This is in response to Logan's new video, if you have not seen it already, please go here first:
https://teksyndicate.com/videos/best-headphones-under-50-superlux-681-hd-688b-headphones
Okay guys so i'm in a bit of an interesting situation at the moment. My girlfriend told me to pick a pair of headphones for her to buy for me last Christmas because my pair at the time was so uncomfortable that it would feel like my ears were going to fall off after 1-2 hours of use. We're both super broke college students, so $100+ headphones just weren't an option. I just needed something with the best sound quality I could muster for my money with comfort also being of utmost concern. I ended up picking the Audio Technica ATH-M30's and I have to say that while I'm not necessarily bummed out about the sound considering they were only $40, they definitely do not sound even close to what I would consider good. The bass on them is absolutely abysmal, and across the frequency range they consistently give a lifeless, canned sound. The type of sound that you would expect to hear out of airplane earphones (well not quite that bad but you get what i'm saying). I have actually bought $10 headphones from Big Lots while on a trip once, and while those were obviously not nearly as detailed and sounded quite muddle, even THEY gave a more enjoyable sound despite their crappy-ness because they didn't sound so absolutely devoid of life.
When I was looking around for what to buy I searched around quite a few threads oh the Hi-Fi forums but found recommendations and reviews to be all over the place with really no sense of cohesion anywhere (come to think of it, this must be what people just getting into PC building feel like with all of the fanboy wars with intel/nvidia/amd). I ended up picking the M30's because I have heard the M50's and they sounded fantastic, so I was hoping that the quality would scale (at least somewhat) down with the price. I knew that wasn't an assumption I could make but I only had a couple days to pick so I took the chance. Clearly I was very mistaken.
TL;DR
So, my question is this: would the 681/HD 688B's be a worthy replacement for my M30's, or should I keep saving? Please bare in mind that if I CAN get away with not spending more than $50 on headphones, that would be much preferable because being a broke college student, there are many more important things I need to be saving for. I will use the headphones primarily for video editing, music/podcast listening, watching online video, and gaming (although I prioritize music/video editing over gaming).
Thanks for the help guys, I look forward to what everyone has to say.