Hopping into this thread late. Must've missed the "Team AudioTechnica" news letter about this thread. I had remembered this was coming up and then reremembered when I came across the PRO700MK2ANVs. I will always prefer the limited all white edition of the PRO700's, which years later... I'm still dying to get my hands on. So if any of you have a pair...
The Silver M50's are nice but if I'm going for bass, I might as well go balls to the wall and usually prefer the PRO700MK2's. I haven't heard the PRO500's though, but I'm not a huge fan of on-ears... ESW9's being the exception to that. I do have the PRO5MK2's which are like a more monitor-y version of the M50's.
Couple comments, the bars on the headband are plastic? Is it possible that these are just metal bands like the the W5000 but sheathed in plastic? I feel like that would be a much better idea. From my experience with the W5000, bending these bands are imperative for a good fit. One of you should have your cans in by now.
It's great to hear that they have more bass that the W1000X. A mod I found on the forums ended up bringing a lot of bass out of the W5000's I own. Ive used it for over a year now.
Also all this talk about these expensive headphone amps being the only ones that do the W5000's justice are overlooking the Schiit Asgard. Both myself and the great guys over at 6Moons Audio find it to be one of the best amps for this headphone. It's a great low impedance clear happy mid level synergy. I would still ultimately like to have a HA5000 but it's so hard to justify that price for an amp which only has a great pairing with one set of cans.
Also, you can achieve a pretty noteworthy shine out of your polished W5000's without using something as aggressive as stuff meant for cars. I use a wood polish, which is very fine grit, and just go gently over the logo and a little less so not around the logo. The cups come off quite easy. Then I follow it up with a beeswax based wood wax, and let that set on for a bit. It came out really sexy.
