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Hi! Welcome to Lachlan Likes A Thing, a show where I take a thing and see whether or not
I like it. Now the thing we're looking at in this video is the V-Moda Crossfade M-80
portable headphones. Now a lot of you have been telling me on the Youtube comments and
on the Facebook page that I really ought to check these headphones out, so finally I got
a pair off the Head-Fi 'For Trade' forums. Now these retail for a recommended retail
price of $230 but obviously you can get them for less - and in this review we're just going
to talk firstly about the design and build quality of the headphones, and then we're
going to go into the sound. Now first off the M-80 has quite a reputation for build
quality and that's because they've apparently been built to a military standard. So they
have a headband that can take a lots of abuse in terms of bending and kind of, force applied
to it. In terms of materials they have a really nice mix of high quality plastic and a metal
headband, metal faceplate, all up quite a durable, quite a well-built package. Now maybe
this is because my pair is a slightly used pair I found that there is a slight creakiness
that you can actually hear when the headband moves and actually found that sometimes when
I'm listening to music and moving around and I can hear these kind of creaks. Now these
have a two year warranty so what I'm going to do after this review is I'm going to drop
a line with V-Moda and see if this kind of thing is covered under the warranty and if
there's any updates I will update the description of this video to reflect how this warranty
process goes. Now in terms of comfort I think these headphones are quite a comfortable pair
of headphones. One thing is that in terms of clamping force, they aren't very tight
in terms of clamping force, so on the one hand they're quite comfortable, on the other
hand though, they actually don't feel quite as stable on the head as something like the
Sennheiser Amperior or the Audio Technica ES10. The other thing is that in terms of
noise isolation, they are about average - they don't actually block out a great deal of noise
and that might also be because of these bass ports which are just on the back of the headphone
here which will let in some degree of sound. Now as for the cable, what's really nice is
about this cable, you get two cables in the box, it's a detachable cable, you get one
cable with iPhone remote, with a 3 button iPhone remote, and there's another cable that
comes with a one button remote for Android smartphones. And what's really clever about
both of these cables is that they've put the microphone module close to your mouth but
they've actually put the controls further down the cable where your hands are, so it's
a little easier for you to use the cable. And the cable is a braided cable it's quite
nice, it doesn't tangle very much, and it terminates in a slightly more than 90 degree
angle jack. So overall this is a well built cable, apparently it's Kevlar reinforced,
it's very durable. Another thing that's worth mentioning about the M80's is that they come
with this really awesome carrying case which fits the headphone perfectly and it stores
your extra cables. One thing I didn't like about this carrying case unfortunately is
that you do need to detach the cable to put it into the carrying case which is kind of
a little annoying, and the other thing is that the headband, just becauseI need to extend
it a little further for my head, I have to readjust the headband each time I put it back
into the case, so that's a little unfortunate. Now in terms of sound quality the M-80 is
a very rich, bassy sounding headphone. So it's got a real kind of chunky sound to it,
the highs are fairly rolled-off, and overall compared to something like the in-ear pair
of headphones, the Shure SE215, this is a similar sort of equivalent in the portable
headphone world. The S - sorry the M80 definitely sounds bassier and kind of richer in sound
than something like the Sennheiser Amperior, so it's much less agreessive, and it's got
a signature that works especially well in noisy environments or when you're travelling
because it won't get too aggressive in sound even if you turn up the volume quite high.
So all in all, it's quite a nice signature. Now if I were to nitpick about the sound,
because overall it's quite a good, robust sound, if I had to nitpick, one thing is that
the bass is that the bass is slightly thumpy and slightly slow in character. So it doesn't
have the laser kind of slam that the amperior has. And in terms of clarity of sound, in
terms of soundstaging, it's not quite as clean as the Amperior and it's not quite as clean
or as spacious as something like the Audio Technica ES10. Now obviously this is a cheaper
headphone than the Audio Technica ES10 and it's about the same price as the Sennheiser
Amperior because that's going on clearance at the moment so again if you can find the
Sennheiser Amperior for a similar price that I paid for mine, which is about $160, that's
the portable headphone that I would recommend. If you can't find it for that price I do think
that the V-Moda is a very competitive headphone especially if you are looking for a bassier
sound, and I'm very happy to put it on my recommended list of portable headphones just
because it's a well thought out package, it's a nicely built portable headphone with a really
agreeable sound, especially good for kind of modern studio recordings. If you listen
to classical or maybe more kind of jazz or that kind of thing you might find that this
headphone is a bit muffled, maybe not to your taste, so have a listen to it, if you are
a bit more of a all-rounder I would recommend something like the Audio Technica ES700, or
perhaps the Sennheiser Momentum. Anyway thanks for watching this review, I hope it's helped
you. You can talk to me on Twitter @lachlikesathing or on Facebook at facebook.com/lachlanlikesathing.
Thanks to everyone who's liked my other videos and subscribed to my channel, and happy listening!