An open-back, planar-magnetic studio headphone co-designed with mix engineer Manny Marroquin. Sources broadly agree on the pillars: a neutral, mid-forward new-school Audeze voicing, repeatedly likened to a planar HD650/HD600 and confirmed by ten measurement rigs (flat, fully extended bass; a forward 1–3 kHz; 4–10 kHz well below the HD 600); accurate, well-matched imaging; solid but not flagship resolution; an easy 18 Ω / 100 dB load that runs from almost anything; a smallish, intimate stage; and — being open-back — no isolation. Most of what follows is disagreement. The midrange is loved by most but the 3 kHz lift reads as glare or shout to a sizeable minority. The flat bass is clean and reference-correct to most and 'mediocre' or lean to others; the relaxed treble is smooth and non-fatiguing to most and dark, dull or hard to mix on to a large minority; slam splits almost evenly. Comfort divides on the clamp — the most common complaint, worst on larger heads and eased by bending the spring-steel band. Build divides between materials nearly everyone calls a class benchmark and a run of owner reports of cracked connectors, loose drivers and imbalances. And value splits evenly: worth it to half the sources, overpriced next to cheaper rivals to the other half.
About this product
The MM-500 — Audeze's 2022 open-back planar co-developed with mix engineer Manny Marroquin, $1,699 since launch. Not the cheaper MM-100 (~$399) and not the newer MM-520, which Audeze now sells in its place at the same $1,699; Audeze's own store lists the MM-500 as a legacy product, though dealers still stock it. It shares the LCD-5's 90 mm driver size but uses the older Uniforce diaphragm, and is most often cross-shopped against the warmer, heavier LCD-X 2021.
Audeze's MM-500 is the open-back planar the California company built with mix engineer Manny Marroquin — a made-in-USA studio headphone that arrived in mid-2022 alongside the flagship LCD-5 and, with it, marked Audeze's turn from its old warm-and-dark house sound toward something neutral and mid-forward. Reviewers reach for the same shorthand again and again: a planar HD650.
Four years on it is both a studio fixture and an argument. The tuning and the fit-and-finish draw near-universal respect; the strong clamp, the 3 kHz presence lift, the recessed upper treble, the modest slam and the price draw real disagreement — and a growing file of owner failure reports sits under the 'built like a tank' consensus. Audeze now lists it as a legacy model beside its successor, the MM-520.
