Audio Technica's M50 headphones are often touted at some of the best studio headphones on the market. The one downside; cables. At CES 2019, Audio Technica revealed the latest edition of their flagship device, the ATH-M50xBT over-ear wireless headphones, priced at $199.
Anyone familiar with the wired ATH-M50x headphones will be pleased to know that the ATH-M50xBT feature the same, high-quality audio as their wired counterpart. The newly-added Bluetooth 5 connection maintains high-quality audio playback with the most popular audio codecs AptX and AAC.
Despite adding a high-performance Bluetooth connection, the ATH-M50xBT have an astonishing 40 hours of battery life on a single charge. A micro-USB port on the underside of the earcup acts as the charging point for the headphones. If you run out of battery with no charger to hand, the included 3.5mm aux cable can be plugged in instead; that's if your phone still supports analog connections. They also support quick charging, so just a 10-minute charge gives 45 minutes of playback time.
Once you've finished using the headphones, you'd turn them off, put them down and move on with your day. The only problem is then its all too easy to forget where you left them. The Audio Technica Connect app, available for Android and iOS, records the geo-location of the last time your headphones were connected, so finding them should be no problem.
The headphones feature a 45mm large-aperture driver, with a frequency of between 15,000 and 28,000 Hz. The rare-earth magnets and copper-clad aluminum wire voice coils are the same as those found in the original M50x studio headphones.
The M50xBT come equipped with an in-built mic, music controls, and volume buttons all handily located on the device's earcups. Touch control allows you to access your phone's digital assistant at just the touch of a button too.
The Audio Technica ATH-M50xBT, priced at $199.99, were initially released in October 2018, and are now available for shipping worldwide. Based on the demo available at the Audio Technica CES booth, the headphones are sure to find a spot in every audiophile's heart.