Sennheiser HD 439 Headphones

First, this is my first review ever. I decided buying these headphones after reading other reviews on this forum (thanks guys!) and I felt somehow in debt.
 
I'm trying to be as objective as I can, but nothing can change the fact that I actually love! these cans.
 
Comfort:
I wish I hadn't skipped so many english classes, so that I can express my feelings more accurately towards this aspect. I could literally forget that I'm wearing them and search them. Even thought they are circumaural and cover my huge ears entirely, wearing my sport-frame glasses isn't a problem at all. Ear pads are cushy and really nice. The only problem is that my ears sweat when I wear them outside more than 30 minutes and it's very hot (i usually sweat a lot). The earpads get all wet and i'm afraid that all that liquid could damage the driver.
 
Build quality and design
I didn't have much time to wear them outside the house, but I'm sure that when I do I'll receive a lot of compliments. The design is nice and nicely-done. They are light, but the plastic doesn't feel cheap at all. Now regarding the cables, due to my wire-tearing experience, I'm afraid that they wont last long. But they look kind of solid, made from matte rubber so I may be wrong. I don't know if the wire is tangle-free because obviously these cans don't fit in any of my pockets . The isolation is great both ways, when listening to music at a mid-volume with these babies I tend to scream when talking to somebody. These cans are "closed" enough to even hear/feel the bass of my own footsteps when walking. 
 
Audio quality
Ok, I'm afraid to do this because I'm pretty much a noob and this is the most expensive pair that I have had. I like the accuracy of the bass and not only. Now I finally understand the importance of bass guitar because I can hear every note. I can also identify the voices in a 3-voice choir. I listen to rock, blues, r&b, pop, pretty much anything and the HD 439 served me just fine So I would say that the sound quality it pretty good. I'm totally satisfied, anyway. I am happy enough to think about replacing my 6.5 GB of music with 320 kbps mp3 files, because i can sense even a quiet parasite noise in some 128 kbps tracks. The soundstage made me turn my head a couple of times Now, the source may be the problem and this is the reason why I'm looking forward to buy a pocketamp. My smartphone didn't let me down. The volume is loud enough even without using an equalizer. But while plugging these into some cheapest Logitech 2.1 computer speakers, I felt significantly more boom than putting them directly into my HTC Desire. Sound seemed more open, natural, like listening to speakers, not headphones. So i guess I'm gonna pull another 20-30 dollars out of my pocket to buy some amp.
 
Ok... Hope this helped. Sorry for my kind-of-bad english, by the way, and for not using right punctuation. You can ask me anything, as long as you want to hear a noob's opinion. Overall, if I could turn back time, I would definitely buy them again.
 
 
 
 

 
Just yesterday I went down to my local best buy and picked up these cans, and wow am I glad I bought these. Everything about them is awesome. The ear cups and headband pads are a velour type material really soft and comfy for hours.  
 
There are two things wrong with these headphones, 1. Where you adjust the size of the headband it is kind of weak. 2. Can't do my chores.
These cans sound awesome with all kinds of music from jazz to rap it all sounds good. Crisp clean vocals and bass, nice mids and highs also! I will post an update after about a week of listening.
The looks of these headphones I think are really cool, the mesh grille is a nice touch. Flat black and a sort of shiny silver color outside of the grille.
Overall these are a great pair of cans, detachable cable is a great touch by Sennheiser thats one of the main reasons I got these too, the cable holds in very nicely, you have to give it quite a big tug to get it to come out. It come with a 4ft long cable, and a 10ft long cable for home use (also a 1/4 adapter for home use). I am going to use them to game quite a bit also so I will update how they are with gaming in my next update in a week or so. If you are looking for a nicely priced headphones that is awesome in every way, get these. A great pair of cans for a great price! Note: This review is my first, and the cans are umamped.
Thank you for reading hope it helped!
 
EDIT: After one week of listening these babies sound better than when I got them, the bass really tightened up I used them a lot for gaming and they sound miles better than my Turtle Beach X11's.  Watched the Dark Knight before I go see The Dark Knight Rises, and they do sound great with movies, music, games I haven't found something that they don't sound good with! After the weeks past I love these even more than before!

This review is of the hd439 before using with an amp, i will post an amped one as well

These headphones are simply awesome, first off, i want to talk about the comfort, they are EASILY, the most comfortable headphones i've ever worn, they have absolutely no clamping force (and i have a big head), and the earpads are velour, so they feel like pillows they completely enclose your ear (my ears are also big), the earcups pivot around enough to fit any head and the headband is very flexible, with a velour pad on top.
These headphones were designed nicely, on the website it says they are closed headphones, and they look like open headphones, but the truth is they are semi open, but don't leak sound too much, except at higher volumes, the design looks professional, and not at all gawky like beats or soul (but those headphones shouldn't even be mentioned on this site), these cans will get compliments if worn to school or in public, but they don't make a statement, it is classy looking, simplistic and cool. i would have liked different colors, but the color is not bad enough to take a whole star off


Now to the most important part, sound quality, i used these unamped with laptops and mp3 players, after 20 hours of burn in, and i can say that the biggest problem is the volume, these have a 32 ohm impedance, but they need an amp to become loud enough, otherwise it will be very quite and you will not be pleased, the mids and highs blow me away unamped, and vocals really stand out. The only other quarrel i have with these headphones is that the bass has no thump to it... at all, unamped anyways.But. when you plug in a low end amp though like a jds labs cmoybb or even a fiio e6, it will hold its own in bass, not making your head rattle, but enough bass to listen to dubstep or heavy electronic music, those are the reasons I had to take one star off for sound.

the verdict; I love these headphones even more than the sr80i's and even the m50's in some cases, if you like the classic sennheiser's dark sound, then get these headphones and any cheap amp with bass boost to get a sense of what these can do.

here are some specs;
Transducer principle Dynamic, closed
Frequency response 17 – 22500 Hz
Sound pressure level (SPL) 112 dB (1 kHz / 1 Vrms)
Impedance 32 Ω
THD, total harmonic distortion < 0.1 % (1 kHz / 100 dB)
Jack plug 3.5 mm gold / 6.3 mm gold adaptor
Cable length 1.4 m and 3 m single-sided detachable OFC cables

I've been listening to these headphones for a few hours now after letting them play a burn-in file for 1 hour.

Music I listened to for this subjective review:
Deadmau5 (Youtube)
Dirtyloud (16bit/44.1khz ALAC)
Excision (320kbps/MP3 and 16bit/44.1khz ALAC)
Zeds Dead (256kbps/AAC)
Curren$y (320kbps/MP3)
Company of Thieves (16bit/44.1khz ALAC)
Wilco (24bit/96khz ALAC)
The Cure (16bit/44.1khz ALAC)

Source quality is important. If you don't understand why, google it.

Home audio setup:
x-fi titanium toslink --> Schiit Bifrost --> Schiit Asgard

Mobile audio setup:
iPhone4 --> FiiO L3 LOD --> JDSlabs cMoy 2.03BB

The sound signature-
These headphones are geared towards bass 'accurate'. The bass levels are not increased/exaggerated. From the iPhone4 headphone jack without an amplifier, bass was not as prominent and seemed a little flabby. Using the cMoy really tightened it up, and switching the bass boost function on increased the bass levels to my taste. The bass was perfect from my home setup, but I don't plan on listening to them much at the house.

Lossless tracks on my home setup were extremely clear, smooth, and concise. Electric guitars had a lot of drive and presented decent harmonics. In comparison to it's big brother, the HD558, it does not have the same harmonic detail during songs such as Oscar Wilde by Company of Thieves. It's about $80 less in the detail department. Make sense?

Lossy mp3 tracks had a little grit to them in my home setup, but it wasn't noticeable from my mobile setup-- especially without the amp.

Sound stage-
The sound stage is not very wide on these, but I don't think any headphones in this price bracket will have much of one anyways.

Major props-
Concise bass response when amplified. It's a little quiet and flabby when used with a smartphone directly but not unbearable. They're also not too sibilant/bright. In my opinion, these are a great option in the <$100 market.
 
Comfortable!

Minor complaints-
Really guys? 'Turbine' and silver ring? Fake, black mesh on a closed headphone? I'd have prefered something similar to the HD419 or HD429 in the aesthetics department, but I'm sure some consumers out there may like the look (high school kids, maybe?)
 
The cable seems a little thin and fragile. I'm really not looking forward to the day that it snags on something.

Just a little more bass level would be nice, but I wouldn't sacrifice any of the accuracy or tightness for volume increase.
 
Final thoughts-
I purchased these for the office and for away-from-home use in general. For $100, I'm satisfied.