ATH-M50 vs. ATH-ESW9A

Be careful on where you buy them if you do

- plenty of fakes online. The wooden finish

is dull and where the cord meets the cup

the fakes lack the traditional AT rubber boot.

Heya,

I have both. The ESW9 is a fun sounding headphone, it can be bassy and thumpy, has good mids, and the highs are quite rolled off. The M50 is more bright and has a bit more bass. But the ESW9 has a better sound to me in general for all genres. The ESW9 is a beautiful headphone, it's on-ear though, so keep that in mind. I don't think it's the most durable headphone unfortunately. The M50 is quite a tank, so will take a beating.

Very best,

Both are good phones, but the ESW9 has a much sweeter and musical character.  It also has a great look.  Although at first glance it does not have a particularly robust look, it is actually very durable.  The M50 is truly built like a tank and can just be folded in/up and stored any way you want, without a second thought.  I recommend the AT "hard" case for the ESW9's -- you can get it from Japan.

I used to own them both. In my opinion the M50 may be good for studio (better: home-producing) purposes since they are more analytical and dry (in a positive manner). But for listening the ESW9 are just more sweet and fun. They are very different. The ESW9 are one of the very few phones I have till now, never thought of selling them and I think they are one of the best headphone buy I ever did. I just love their sound. I sold the M50 after owning them a year or so. 

They may be uncomfortable. They clamp a bit if you have a bit bigger head. And one time I was not cautious enough and the ear cup holding part got broken. I then mailed AT US (I ordered them from US since they are not distributed in EU) and got replacement parts very quickly for free.

Edit: I forgot maybe the most important difference: While the M50 need an amp to drive them correctly, the ESW9 run from portable sources unamped perfectly. You wont notice any difference amped/unamped. On the other hand the M50 aren't really portable. Of course if you're looking for home phones and you own a good amp you should look elsewhere since the ESW9 are designed as pure portable headphones.