7 reviews for “Experience Comfort & Sound: Audio-Technica ATH-AD500X Headphones”

1. 

   Zahid H. – October 22, 2025

   I will be using these at home for my PC pretty much exclusively
   I purchased this for games, movies and general use. I will be using these at home for my PC pretty much exclusively.I did a lot of research to find what would be the best headphone at the best price for my own personal needs, and this is what I wound up picking.These are open backed headphones which have a large soundstage and accurate sound. They will leak noise because that’s what open backs do, but in return they will give you a great soundstage and will also sound more like speakers rather than sound being pumped directly into your head. This was important to me because I plan on using them for long sessions, and did now want fatigue from listening. I also, although I’m not certain if it’s medically true, believe that it’s better for your hearing not to have that sound pumped right into your head and isolated. You still shouldn’t put sound too high, but this helps.The headphones are extremely comfortable. It doesn’t really say it, but they are indeed circumaural, they fit around your ears. Your ears might very slightly touch the outer edge of the pads, but you won’t really notice it and it’s a good fit.The fit is also in general very nice. You don’t need to adjust anything, you just put it on and it automatically rests on your head. Now you may have read that these will fall off your head if you have a smaller head. I do not think this is the case if you simply aren’t gyrating and slamming your head around. If you are someone that spazzes around while having headphones on, I can see that it might fall off. I would assume lots of headphones would fall off. When I run with headphones on they fall off too, even if they’re very secure regularly. However when I am listening I generally make only small regular motions with my head, and it’s secure. It’s comfortable. There isn’t pressure, but for me that’s a positive. I don’t like pressure on my head, because then it starts to hurt after awhile and you certainly are very aware you’re wearing headphones. With the way it is, while you know they’re there, you don’t feel them there really and can just be immersed in whatever it is you’re doing.The materials on the earpads are very nice. They’re soft cloth, not leather or pleather or anything like that.To me comfort and ease of putting it on were huge factors, as well as the soundstage and accuracy. If they are for you as well, maybe these will be good for you too.There are multiple models for this. They are fairly similar, pretty much identical outside of max input power. Now depending on your level of audiophileness, that may or may not matter to you. For me these are more than good enough. I doubt I will ever try the higher end models, as I don’t even actually know what input power would do. The impedence is low enough that I don’t need an amp, in fact it’s very similar to any other cheap headphone in terms of power needed to drive it. Except the quality is much higher.The sound quality will really strike you. I have equalizer inputs and surround sound off of my soundcard. With proper equalizer you can pretty much adjust any headphone to what you want really. However, these are so accurate and already so good I don’t see the point for that. Also surround side is completely unnecessary with this soundstage, it’s really just a gimmick that I’d suggest passing on for headphones in general. With the proper speaker setup surround sound can be great, but for mere headphones it’s kind of a gimmick.These drivers are very large. 53mm, and for a good price too. I was amazed at the sounds I was catching that I wasn’t before. With proper equalizer and cheap headphones you can get to a certain level, but I noticed this went beyond that, and fiddling around it was clear where the sound was artificial with the equalizer and surround sound. I could hear signs swinging in games, windmills turning. I’d look around and I’d see these things that I don’t remember noticing before like that.I know after a week or so the sound will be even better. But right now I’m already happy and think it’s 5 star.Now a quick note on sound cards: if you have a mid or upper tier motherboard you probably have about as good sound or better than a cheap dedicated soundcard. The Asus Xonar is a popular card at a cheap price, but I don’t think you need to actually get it if your onboard is good. My onboard can actually sample higher than that card and besides that the specs are quite similar. Chances are yours are too if you care enough to pay this much for a good pair of headphones.If you need a mic you’re better off getting a stand alone mic too. But since I play single player games there’s really no need.Mostly I wanted something comfortable, with accurate sound and good soundstage, that wouldn’t get too hot because they’re closed. These might get a little hot after very long periods of time, but it’s going to be less than pretty much anything other than the ear bud or internal around the ear type styles, which are all going to have much worse sound and also will be putting sound directly into your ears which I don’t really like, and certainly won’t give you much in the way of soundstage as a result.I don’t write too many reviews, but I liked this so much that I really wanted to, and I hope it helps someone else out. If the price drops even more I’d say to really jump on it. I got mine for just under $100 and am happy with that price. The other set that I was really considering were the AKG K 240 Studios at around $68. But those are semi-open, with higher impedance and much smaller drivers. I think these are better for my purposes. Also, I got mine from Beach Camera, who were super quick on shipping. Whereas when I tried getting the AKGs the seller hadn’t shipped it for several days. In retrospect I am very happy they lagged so much, as these are far better and worth the extra money.

2. 

   Amazon Customer – October 22, 2025

   These headphones are AWESOME
   So, I was in the market for some new headphones. A friend of mine had suggested the AudioTechnicaATH-M50x, but after perusing lots of extensive reviews on them I decided against them. The most important factor to me is comfort, and from what I had been reading about those, they weren’t necessarily bad headphones, they just weren’t very good ~$200 headphones. And apparently, they take “some getting used to” in terms of comfort. I was turned off by both of these sentiments and decided to look for something else. I figured open-back may be the way to go, and eventually settled on a pair of the ATH-AD700X’s.In my opinion, the best things about these headphones are, ironically, things a lot of people have outlined in their own reviews here as being negatives.Let’s start with the mechanism these use to stay on your head.You have likely seen many reviews here saying the mechanism these headphones use is “too loose”. In my opinion, they are not too loose at all. They grip your head with a very light, feathery touch. At first it may feel like they could slip off if you just tilt your head the wrong way, but they will not. Unless you’re thrashing your head to some VERY SERIOUS metal there is no way these are going to fall off, whether you’re laying down in bed or sitting in a chair. Also, I have always had difficulty laying down in bed and using big headphones. More often than not, the cans just get shoved into strange, awkward positions, or the whole thing is really just gripping my head way too tight and it gets VERY uncomfortable VERY quickly. That is not the case with these headphones. They are extremely comfortable to wear in bed, and they sound great too.Next, let’s go to the cable.I’ve seen SO MANY reviews saying they hate the cable for being “too long”, and they hate how the cable “coils up.” In my opinion, these are actually things worthy of praise. I would rather have a pair of headphones with a cable that is too long than a pair with a cable that is one inch too short. NOTHING is more frustrating than that. As for the cable “coiling up”, when in use this is never a problem. The cable is so long that any coiling is going to occur pretty far away from your body. And the cable “coiling up” sounds like a bad thing at first, until you see HOW it is coiling up. This cable has a tendency to coil up into the shape it was originally packaged in. So if you put the headphones away somewhere, you can rest assured knowing the cable will VERY EASILY arrange itself back into a very space efficient form factor. This is a pro to me, because I do not have a dedicated microphone. So I will often switch between headphones when using my computer. Additionally, you will know the cable is also SAFE in these conditions. I have broken many headphones over the years because I have poorly maintained the cable. This cable going into the exact arrangement I need when I wish to store it somewhere, with very little effort on my part, is a godsend and I am totally cool with that.Now that these two are out of the way, let’s move into some more pros. The sound is great. I’m not an audiophile, so I have no opinion on how “chocolatey” the mids are or how “minty” the treble is, or whatever buzzwords those people like to use to describe their sound equipment. But what I can tell you is, the sound is very clear and crisp and you will no doubt pick up on details in music that you never heard before, especially if you’ve spent your whole life using substandard, cheap headphones or “gaming” headsets. I play a digital piano through my DAW software, and immediately I could tell a massive difference in not just the overall quality, but also the clarity in the finer details of the various piano libraries I had been using for months — details I previously did not even know were there. And this is straight, out of box performance. No EQ, not even hooked into an audio interface. Just plugging right into a line output on my computer case.So, how about audio clarity in a noisy environment?In my opinion, ambient background noises are only SLIGHTLY easier to hear through these, than my usual pair of closed-back headphones. I have a fan in my room that I run pretty much all the time on the lowest setting. Even with my usual pair of closed-back headphones, I can hear the fan. The only time I can’t is if I barrage my ears with a constant stream of very loud noises. The same exact case applies with these headphones. If the sound is loud enough you will be completely tuned out to any external noises. I don’t even need them that loud to reach a point that they overpower the sound of my whirring fan.Are there any cons I can think of? Not really. I guess they aren’t quite as bassy as my usual headphones could get, but I prefer that. Sometimes stuff would just sound so…mixed up and muddied on my other headphones, and that was all due to their closed design. I’m sure someone with vastly superior background in audio equipment can find something to dislike about these headphones, but I’m a simple man. As that kind of person, I really can not find anything to dislike about these headphones. So far they have been a blast and I am loving them. If you are a relatively simple person too, and you just want to get something better than whatever dollar store headphones you’ve been using for years, these will definitely be good value to you. I will not be giving any rating towards “Noise Cancellation”, because these are not noise cancelling headphones. Why that is even something I can rate on these doesn’t really make any sense to me.

3. 

   Pronier Jean Luc – October 22, 2025

   Je recommande por son rapport qualité/prix.

4. 

   Arthur Amorim – October 22, 2025

   Fone excelente. Conforto impecável e som de primeira. Tem uma assinatura sonora semelhante ao M40x porém, por ser aberto, tem uma espacialidade muito melhor e o som embola menos do que nos M40x, que tem mais graves mas com uma pressão que me causa dor de cabeça após algumas horas de uso. Pra quem quer um fone de entrada e não busca um isolamento sonoro está recomendadíssimo.

5. 

   Alejandro E – October 22, 2025

   Muchas personas tendrán distintas opiniones sobre este modelo de audífonos abiertos. Si bien es cierto que con sus bajos relativamente débiles no complacerán a toda clase de oído, realmente brillan cuando se les pone a prueba con tonos medios y altos. Son extremadamente ligeros y cómodos de utilizar, incluso por largos periodos de tiempo.Me gusta especialmente el diseño de la diadema (o la ausencia de ella), que es un cambio bien recibido por quienes vivimos bajo climas más cálidos. Sin embargo, hay que mencionar que aparentan estar diseñados para cabezas más grandes (como la mía) y aquellos de cráneos menos voluminosos pueden necesitar ajustarlos con una banda elástica. Por ser un modelo abierto de drivers de gran tamaño, crean una sensación de espacio sobre lo que estás escuchando, lo que es especialmente útil en videojuegos con un buen motor de audio que te ayude a distinguir la dirección del ruido. El cable se siente robusto y es suficientemente largo, las almohadillas tienen un recubrimiento de tela suave.En relación con su precio, me siento confiado en decir que los Audio-Technica ATH-AD700X son dueños de una de las mejores relaciones costo-beneficio en el mercado. Son un muy buen punto de entrada para cualquier persona que busca invertir en audio de mayor fidelidad. En general, altamente recomendables.

6. 

   Guilherme Frange – October 22, 2025

   Excelente qualidade de áudio que é de se esperar de um fone da Audio-Technica e super leve e confortável. O único problema é que este fone é tão confortável que ele vai te deixar mal acostumado quando for usar outros.

7. 

   L. D. S. – October 22, 2025

   Cuffia confortevole e dalle ottime caratteristiche acustiche per il prezzo. Io ascolto in un ambiente silenzioso di suo e quindi non mi interessava una cuffia che isolasse dell’esterno, per questo ho optato per questo modello. I pad avvolgono completamente l’orecchio e anche utilizzandola lungo non si hanno sensazioni di fastidio. La cuffia ha una certa dimensione e non è da portarsi in giro. Buona la lunghezza del cavo, quando la seduta di ascolto non è proprio accanto allo stereo.