noise-cancelling headphones

You should know a couple things before you read this review. One, I'm not a DJ and most likely never will be. I'm just a 15-year-old kid who likes his hip-hop. I'm not sure what difference it makes, other than the single-sided-monitoring feature...after all, regular listeners like good sound, too...but I thought I'd add it, anyway. Also, I've never owned really high-quality headphones until now. Before, all I had was the $20 behing-the-neck kind. So I guess this review is mostly aimed at non-DJs who haven't had expensive headphones before.

So the obvious question is, is it worth this much money? I got these as a Christmas gift, but I knew the price. I know sound quality is the type of thing where you pay a lot for a little, but for an extra $130 I expected there to be some pretty noticeable enhancements. There were. You get a more full sound with these than with cheaper kinds. It's clearer and richer. The way the earphones cover your entire ear makes it so you can hear all the details, so it sounds complete. These aren't amazing changes, but they are definite improvements.

But the biggest change, of course, is the bass. You don't just hear the bass. You can feel it. It vibrates in your ear. If you take off the headphones and press the earcups together, you can feel them shake with the bass. It gives the music more of a vibe, a kick, an extra level of intensity, whatever you want to call it. I was afraid it would overpower the rest of the music, namely the vocals, but the treble instruments and vocals still come through clear.

There's not much of a bad side. My ears hurt from being bent into the headphones sometimes, but that was true with my old ones, and it never bothered me that much, anyway. A slight adjustment fixes it, and you usually can't feel it except when you take the headphones on or off. The only really annoying thing so far is that in some songs the snare drums come out really sharp, so I have to turn the volume down. It seems to have a pretty strong design, so you'll probably be fine if you don't put them under too much stress. Not much of a price to pay.

But $150 is a pretty big price to pay. Listening to music on these isn't a spectacular, life-altering experience. It's a noticeable enhancement. But if you take into account that it extends to every single CD in your collection, it's probably worth it.

I really enjoy my pair of these headphones. They deliver top notch sound with killer bass. They can at times be uncomfortable after extended listening periods. I've had mine for about 7 months and use them almost every day. I noticed some people said they wear quickly but I have yet to have a problem.

I picked these babies up at an Ultimate Electronics a year ago because I was sick of my various pairs of inferior headphones that popped when I turned them up too loud. Also I was sick of not getting a good range of balanced, clear sound from my $20 headphones. The store I went to had about 15 pairs of various high-end headphones set on the same volume and connected to the same stereo. I compared them all and found that this model had the best sound. It had the second loudest bass (by a small amount) but the way it delivered the midrange and the highs swayed me to this model. The CD playing during my comparison had good bass (a blues track I remember) and plenty of blazing harmonica solos. This model stood alone in the way it performed on the harmonica solos. It was such a sharp and crisp sound, I felt like my ears were being aurally attacked (a good thing in this case). I'm not a DJ, nor do I use these for more than a few hours a week on average, so I know nothing of bad casing, but they're $150 headphones, so I think I'll be pretty gentle with these.