When I bought these headphones about 2 months ago, I didn't expect much and I bought them without trying them out. It was an impulse buy to be honest, they were on a considerable discount and I just could not resist it.   Having no previous experience with Denon headphones (what I know about them came from reading the reviews of the old Dx000 series), and looking at the box design, I expected a bass heavy, V-shaped, "modern sounding" headphones designed for modern music, not really an audiophile grade sound. I'm happy to say I was pleasantly...

I bought these headphones just for the fun of it, to see how they sound with all that apparently amazing bass.   Well, for $50, they're ok sounding for extra bass headphones.  They do have a lot of bass, but its not a high quality detailed bass, its that one-note boomy mess that makes a boomy muddy messy veil over the rest of the sound frequencies.   Compared to my 6 year old Sennheiser HD212pro, which was a headphone in the same price range back then as the XB500 is today, I'd say the HD212pro is considerably better in about every single way...

Awesome, buy it now.   Tested with K701, DT990 Pro, DT880 600, HD650 and HFi-2400's.

These are my favorite headphones. I've had them for years, I don't even remember when I bought them, but still to this day, every time I put them on, they put a big smile on my face.   I own headphones such as Sennheiser HD650 and AKG Q701, and have owned many others much more expensive than HD212's, but none of them were as fun.   HD212pro are in my opinion one of those headphones which make you forget about sound neutrality, or soundstage, or imaging, etc...they just make you have fun.  Any music, from techno, dubstep, rock to classical and...

Read complete review and impressions here:   http://www.head-fi.org/t/540173/sennheiser-hd558-impressions-review