside your head. The best fifteen dollars you will ever spend on these is a set of thicker earpads. The stock pleather is thin enough that your ear presses against the driver, and swapping them fixes the comfort and gives the sound a bit more room at the same time.
What you’re really paying for is honesty and lightness. The headband doesn’t squeeze, the cups weigh almost nothing, and at fifty dollars nothing else hands you a tuning this even to work against, which is why they end up in so many first home studios. They also refuse to die, surviving backpacks, dorm rooms, and years of being yanked off desks by the cable. The pads are the compromise. They’re thin, they flatten, and most people start shifting them around somewhere after the first hour. Budget for replacements and that problem simply disappears. Worth knowing too: these barely isolate, leaking sound both directions, so they’re a poor pick for an open office.
Wired means no pairing, no battery, and crucially no lag, which matters the moment you’re cutting video or tracking anything. Any 3.5mm jack works, and the included adapter covers an interface or a desk amp. The cable is the daily irritation, roughly ten feet of straight, permanently attached wire that will find a way to wrap around your chair, so buy a cable tie. It’s the long-term risk too, since a break at the jack means a soldering iron rather than a five dollar replacement.
These are for the person setting up a first home studio, editing at a desk, or just wanting something honest to wear for eight hours. If you want headphones that make your music more fun, these will disappoint you deliberately. If you want to hear what’s actually there for fifty dollars, nothing has beaten them yet. Stretch the budget and the Sennheiser HD 560S opens things up considerably. Otherwise get these, put the savings toward better pads, and get to work.
Pros
• Flat, honest tuning you can actually work against
• About fifty dollars, which is the whole argument
• Light with a gentle headband, no vice grip
• Tough enough to live in a backpack
Cons
• Stock earpads are thin and get uncomfortable around an hour
• Cable is ten feet, straight, and permanently attached
• Barely isolates, and leaks in both directions
• Treble is soft, so fine detail goes missing
Our score: 7.6/10