My feelings concerning the HE-500 shift from day to day; some days, I feel that the HE-500 is quintessentially linear in character, never exaggerating any part of the frequency response, always reproducing my music with the most impressive faithfulness and warmth--and the very next day, KAPOW, my opinion shifts, and I think "Oh my! This sounds just a little boring." I still plan to keep my Hi-FiMan headphones, mostly because I'm not married to one sound-signature, and what bores me today may enthrall me tomorrow. My feelings, by contrast, regarding the HD700 are rock-solid. The 700's sound-signature just does it for me, and though I might opine from time to time that the HD700 isn't the measure of its bigger brother, I'm convinced that the HD700 produces the most satisfying bass I've ever heard. Sure, the HD800 reaches deeper (far deeper) into well-recorded/well-mastered music; its bass, consequently, is cleaner and more holographic. But the HD700, by contrast, is concealing something special up its sleeves—that's to say, its bass is strikingly lean yet thumpy. I can't explain this any better; it seems almost paradoxical. Many headphones achieve this kind of bass presence by beefing up the mid-bass, which almost always detracts from the mid-range (Think Denon headphones). But somehow this is not the case with the HD700; its bass is scrupulously clean, but when my music requires slam, the HD700 always produces it with startling authority. IMHO, this is the HD700's most impressive attribute.
