After reading lots of reviews on Amazon, I decided in favor of the Sennheiser HD-280, having let the terrific price tempt me. Within a week, I also bought a Sony MDR-V900 for my wife, who uses them for recording and wears them an average of two hours a day. She likes the way they reproduce her voice and guitar. To compare the two I plugged them alternately into my Macintosh iBook G4 and played several kinds of music from iTunes. The Sennheisers block ambient sound better than the Sonys. Both are very comfortable. The Sony set is louder at the same volume setting, and oddly tends to flatten the dynamic range a bit; soft and loud passages are brought closer in volume. The Sennheiser headphones keep individual instruments separated better. Deep bass notes seem less muddy. Highs are clear, and the midrange where voices reside is nicely rendered. The differences are subtle, and it takes a lot of back-and-forth playing of the same passage to really appreciate the difference. I'm very happy with my choice of Sennheiser.
After reading lots of reviews on Amazon, I decided in favor of the Sennheiser HD-280, having let the terrific price tempt me. Within a week, I also bought a Sony MDR-V900 for my wife, who uses them for recording and wears them an average of two hours a day. She likes the way they reproduce her voice and guitar. To compare the two I plugged them alternately into my Macintosh iBook G4 and played several kinds of music from iTunes. The Sennheisers block ambient sound better than the Sonys. Both are very comfortable. The Sony set is louder at the same volume setting, and oddly tends to flatten the dynamic range a bit; soft and loud passages are brought closer in volume. The Sennheiser headphones keep individual instruments separated better. Deep bass notes seem less muddy. Highs are clear, and the midrange where voices reside is nicely rendered. The differences are subtle, and it takes a lot of back-and-forth playing of the same passage to really appreciate the difference. I'm very happy with my choice of Sennheiser.