V-Moda Crossfade M-80

You haven’t heard of V-Moda then you must live under a rock.  V-Moda are a company whose sole purpose in life is to give us amazing sounds through quality headphones.  They make an entire range of ear buds and headphones covering almost every price range.  The one area that never seems to change is the quality and style of their products.

You can check out the review I wrote of the V-Moda REVAMP True Blood High-Fidelity Metal Earphones back in 2011, which were some of the best fitting and awesome sounding ear buds I’ve had the pleasure of using.  For now, let’s move into the present and take a look at the V-Moda Crossfade M-80 on ear headphones.

 

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The award-winning Crossfade M-80 is the ultimate symbol of sophistication in sound and style. Authentically tuned by a legion of legendary musicians, Grammy-Award winning producers and audiophiles, the M-80 packs timeless materials, professional acoustics, natural noise isolation, ergonomics and military-level ruggedness into a design 53% smaller than its over-ear sibling.

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The Packaging

The first thing I noticed when the box arrived was the quality and size of the packaging.  It was deceptively small, yet sturdy and simply reeked of quality.  I was actually shocked at how small the box was.  After looking at various products online, it’s easy to think that these headphones are much bigger than they are in real life.  This is not a complaint, in fact, This is a good thing.

 

The Contents

Inside the box you’ll find a hard shell case the holds the headphones securely inside.  This is not simply a shipping case, it’s a full blown, very nice looking storage case that you can easily thrown in your backpack and be sure that the headphones inside them are completely protected.

Open the outer zipper and the case opens like a clam shell, folding down into two open half’s joined in the middle.

Inside either half of the case are elasticated areas that hold your Kevlar coated cables with the headphones themselves molded into the outer edges.

 

The Specifications

 

Superior Sound:

• 40mm patented Dual-Diaphragm drivers (biggest in class)
• Vibrant Bass, Vivid Mids, Vivacious Highs
• V-PORT V3 Soundstage
• BLISSâ„¢ Noise Isolation w/o Leakage

Military-Level Quality:

• Lightweight, steel construction
• Ergonomic Steelflex Headband
• Exoskeleton hard case
• Military-Level quality (MIL-STD-810G)
• Kevlar® reinforced cables (3-Button, 1-Button) passes 1 Million flex cycles

Built to military levels, the M-80’s have been rigorously tested:

• Cable/Plug Bend: Kevlar reinforced cables and 45-degree plug can each bend over 1 million times
• Concrete Drop: Survives 70+ drops on concrete from 6 feet
• Headband Bend: Headband can bend 10+ times flat
• Sound Variance: Virtually inaudible sound variances of less than 2dB versus 10-30dB+ of inferior products
• Environmental: High and low temperatures, humidity, salt spray and UV exposure

 

The Sounds

V-Moda have created one amazing sounding set of headphones. The V-Moda Crossfade M-80 headphones sound absolutely amazing.  Everything I threw at them came out far exceeding my expectations.  The only issue I had is that they sounded almost too good.  The sound was so crystal clear that I felt something was lacking, like some of the body of the music may have been removed.  This lack of body was only very slight and it became hard for me to take the M-80s off.  These are some of the best headphones I’ve ever had the pleasure of wearing, but I still have others to try.  While there was a slight something lacking to my unprofessional ears, the sound was still amazing and crystal clear.  Movies had perfect stereo separation and I could everything from ear shattering explosions to the quietest of voices with ease.

 

The Fit

No matter how good headphones may sound, you have to wear them for long periods of time when your listening to music or watching movies.  The Crossfades are a very tight and precise fit blocking almost all external sound from your ears.  This is both good and bad.  I found that wearing the Crossfades for extended periods became uncomfortable on my ears.  My opinion is that that the fit is a little too tight.  It wasn’t as if I had to remove the headphones immediately  but they do become uncomfortable with time.  For a headphone that costs over $200, I was unhappy and wanted to have the best of both worlds.

 

The Function

Headphones always take a beating and V-Moda Crossfade M-80s took every but of aggravated assault I threw at them.  With the claim of Military Grade Construction, I had to test them to some degree of punishment.  I twisted the headband almost in the complete opposite direction.  Dropped them from above head height multiple times, sat on them and pulled the wires in every direction known to mankind.  They came out looking and performing like the first minutes I’d removed them from the box.  These have to be the most resilient headphones ever made.

 

Conclusion

These are the first headphones I’ve tested in a whole series of reviews I’m currently working on and it sure is going to be hard to work through the rest when I feel like I just tested and best overall set of headphones available today.  They are portable, strong and sound amazing and I have no hesitation in recommending that any audiophile or casual gamer and movies go straight out and buy a pair of these amazing headphones.  They feel like they will last forever.

I did mention the sound and how I thought something was lacking, but its incredibly hard to quantify this and also make a recommendation when everybody has there own preferences and qualities they are looking for in sound.  Also as I said, this feeling was very slight and did not detract from my overall opinion of these amazing headphones.

 

Be sure to check out more V-Moda products on the companies web site found at http://v-moda.com

 

 

 

 

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