These headphones sound fabulous with most music. They are very uncolored and don't fatigue or rip your head off. The midrange is very smooth and silky and they image vocals well. They are also the most comfortable headphone I've ever worn. I listen to hard rock, jazz and classical and find all that music pleasing through them. I use them for listening to CDs and in my home studio.
On the down side, as some people pointed out they are very inefficient and require a decent pre-amp to drive them. My Sony S2 Walkman can barely drive them so I use these with a Rotel stereo pre-amp or Mackie mixing board. They also distort if you drive them to moderately loud levels so if you like your rap music loud, these aren't for you.
I demo'd these against several other Sennhieser models (560 & 580 I think) and 3 Grado models in the same store. I also listened to some Sony MDR-7506 and AKG K240S Studio in another store. I thought the Sony's were a decent pair of phones and so were the AKGs but I found these to be superior in terms of having a very natural and smooth sound. The Grado's ripped my head off because they have a very bright and forward sound.
These headphones sound fabulous with most music. They are very uncolored and don't fatigue or rip your head off. The midrange is very smooth and silky and they image vocals well. They are also the most comfortable headphone I've ever worn. I listen to hard rock, jazz and classical and find all that music pleasing through them. I use them for listening to CDs and in my home studio. On the down side, as some people pointed out they are very inefficient and require a decent pre-amp to drive them. My Sony S2 Walkman can barely drive them so I use these with a Rotel stereo pre-amp or Mackie mixing board. They also distort if you drive them to moderately loud levels so if you like your rap music loud, these aren't for you. I demo'd these against several other Sennhieser models (560 & 580 I think) and 3 Grado models in the same store. I also listened to some Sony MDR-7506 and AKG K240S Studio in another store. I thought the Sony's were a decent pair of phones and so were the AKGs but I found these to be superior in terms of having a very natural and smooth sound. The Grado's ripped my head off because they have a very bright and forward sound.