Audio-Technica straps a microphone onto its fashionable M50X headphones

Audio-Technica has taken its fashionable M50X headphones and added a built-in microphone to create a headset that the corporate claims is ideal for livestreaming content material creators.

There are two fashions accessible in complete. The ATH-M50xSTS comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack and XLR microphone connector (with a one-fourth-inch adaptor within the field), whereas the ATH-M50xSTS-USB has a USB-A connector and USB-C adaptor within the field. But a very powerful spec is that each headphones use the identical 45mm drivers which have made the M50X headphones so fashionable throughout the web. 

As my former colleague Vlad Savov wrote in 2018, the unique M50 headphones from 2007 “were designed for professional use, [but] their indestructible build, reasonable price, and sharp, incisive sound were warmly received by people looking for something more hi-fi than the dominant Beats options.” 

In addition to this 45mm driver, each headphones embrace a cardioid condenser capsule that Audio-Technica says is “adopted from” its 20-Series microphones. The firm has beforehand offered a detachable microphone meant to be used with its M50X headphones, however now, it comes with one inbuilt. You can flip the mic arm as much as routinely mute the microphone, which is an more and more frequent characteristic with gaming headsets. 

Other specs embrace the truth that the cables for each headphones are 2m (roughly 6.5 ft) lengthy and are nondetachable. The USB mannequin consists of an analog-to-digital converter that helps sampling charges of as much as 24-bit / 96kHz. 

In Europe, the ATH-M50xSTS will retail for £169 (€199 or round $200) and the ATH-M50xSTS-USB will value £199 (€229 or round $237), which represents a small value premium over the usual M50X’s UK RRP of £145 (round $173). Both will go on sale subsequent month in February. US pricing and availability have but to be introduced.