Australia, the sound quality on the second was definitely inferior to the first. I'm not sure why their sound quality is rated so low, but the sound produced by the HD228s are quite similar to the ATH-M50s (both burned in), with the ATH-M50s having a more pronounced bass. Comfort wise... HD228 wins without a doubt, this is due to the ATH-M50s being a full-sized headphone (and the non-existent headband padding + pleather earcups that make your ears sweat). Not sure how much one should spend to have a decent set of headphones though. Wow at the negs on the not-so-positive-about-brainwavz-M4-posts\\... we're just giving my opinion on the M4 (mic). Perhaps I got a lemon, but it looks like if we did.. it's not uncommon. Definitely am not purchasing another brainwavz product blindly. Wish I could send them back! Me too. Not that it distorts, just sounds really half full. It sounds to me as if there's a built-in equalizer/effect in the IEMs that make it have this weird radio-speaker overlay, I can definitely hear the decent SQ underneath it though. My cx300s were purchased Australian retail in jb hi fi, so there is no way they are not genuine. I've also has cx150 from dixons in the uk, also pretty average. All I can think is that you need to burn in your m4, a colleague of mine got m5 and they sounded absolute crap until they had one hour plus of use, my m4 were fine out of the