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M-Audio Studiophile Q40 - Review, and Appreciation

post #1 of 40
3/8/12 at 12:56pm
Thread Starter 

Heya,

 

Q40_20.jpg

 

Review of the Q40 finally in place since it's been talked about quite a bit recently, full of photos and comparisons:

 

Head-Fi Review of the M-Audio Studiophile Q40

 

Q40_10.jpg

 

Any questions or information I can include, add, or edit would be appreciated and of course, I'll try and answer more specific questions here.

 

Overall verdict: this is quite a beast of a headphone, bassheads look out, if you're after something in the $150 range, the Q40 is a serous contender.

 

Very best, basshead.gif

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post #2 of 40
3/8/12 at 1:03pm

NVM, got my answer later in the review. :) Excellent review and so detailed! O_o

 

So didn't notice much change when swapping pads? I agree on the soundstage comparing the simple mod to stuff some padding underneath to make cups deeper and it definitely helped a lot for soundstage. By the looks of it with those beyer pads it looks to be roughly as deep as for me with the stock pads + extra padding underneath.


Edited by RPGWiZaRD - 3/8/12 at 4:05pm
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post #3 of 40
3/8/12 at 1:12pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by RPGWiZaRD View Post

I'd still just wanna hear if you noticed any sound changes when swapping the pads? :)


Heya,

 

It's in the review, maybe buried though. The sound change is minimal to me. The bass is still intact, sound stage increases, comfort increases drastically. Mids sound about the same to me. If anything changed, the treble may have taken a small roll off even more, it's completely fatigue-free, not that it wasn't before. It's a very smooth sound. After I put them on, they still sounded virtually the same except I noticed how much better it felt to have a deeper cup, not touch as much, and the sound stage was improved to the point where I was thinking I was wearing my DT770. The DT770 is still more comfortable, by a margin, but the Q40's bass is monstrous with a calm relaxed treble and great mids. All in all, the pad swap didn't effect it drastically to me. I have both grey & black velours for DT770 (I initially tried the greys since I have them on the DT770, but ordered the black ones to match the Q40 more).

 

Very best,

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post #4 of 40
3/8/12 at 1:21pm

Yea sorry already edited my previous post and saw you wroted it further down. :P 

 

And yea I also noticed a very very slight tamed-down highs (8kHz peak) when stuffing extra padding underneath the stock pads but in this case it was welcomed to me as I thought the peak around 8kHz was just tiny tiny bit too pronounced for my liking without the mod (one step down on the 8kHz slider fixed that though). BTW here's my EQ settings with the extra padding underneath (probably similar sounding as yours with the beyer pads):

 

Q40-EQ.png

 

Just one bump at 31 (actually this is very questionable) but also one bump at 500 and 1kHz and especially 4kHz.... makes it sound a whole lot better with the bump in lower mids upper mids even if it's just one small bump. :P The lower mids gets the full/warm "in-your-face" sound I personally love without losing any detail/clarity at all (the 4kHz bump actually adds some clarity to most acoustic instruments especially).

 

The adjustments makes sense if checking:

 

02e3d489ef910abf9d3a5837161cd5fb.png 0447e9c8_94a70fad_fr.png


Edited by RPGWiZaRD - 3/8/12 at 2:32pm
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post #5 of 40
3/8/12 at 2:54pm

Just stopped by to say thanks for such a great review for a great headphone . Now you've got me tempted to try out 770 velours for mine when I have some money around :)

Also I suppose its worth seconding that you really need to buy deeper pads for these headphones. As great as they sound, I couldn't wear them for more than an hour when I first got them without having significant discomfort issues.

 

Thanks again for the good review, should give some much deserved attention to the Q40s!

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post #6 of 40
3/8/12 at 3:16pm

Great review!

 

If only they were more portable for (trans)portability..

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post #7 of 40
3/8/12 at 3:56pm

I must be the only one that find them very comfortable... can wear them for hours and hours stock or with deepened cup mod. xD I usually never take them off when sitting at my comp which can be for many many hrs in a row sometimes. :P Also good thing that the pads doesn't cause any sweating whatsoever like HTF600 pads did.

 

Anyway easy 1 min fix if you want to improve sound and make the cups deeper with stock pads:

 

1b58d360_IMG_0771.jpeg

 


Edited by RPGWiZaRD - 3/8/12 at 4:04pm
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post #8 of 40
3/8/12 at 4:08pm
Great review. Not a big fan of the look of them, but sound quality is all that matters to me.

Mal do you use your iPad to long on here? I was wondering because mine crashes a lot on here.
Thanks
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post #9 of 40
3/8/12 at 4:39pm
I am glad to see this great headphone getting its own thread.
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post #10 of 40
3/8/12 at 4:52pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ser182 View Post

Great review. Not a big fan of the look of them, but sound quality is all that matters to me.
Mal do you use your iPad to long on here? I was wondering because mine crashes a lot on here.
Thanks


I do use my iPad when I'm not home to access Head-Fi, respond to things, post, etc. And it doesn't crash on me. I'm using an iPad, not iPad2 though and I don't really know what version it is, as I'm sure it's been updated in some way since I'm not the first owner and got it from an enthusiast.

 

@RPGWizard: With the deeper cups, I'm sure it's comfy even with your mod. All it took for me was to get the pressure off pressing my ears and specifically from overly pressing on my glasses frames. I was good to go after that. The cups are still not as deep as my DT770's or Denons, which I find more comfortable, but simply stuffing or transplanting velour pads is a huge difference to me. Love it.

 

Very best,

 

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post #11 of 40
3/17/12 at 12:02pm
I have to say I was never a fan of synthetic music. It just sounded like a bunch of noises put together in a semi structured fashion. After giving these headphones a listen I now see I was missing a key component the bass. Gave a listen to some david guetta and some 009 sound system and am becoming a fan now.

Great headphones with great sub-bass just going around YouTube listening to bass tests was lots of fun.
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post #12 of 40
9/10/12 at 8:08am

Great review! Are this Headphones V-shaped?

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post #13 of 40
9/10/12 at 9:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mironov View Post

Great review! Are this Headphones V-shaped?

 

No, it's a "^--" shape, bass bumped & neutral mids & highs. Amping is important for the end result though, mids & highs both sound overly laid-back without amp, I'd say the mids suffer slightly more ampless than highs. With both ZO2.1 and the SRS Listen amp I have the mids & highs sound very balanced throughout except rolling off a bit soon in the upper-end, you will notice this if you start doing hearing check, you'll have to start bumping the volume when getting to 14kHz+ range even if your ears would be able to hear say a 16kHz perfectly fine.


Edited by RPGWiZaRD - 9/10/12 at 9:49am
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post #14 of 40
9/11/12 at 1:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by RPGWiZaRD View Post

 

No, it's a "^--" shape, bass bumped & neutral mids & highs. Amping is important for the end result though, mids & highs both sound overly laid-back without amp, I'd say the mids suffer slightly more ampless than highs. With both ZO2.1 and the SRS Listen amp I have the mids & highs sound very balanced throughout except rolling off a bit soon in the upper-end, you will notice this if you start doing hearing check, you'll have to start bumping the volume when getting to 14kHz+ range even if your ears would be able to hear say a 16kHz perfectly fine.

Thanks!!!!

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post #15 of 40
12/17/12 at 4:51am

got my q40s today and stuffed them with beyer velour pads. not bad at all, but i still wonder, if the dt770pro would be a safer bet? q40 bass is a bit boomy and they sound a little wet right out of the box. find my denon d1100 more open sounding with tighter bass. so what about the beyers in comparison?

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