Hello, I just got my first pair of audiophile quality headphones today in the mail from Amazon.  I'm really digging the fact that I can hear things I've never heard before in the songs I'm listening to.   But I'm having a few slight issues right now.   I noticed earlier that when I have my headphones plugged in and the earphones naturally close together, if I pull them away from each other, a static noise generates from the point of separation & depending on the speed that I pull them away from each other the noise is louder/softer.  This noise seems to emanate from the bottom of each earphone.   I tried to contact Audio Technica to ask them if this is normal but their submit form isn't working for me.   

The other question I had is:  Is it normal to hear some distortion/crackling with certain songs?   Because I was listening to Deftones - Minerva (.flac) and at 1:02-1:03 or every time he says "God bless you all" there's always a distorted noise that plays.  Can anyone confirm this or is it just the file that I have?  I can listen to the whole song before that and I sounds really good but it gets to that part and bums me out because that distorted noise is so apparent.  
 

Let me answer your second question first - Do you hear the crackle at always the same moment in the song? If you use other headphones, do you still hear the crackle? My hunch is the crackles or distortions may be with the file you're playing vs. the ATH-50s. Due to the clarity of what your now hearing, the crackles or distortions may now seem more pronounced. They may have always been there - you may not have noticed them before but with a better headphone like the ATH-50s, you are hearing the noise. 
 
There's something I learned here on Head-Fi: A good headphone can make a good audio file sound better. But a good headphone will almost always make poor files sound worse. It's absolutely true and the better the headphone, the more revealing of how poor sound will be on a bad file.
 
As to your first question - if the headphones sound OK when you are wearing them and listening to music, they're probably fine. Better headphones are more susceptible to picking up static and other noises. There's even something called "microphonics" which is caused by the headphone cable rubbing against your clothing and transmitting the noise to the headphones. The main thing is if they sound OK when you're doing normal listening, they should be OK.
 
That being said, if they do continually make noise, it's possible you have a loose wire or a bad connection within the headphone that causes the crackling when the headphones are moved. In that case, I would consider either returning them for another pair or possibly sending them back to Audio Technica under warranty.

Congrats on the first purchase. I don't have the M50, nor can I confirm the issue with the song, but the pulling away earphone-headphone situation sounds like there's an induced magnetic field. Most likely due to shielding issues?
I'm no expert unfortunately, just a student..

Yes the crackling noise is always at the same point in the song.  I don't know if the headphones are just so accurate that I've never been able to hear it before or what.  I'm starting to wonder if a lot of the songs I listen to just have bad mastering. 

They aren't making continual noise but that static noise when I pull them apart from each other is bothering me.
 
I've managed to contact their customer support now so I'll see what they say.
 
 Thanks for replying.

asdfvtn said:

Congrats on the first purchase. I don't have the M50, nor can I confirm the issue with the song, but the pulling away earphone-headphone situation sounds like there's an induced magnetic field. Most likely due to shielding issues?
I'm no expert unfortunately, just a student..

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Thanks.  I really don't have any idea because I'm not really into the technical side of things. I've never seen headphones do this before & it sucks when they're new and I'm already having issues.   I've managed to contact support now and I'll see what they have to say.

Good luck with customer service!
Yeah the induction of a magnetic field around wires only happen when there's a change in velocity.

asdfvtn said:

Good luck with customer service!

Yeah the induction of a magnetic field around wires only happen when there's a change in velocity.

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Yeah they told me that's not normal and that I should return it and get a new one   it sucks that this had to happen... that will be another wait on a new pair.

It won't be long, Amazon is great on customer service in my experience. Good to know you won't have a defective pair though.