Hi everyone. I'm rather new to the hi-fi sound community, but I have a habit of shopping around for the best bang for my buck. Even though I'm still a teen, I really appreciate nice sound, and I finally got around to buying a nice, shiny pair of headphones. For the price I paid, I must say that I absolutely love my ATH-M50s - I've had them for about 2 months now, with a solid 100 or so (probably more) hours on them. I started out with mixed opinions - although the sound quality was easily dozens of times better than the $25 IEMs that I got from Target, these cans were heavy, tight, and had way too much cord. However, I have to admit, over time I noticed a burn in, getting so much more quality than before. Also, wearing the headphones and doing very light stretching before putting them on has made them as comfortable as air - I've literally forgotten I've had these on for hours at a time. Finally, the cord turned out to be even more useful than I imagined, since it comfortably stretches across my desk when I need to grab something, and I can adjust the length of the band easily using a rubber band.
The only things I don't like about these headphones now is that I can't take anyone who listens to Beats seriously anymore... but of course, they like heavily branded products, unlike me. Also, the connections between the cord and the headphones, along with the joints between the headband and the cups, are slightly noisy, constantly making me paranoid of damage of some sort, even while they are perfectly fine.
However, as a relatively poor student, I haven't used these headphones with amps. I've only used them with my laptop and iPod Touch 4g, which have so far done perfectly fine for me, but I might get a small amp later.
Also, I have one question - would a laptop's headphone jack be able to damage the ATH-M50s drivers? Unfortunately, my mother is not very tech-savvy. She was watching shows online while I was away and, noticing that the computer's sound was particularly quiet, blasted the volume to 100%. I had the headphones connected directly to the jack without an amp, and she said that she watched shows for about an hour. As of right now, I can't hear any distortion, popping, or clipping, but they sound a little quiet and... well, a little punchier and detailed than before. The quietness is probably from the fact that I was in a rather loud location for a few hours (not hearing-damaging), and I'd understand if being on full-blast for an hour loosened up the drivers. However... are there any other symptoms of driver damage that I should listen for? I told my mom to always check if the headphones were unplugged, so assuming that nothing happens, my headphones should never be above a safe listening level for a prolonged period of time again.