I'm in the same boat and also looking for possible replacements, not cuz I have a problem with the bulkyness or sweat (ok maybe a little when I do some online fps gaming sessions for several hrs in a row but that's mainly cuz of the physical stress as I can really get into the game so I'd barely notice if a house burnt down next-door and my brain start working at like 110% it feels like and it's nothing worse in that regard than the other headphones I've had).
I'm however like most head-fi'ers bit by the upgradeitis bug more or less and simply think it just has to exist another headphone that would satisfy me more than the $50 XB500. I'm very pleased with it really but I can't believe that there wouldn't be at least some headphone out there that I'd like better.
It seems to be problem finding expensier headphones with similar sound, it's quite rare in its sound signature; it's very forward/"in-your-face" sounding and very warm, hence it sounds very "meaty"/"full" as opposed to thin as many V-shaped frequency response headphones such as DT770 Pro or Pro900 for example. It's also very smooth sounding due to the somewhat recessed highs and a bit too exaggerated upper bass-lower mids range. The bass is perhaps the most exceptional thing about it though, it's very flat bass response for pretty much the whole bassrange, it goes nearly flat all the way from 10Hz ~ 300Hz !! I appriciate the balanced deep/upper bass ratio which is really hard to find it seems, it's only slightly more pronounced in the mid/upper bass by default but slight EQing will take care of that. I find it responding extremely well to EQing and if Sony would just balance it a bit better then they could sell it for $150 because the sound quality itself is that good IMO (you'll need to use a very high quality EQ to realize this though).
If any1 knows of headphones with such sound signatures, by all means share your info. I've personally been looking into the new JVC HA-S600 and HA-M5X but can't find them over here in my country or most other places in europe, at least not the M5X. These are only $50 headphones though but they just might have the similar sound signatures though and typically JVC they feature bass ports to emphasize bass output.
Edited by RPGWiZaRD - 5/1/11 at 12:47pm
