Audio-Technica ATH-E50 Wired in Ear Headphone (Black)

The flexible sections meant to wrap up and over the ears give me painful rashes and hives on any skin area they touch the following day.

My ears are extremely inflamed and in pain, and I though it was because I had wrapped the cord too tightly up and over my ears. I then just had the cords dangle down along the sides of my face, and now I have rashes going down my temples.

Just to continue experimenting, I wrapped the headphones around my left arm. The next day, my left arm had hives and itchiness.

I repeated this on my right arm, and the next day, I got hives on my right arm.

I do not know what on earth these are made out of, but I highly doubt it is simply silicon!

Update (1 Week Later).
This might as well be made out of fiberglass or anthrax.

The swelling has almost fully subsided from my ears, however, there are painful itchy rashes radiating out from the patches of skin that came into contact with this section of the monitors.

I cannot sleep at night, and am in constant pain and itchiness from this.
I returned the item for a refund obviously, however, I greatly regret doing this.

I should have incinerated the buds.

Flat sounding earphones… I have the m40’s… these e50’s are very similar to them… width is great and good reference point if you’re looking for something that sounds natural… unlike the m50’s where the low end I slightly boosted… to be honest they are slightly on the higher side… but you you want to listen to music without any exaggeration, these are bang for the buck… the m40’s are great but come on you can’t get comfortable with them (sleep and enjoy music)

This is awesome product, only issue is the fitting and the silicone tips; they becomes loose after couple of days of usage.

Insanely good for just a single driver, these IEMs are almost as good as it gets within the price range. Made in Japan (yes, for real) by AT, they sure as hell do feel well built. The sound signature is fairly neutral, which is precisely what I wanted from these. I wouldn’t necessarily call it reference tier in that sense, but it’s almost there. They sound somewhat pleasing which is a fairly nice touch to the neutral signature, the imaging from these is very commendable. They don’t really need to be driven, but if you choose, they will be even better or atleast that was the case with my DragonFly Black. No real issues in terms of sound or build quality, there’s an included case which was a good touch.

So everything’s been looking good so far which would make you think, “why isn’t this guy using these things he claims to be impressed by ?”
Well here’s why, the cable that came with has pretty much a stiff but “adjusting” earhook. It’s not your regular plastic earhook, somehow for me, it’s even worse. My ears were already slightly uncomfortable by the weird fit it has, and then you add in a cable that is so stiff that no matter how much I try, it creates a weird rift and basically keeps moving the IEMs out of place, that I ended up being unable to use them without having to readjust them or have this weird little pain. Now I will admit that it may not happen to everyone but the fact that these are mid tier IEMs should somewhat warrant that the last thing to be an issue should be the cable creating a friction.
Yes they are detachable, except that AT decided to curse them with their A2DC proprietary connectors which means almost no one has actually made in custom cables for them.
So here I am, more than a year later, constantly looking at these when I grab my other gear and thinking what could’ve been.
The E50 is one of the best IEMs I will ever purchase from a quality/price perspective, and yet also (probably) my biggest regret as well.
Do keep in mind my experience with the fit and cable could be a one-off out of thousands of other while the sound, probably not since these are favourably reviewed by the community, take this as you will and make your decision.
A small note: I purchased these in late 2018 when they cost ~11k, and despite the price hike, I still would’ve grabbed them today had I not had the issues with the cable.

The accessories given were mediocre but sufficient. Sound quality is neutral, no extra bass or extra treble. Mid/vocal focused iem. Voice is smooth both for female and male. But the sound doesn’t justify its price.