Very Impressive

I contacted Future Sonics for the specific purpose of obtaining a review pair of these Ear Monitors. In a shootout between this universal pair, and 3 other custom pairs, they not only highly exceeded my expectations, I also decided to buy the pair.

The sound of these ear monitors is something special. They have clear, distortion free, and very present low end sound, crisp clean highs with a smooth response and a very well defined mid range. Listening to these ear monitors is similar to listening to a set of very good studio monitors. Even mixing on these allows me to make similar decisions to very expensive monitors. They're a joy to listen to music on, and very comfortable.

For performing, I was slightly disappointed. I would disagree on the amount of isolation, but I will say it's pretty good. The problem with these units comes with moving on stage, because of the movement, and sweat they tend to move around, opening up for the loud sounds and stage noise to leak in, and fell out a few times. Other than that, they remained comfortable throughout the performances, and provided good isolation and allowed me to hear my mixes in perfect sound.

If you're looking to move around a lot, I'd suggest going with their custom sleeve, and you wont get any slippage or leakage no matter how much you move on stage. These are a GREAT price with AWESOME sound quality and I'd recommend these to anyone looking got well priced universal ear monitors.

Impressive Product, Impressive Price.

Im a full time monitor engineer and i purchased the M5's for mixing musicans with IEM's. Before i had to use my cue wedge and guess how it would translate into the artist's ears. My intention was to get a middle level set of earbuds for work with musicians that bring their IEM's to my venue. When i received my pair, i plugged them into my laptop and started playing songs. I was immeditaly impressed with the clarity and full range of the drivers. They sounded better than my set of Sony full ear cans! My only complaint is that even using the smallest silicone adaptors, they still felt a tad bit uncomfortable and large in my ears. I swtiched to the smaller foam plugs provided in the box and they have worked out great since.

A few days later i had my first chance to mix a show with them, and they performed extremely well. They do an excellent job isolating outside sounds, and have a ton of headroom. I was mixing at medium volume, and all the instruments were clear and huge and there was no distortion from the drivers overloading. At times it felt like the low end was clipping a little bit, but i pulled a little bit out of the kick drum and it cleaned everything up just fine. I would highly reccommend these headphones to any musician, or engineer thats looking for a step up in their IEM's and want to stay within a reasonable budget.

Fantastic sound quality

These are some of the best sounding IEMs I have used!
They can be difficult to fit, but once they are in they are AMAZING!