they are what most people say they are very flatish BUT with a severe (almost painful) bump to the highs and a slight reduction to the bass. they have almost no physical bass (w/o amping) its "heard" but not felt. they have good detail and surround i can close my eyes and accurately point out where a sound come from but asides from being great studio monitors its not great at much else. it does play nice with a EQ to try and cull the treble a bit, but turning up the bass causes extreme distortion. they work great on a phone but amp really well with the fiio e6 almost to a fault since it can be really easy to distort these headphones. my biggest cons tho are comfort, the pads are thin and get very hot for long hours of use causing my ears to sweat. the top padding could have used a little more padding and the way the cable connection juts down from the left ear is annoying since it makes it hard to lean my head to the left. Also the mobile cable not having a 6.3mm connector set up like the other cables is dumb since i and many others do not like having a mass of excess cable on their desk. another minor thing i dislike about them is the have lost a lot of their clamping force on my head to where if i lean my head back they will fall off my ears or the band will slip backwards.