I've been playing with the V-Moda M-80 the past couple days. I picked up Bioshock Infinite since it's now available on Mac and I've given the M-80 several hours of head time. I've also played a little Borderlands 2, mainly to test out the V-Moda BoomPro mic cable in multiplayer.
For staters, I really enjoy the M-80 as a portable headset. Get that out of the way right up front. They sound great both directly off the Macbook Pro as well as through my Recon 3D USB. The BoomPro cable, from what my teammates have said, is clear and crisp without any noticeable major delays in voice chat. Voice quality is on par with my Modmic v1, and it's easier to use since the Macbook has a TRRS connection so there's no need for an adapter like I use with the Modmic. Granted that advantage is missing as soon as another device comes into the mix, such as my Recon 3D or my Aune T1 amp. But at least V-Moda was kind enough to include a Y-adapter for just such a situation. It does an excellent job splitting the signals for my Recon 3D when using it as an amp/DSP. Another reason why I think they're excellent portables is the build quality and the included hard shell case for transportation. These things are built like the tanks of the headphone world. I foresee these going everywhere with me when I'm traveling as they don't require any additional hardware, when gaming in stereo of course.
Now for home gaming use, they would not be my first pick. When I weighed them against both my Mad Dogs (3.1 rev) and my AKG Q701 they left me wanting in different areas. Next to both headphones, the M-80 lacked depth. Not surprising considering it's up against full sized around ear headphones. The soundstage was about the same for both the M-80 and the Mad Dogs. Next to the MDs, I find that I lose some of the immersion and overall feel of the game audio. But that's not necessarily a full negative, as the M-80 does an excellent job of bringing forward the voice work and sets it apart from the ambiance. Elizabeth's voice was more focused towards me than with the Mad Dogs. Both are considered relatively neutral headphones with a slight warmth to the body. Would I want to use the Mad Dogs directly off my Macbook or even the Recon 3D? No, not really. There's a serious lack of power there which causes them to miss a lot of the presentation. So I would want to have a nice desktop amp behind them powering the Mad Dogs properly. I feel like I can't compare my Q701s with the M-80s properly yet, as I've been focusing more on comparing 2 closed headphones so they'd be on a more even playing field. Adding an amp to the M-80s doesn't help much at all, from what I noticed. Sure you get minor improvements here and there but overall it's a very efficient headphone and was designed to be able to run directly off an MP3 or CD player. One last quick note for home, I also have not yet tried them with my Mixamp 5.8. I'm not a huge console gamer. I primarily play on my computer either in OS X or Win8.
Music wise, I didn't give them a whole lot of time A/Bing with my other headphones. But they handled almost every genre I threw at them and reproduced wonderful sounds. I say almost, as my ska music wasn't as energetic as I'm use to hearing. But the M-80s seem to lack sparkle. And that makes sense, as they're a more mid and bass centric design. They don't focus on the upper range as much, so some of the brass comes off as flat when I listen. This could also be due in part to the recordings themselves. But again, not a whole lot of music time with them.
These impressions are from 2 days of experience with the M-80s. Not a long time I know so these are relatively early impressions still. Hopefully my stream of consciousness writing didn't lose anyone too often along the way.