Audeze MM-100 headphones: More detail for fewer dollars$399/£399, audeze.com
Back in 2009, Audeze took the music production world by storm with its LCD-2 headphones. The LCD-2s showcased the then lesser-known planar magnetic technology to offer ultra-fast transient detail and impressive bass articulation, all with extremely low levels of distortion.

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The experience of working with planar magnetic headphones is much like having a high-end set of studio monitors strapped to your ears. It’s no surprise then that the original Audeze launch helped spearhead a headphone mixing and mastering revolution. Engineers and producers could pair their planar headphones with virtual mixing software (e.g. Waves NX and Realphones) to check mix translation on a number of sets of studio monitors and in various different rooms. After all, if you can get close enough with a quality set of headphones and virtual studio software, then why spend countless thousands on monitors and acoustically-treated rooms?
Audeze launched its first MM model (the MM-500) in 2022, with the help of Grammy-winning producer Manny Marroquin, though just like the LCD range, the ‘500s have a price tag that’s out of reach for the majority. The new MM-100s also bear the Marroquin name but are destined to overcome the barrier to entry, with a more palatable $399 price tag.
The MM-100s
How comfortable are the Audeze MM-100s?
Fit and finish are really solid on these headphones. The grey magnesium and steel chassis is stylish and offers a rigid construction that has no sense of being flimsy. The headband automatically resizes to fit your head and the ear cups fit around the ears without much of a clamping sensation. As the cups aren’t as large as some other models, your ears do get a bit hot with extended use. All-in-all, quality and comfort are a definite step up from our daily-driver planar headphones – the $299 open-back Hifiman Sundaras – which feel more ‘clampy’ but do stay cooler during long sessions.
A soft, drawstring carry pouch is included, but it’s pretty huge. It’s likely that Audeze made a single case that would fit both smaller and much-larger headphone sets to help lower the cost for the end-user. It’s a minor issue as most buyers would surely invest in a more rigid carry case to protect their investment.
As a neat and flexible touch, the single mini-jack connector used to connect-up the headphones can be inserted into either ear cup, with the cable terminated at the opposite end with a full-size, 6.3-mm jack. This is ideal for plugging into headphone amps and audio interfaces, but to switch to mini-jack you’ll need to use the provided 6.3mm-to-3.5mm converter cable. This adapter oozes quality but that’s also its undoing. It’s heavy and could become cumbersome when using a mobile device, possibly dangling under strain, which would be annoying and shorten its life. This is particularly frustrating as the low impedance and not-unwieldy size of the MM-100s make them otherwise ideally suited to music-making out in the field.
The MM-100s in use
What do the Audeze MM-100s sound like?
As you’d expect with open-back planar headphones, there’s plenty of articulation in both ends of the frequency range. At the high end, this manifests itself in smaller details of the mix like reverb tails and edit points being easier to hear, alongside satisfyingly crisp snare and acoustic guitar transients.
In the low end, bass instruments are fast to speak so that you can be sure that any congestion or masking in the mix is actually there and isn’t the byproduct of an inferior playback system. Sound-staging is accurate, with wideness and openness in the stereo field; we’re able to hear the difference made by the smallest of stereo-widening tweaks made in Ozone’s Imager module in a mastering project.
The sonic signature of the high-end reminds us of the Genelec monitors in our studio. There’s a satisfying fizzy sheen that flatters vocal lines, while various parts of the high-mid range either stand out a little too much or appear scooped.
The MM-100s on a desk
Comparing the raw, unadulterated sound of the Audeze with our Hifiman Sundaras, the high-mids of the MM-100s are more brutal and brash, while the Sundaras follow the smoother contour of the Harman target curve (which approximates how speakers sound in a room) with fewer spiky resonances. We don’t know whether this voicing decision on the MM-100s was considered to be beneficial for spotlighting areas of harshness in the mix, but we do know that the smoother response of the Sundaras means they can be put to serious work with little or no EQ calibration.
Once this major difference in the high-mids between the two competing models is observed, we swiftly reach out for EQ correction for the MM-100s. Making use of the system-wide SoundSource by Rogue Amoeba, plus a calibration profile taken from community-sourced measured responses at AutoEq, improvements to the frequency response are immediately obvious.
Gone are the biting resonances and instead there’s a new-found richness to the entire mid range, while bass tones are subtly reinforced too. It really does feel like the studio monitors of our dreams are beaming straight into our ears as we peruse more our favourite reference tracks.
While the SoundSource method is a reasonably inexpensive fix at under $50, it’s not so easy to apply an EQ profile when you’re not using a computer, so this might ultimately affect your purchasing decisions.
The MM-100 headphones in use
Should I buy the Audeze MM-100 headphones?
For those who want to perform critical monitoring duties on headphones, be it for location sound, editing, mixing or mastering, the MM-100s offer the Audeze experience for less money than ever before. They are comfortable, relatively light and solidly built, with a low impedance that’s suitable for plugging into virtually any device when on the go, despite the potentially-dangly ‘big-to-little’ adapter cable.
The MM-100’s planar magnetic drivers offer great transient detail and rich low-end without the onset of distortion that could detract from critical details in the mix. However, gritty high mids mean the MM-100s really benefit from EQ to smooth things out. Once equalised, they’re a force to be reckoned with, but this tends to be more tricky to achieve on mobile devices. Here, you’d need to like the raw sound well enough to be able to live with it.
Key features

Open-back, planar magnetic headphones
90mm transducers
Magnesium/steel chassis
Auto-adjusting headband
Cable can be plugged into either side
18 Ohms
20 Hz – 25 kHz frequency response
Comes with detachable cable, 6.3mm-to-3.5mm converter cable and soft carry case

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