I'm still a pretty new "audiophile" but I've been a musician for all my life so I will try and do an "ok" review. I'm actually studying electrical engineering and economics in college to hopefully go into the musician/audiophile gear business for myself. Anyways here is some newbie reviewage for you guys
I've had my M-80's for about 3 weeks now, they're so amazing. They still get a little uncomfortable after a few hours but Im tweaking the headband to become more and more comfortable. I am really sensitive to this though because I have migraine issues that stem from muscles in my face(head)/shoulders/neck, I usually can't stand glasses for too long because of this. I also want to add if you wear glasses with these you may need to readjust to get some pressure off the glasses arms and to get a better seal. This happens to me with my sunglasses ever so slightly, but if I wear my normal glasses instead of my sunglasses I don't seem to notice any extra pressure or lessining of the seal.
They have the best build quality I've ever seen, come with some great accessories, I got these when he was giving away free faders, shields and audio only cable. (not sure if he's still doing this). The faders are great, except they're pink so I may not wear them to an animals as leaders concert or something =P. Right now I have 1 red shield and 1 original black brushed shield on my m-80, both look great but I sort of wish I could get a brushed red shield.
I use the audio only cable the most but on the go I use the iphone cable since I have an iphone. The iphone cable is a little stiff however, the audio only cable is more plyable but longer so it may not be as good for travel. Overall great cables, of course better than the custom 3's that I have...and that broke... haha. In the future I may buy a red audio only cable or some other custom cable just to give some more options and looks.
SQ is very good, to my ears it seems pretty flat (which I love). My basshead friend wanted a little more bass out of them but I found they had more than enough bass for me, bass extension is very good too. The bass is also punchy and not bloated in the slightest.
Mids are smooth, flat and crisp. Not much to say other than I love the mids and I don't think I'd change them at all.
Highs are present, not recessed like I saw maybe 1 or 2 people say.
Treble is a little more warm than some other headphones I have but I don't have a problem with that at all. The only thing I could really ask is possibly a little more definition and sound stage but both are fairly good, I would say the soundstage is bigger than my custom 3's but some instruments aren't as defined sometimes.
Isolation isn't bose q3 level or in ear level but they work well. While walking around and listening to music I can still hear car noise and wind noise but it is very windy in orlando and I notice wind noise with iems in too. Voices are basically gone when listening. Sidenote: I don't listen to my headphones very loud, about halfway on my iphone. Some may hate the isolation not being dead quiet but I like to be aware of my surroundings especially since cars like to try and hit you around campus so I am giving isolation a 5/5 on the Joe scale of meaningless numbers ratings I only use once.
None of the cables have any microphonics and I haven't had time to test the mic on the iphone cable, some complained about the mic getting microphonics but they include a clip for the cable now.
I haven't had much time with headphones past this pricepoint so I can't tell you how they compare to anything more expensive but I can say I prefer these to beats, bose q3's and senn hd 555's, all of which friends own but they let me testdrive. Sidenote: I didn't notice much of a different from break in but I didn't take many notes around this time
For reference, I listened to a huge assortment of Dream Theater, Steve Vai, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Blues Bros, Paul Gilbert, Soundtracks (LOTR, Inception, hyrule symphony), Guthrie Govan, Animals as Leaders, Victor Smolski, Victor Wooten, Super Bass (the group not the song), Marcus Miller, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and some hip hop and pop songs I had friends send me. (Can you tell I like raw guitar and bass? haha)
I mainly listen through my ipad or iphone with either high bitrate music or, if I can, apple lossless files. I have a biosciencegeek cmoy and I noticed the bass comes out a little more but seems to be slightly bloated with the cmoy; however, the amp is tailored to my custom 3's so don't think amping these are "bad." I don't think they need amping though. On my desktop I have tested with my audio card and also my m-audio recording interface as a DAC. I think the m-audio makes things a little clearer but nothing too noticeable. I can't really comment on how these sound with expensive DAC/Amps but I wanted to mention my small findings.
Lastly, the looks... if natalie portman was a headphone, the m-80's would be it (or her, whichever way you look at it). These things are classy and wild at the same time, very expressive too if you get some custom shields. The carrying case is a work of art in itself as well, it almost reminds me of a romanticised H.R. Giger piece. Also like I said before the build quality is very very good which only adds to the sexiness of the phone. I hate when headphones have that fingerprinty hard plastic nonsense. I'm more of a metalhead myself (pun intended)
Overall I am very very impressed and feel like a more complete person just owning a pair haha. The main drawback to these is if you are like me and just starting out in the audiophile world it will make you lust for more; however, every time you look or listen to these you will remind yourself you don't need anything better... well until you are out of school and a rich audio-whore.
I can't wait to check out the m-100 once they're released (and once I have some damn money, college makes me poor haha). Who knows maybe V-moda will give a few test pairs out to some lucky folks here on head-fi and maybe I'll be one!
I hope you guys enjoyed my quaint review, I may have some mistakes or poor grammar here or there but I have a slight migraine and just realized it is 3am so I should probably be asleep. I seemed to have lost track of time listening to my headphones!
