Reviewing these because I took a chance on $17 headphones, won big and want to share the experience.
Bearing a very close resemblance to some popular AKG models and being similar to several Audio-Technica models, these closed circumaural headphones are priced to deter anyone interested in quality. This is a shame, as they are surprisingly comfortable and sound far better than I expected for my $16.99 from Monoprice - $19.99 "sale" price and 15% discount from Monoprice.
For your reference my daily headphones are two Sennheiser HD 439s with a one hole bass mod, which replaced my broken HD 555 with foam mod. They are usually driven through a FiiO E6. My PC speakers include dual SVS SB-1000 subs and home theater includes a SVS PC12-NSD.
The glossy cardboard product box contains just the headphones in a plastic bag with cardboard supports. The delivered product looks exactly like the pictures, even down to the crease in the pleather pads. The headband supports are plastic coated metal, the headband is a soft plastic, the cups and other parts are plastic but all have a nice finish and feel smooth and solid. On my kitchen scale they weigh in at a comfortable 240 g (8.4 oz.).
After being burned in by two days playing a selection of live King Crimson from their current tour loudly from an old Sony STR-DB840 receiver in the basement (yet audible on the second floor), my first demo track was Kenji Kawai's "Ghost in the Shell" soundtrack played from my Nexus 5 through the FiiO E6. The opening track, "Uta 1 Making of a Cyborg" alone is excellent demo material, having acoustic instruments including big drums with fairly deep bass, high bells and female vocals. The live performance is also a good listen. For some deep bassy but melodic electronic music, I played SiebZehN "Starship Signals". Going back to the basement, the selection so far has included Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, IQ, King Crimson, How to destroy angels (another great melodic bassy choice), Philip Glass and lots of Steven Wilson.
After over ten hours of listening to familiar music with several multi-hour sessions, these headphones have failed to play a note wrong or cause any discomfort. That's extraordinary in my experience. My head is fairly large and my ears aren't small, but the pads are easily large enough to fit around my ear and the cups press with just the right clamping force to give a good seal without any uncomfortable pressure and are deep enough that my lobes barely touch the surface.
A few frequency sweeps show the useful low end dropping off around the usual human limit of 20 - 25 Hz and the high end goes up past 20 kHz without noticeably fading. While I'm hesitant to use the typical poorly defined and highly subjective terms to describe the performance of the headphones, it would be true to say that the soundstage is pleasingly large for closed headphones, the bass is not at all boomy and even a plucked upright bass sounds good. I've yet to hear any harshness. I've not tested to see how loud they can go before audibly distorting because they can get very loud without a lot of amplification.
Looking forward to your reviews and comparison with other headphones.
Bearing a very close resemblance to some popular AKG models and being similar to several Audio-Technica models, these closed circumaural headphones are priced to deter anyone interested in quality. This is a shame, as they are surprisingly comfortable and sound far better than I expected for my $16.99 from Monoprice - $19.99 "sale" price and 15% discount from Monoprice.
For your reference my daily headphones are two Sennheiser HD 439s with a one hole bass mod, which replaced my broken HD 555 with foam mod. They are usually driven through a FiiO E6. My PC speakers include dual SVS SB-1000 subs and home theater includes a SVS PC12-NSD.
The glossy cardboard product box contains just the headphones in a plastic bag with cardboard supports. The delivered product looks exactly like the pictures, even down to the crease in the pleather pads. The headband supports are plastic coated metal, the headband is a soft plastic, the cups and other parts are plastic but all have a nice finish and feel smooth and solid. On my kitchen scale they weigh in at a comfortable 240 g (8.4 oz.).
After being burned in by two days playing a selection of live King Crimson from their current tour loudly from an old Sony STR-DB840 receiver in the basement (yet audible on the second floor), my first demo track was Kenji Kawai's "Ghost in the Shell" soundtrack played from my Nexus 5 through the FiiO E6. The opening track, "Uta 1 Making of a Cyborg" alone is excellent demo material, having acoustic instruments including big drums with fairly deep bass, high bells and female vocals. The live performance is also a good listen. For some deep bassy but melodic electronic music, I played SiebZehN "Starship Signals". Going back to the basement, the selection so far has included Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, IQ, King Crimson, How to destroy angels (another great melodic bassy choice), Philip Glass and lots of Steven Wilson.
After over ten hours of listening to familiar music with several multi-hour sessions, these headphones have failed to play a note wrong or cause any discomfort. That's extraordinary in my experience. My head is fairly large and my ears aren't small, but the pads are easily large enough to fit around my ear and the cups press with just the right clamping force to give a good seal without any uncomfortable pressure and are deep enough that my lobes barely touch the surface.
A few frequency sweeps show the useful low end dropping off around the usual human limit of 20 - 25 Hz and the high end goes up past 20 kHz without noticeably fading. While I'm hesitant to use the typical poorly defined and highly subjective terms to describe the performance of the headphones, it would be true to say that the soundstage is pleasingly large for closed headphones, the bass is not at all boomy and even a plucked upright bass sounds good. I've yet to hear any harshness. I've not tested to see how loud they can go before audibly distorting because they can get very loud without a lot of amplification.
Looking forward to your reviews and comparison with other headphones.
