I compared these speakers little brothers, the B3030A before purchasing against Genelec 1032A. The B3030A was less harsh and they seemed to have a more natural low frequency. Then again both are not meant to blurt out farting bass notes, and my own preferences are towards smoother tones, so the Genelecs didn't impress me anyway.


The speakers arrived with individually measured frequency response curves, mine are measured 01-11-2011, so that's friday, and my speakers are brand new! First impression was that they're HEAVY! And a bit ugly.. But it's the sound that matters, especially at this price the appearance of the speakers is decent. At home I compared the B3031A to the Wharfedale Diamond 10.5. The room compensation settings were all 0 for the review, we used Vangelis - 1492, Conquest of Paradise for the testing. The conditions were less than ideal, seeing that the Diamond 10.5 were standing near a wall and the B3031A were wider apart without any hindering walls.
 
in the song Conquest of Paradise, the male vocals seemed more dramatic and strong with the Diamond 10.5, but the B3031A reached lower, while Diamond 10.5 settled for playing back the upper bass. I've listened to the Diamond 10.5 against Dali Lektor 6, and they were a bit bloated on the bass even in a well dampened room, so it's definitely not because of the wall and this comparison further proves their tendency for upper bass emphasis. Monastery of la Rabida has pretty chimes in it, and cranking it up the Diamond 10.5 got more fatiguing and artificially sharp, whereas the B3031A seemed to ooze pleasant and smooth sounding tones. My little brother, father and me agreed on this. Pendulum - Slam humiliated the Diamond 10.5 whereas B3031A slammed the listeners with really strong low notes, even without the aid from a back wall.

In general usage, even with -6dB gain the Behringer B3031A are quite sensitive in picking up interference from bad sources. Although my AKG K 272 HD are silent with the FiiO E7, I could easily hear the familiar chirping and whizzing noises coming from my computer chassis whenever the CPU or GPU were under stress, and there's a constant hum even without any. If I could use TOSLINK instead of USB/Coaxial, I would de-couple the speakers from the computer and get rid of this issue. (I'm sure it's because it's running a ground through USB, if I unplug the USB cord from FiiO E7 the speakers are dead silent. I'll try out a Nuforce µDAC-2 if it has better power filters than the FiiO E7, or maybe I'll order a Maverick D1.. Anyway, the FiiO has to go, they don't do justice to the B3031A and it's getting annoying fast.
 
You'll hear many saying in YouTube and the such that the B3031A are bass light. Well, they say the same thing about AKG.. This is certainly not the case, as low notes in songs like Ayreon - Comatose, Nine Inch Nails - Corona Radiata etc. feel really powerful and accurate. Actually I believe this is the first time I'm rolling with a completely flat EQ and genuinely enjoying the sound from speakers (the AKG does the same with headphones). I also did a short time test where I cranked the speakers up to the max, and equalized +9dB of bass from 50Hz to 150Hz. The wind from the reflex tubes mixed my hair a bit and the sound had an immense amount of authority and slam. Rolling with a flat EQ now, they WOULD like a subwoofer to be honest, a huge one at that. 18" would sound appropriate, since the B3031A doesn't necessarily have any trouble going low, but it just isn't meant for LFE-channel rumbling and explosions. I took ½ stars for this.

For the money the only thing that could be better is the automatic switch, which kicks in whenever the speakers aren't pumping out more than 70dB or so, so the feature is useless for laid back low-volume listening as the speakers pop on and off frequently. I was slightly dissapointed with this and have reduced a whole star and a half for this, but having a tolerance switch for the auto-power option would be ridiculously luxurious for 360€ which I paid for these!

Just to note, I sold my Audioengine 2 clones and a 8" active subwoofer for $300, and got these instead. I'll never recommend a 2.1 set again when pure stereo solutions like this exist!

EDIT: The speakers have developed a rather annoying resonance. At 250-260Hz area when cranking up -almost sine wave-like- bass notes, there's a high about 1kHz droning noise. The noise seems to be coming out of the reflex port bezel and not the transducers, and it's more audible in the other unit. Other users do not report this, so my units might have gotten damaged during shipment (the box looked a bit battered but they were protected well). The issue isn't enough to disturb me during actual music listening, gaming or movies, but it's certainly something I'd rather not witness in a brand new product. I'll update this review if something comes up.

I'll be comparing it with the intergrated chipset in my laptop (Realtek AC'97) and the Nokia X6 phone with and without E7 as an amp, using AKG K 272 HD, Sony XB-500 and Sennheiser CX-300 and Audio Pro Addon One active speakers with a Tangent Evo E8 active subwoofer. Although I was skeptic whether something from DealExtreme could sound nice or not, I was quite pleasantly surprised.

E7 USB DAC vs. Realtek AC'97: Hands down, pants down, the winner is E7. No noise (don't own any really high effinency IEMs or the such but anyway), faster, more detailed lows and very clear and well extending highs in comparison. Compared to the headphone jack in my laptop there just seems to be way more separation to the instruments and music isn't some sort of a blur anymore. Then again I'm comparing it to a really low-end chipset so the difference is quite expectable

E7 as an amp for Nokia X6: overall faster, extends lower and higher, and less muddy. All in all it doesn't sound like the device is struggling to reproduce music with the E7 anymore, and the veiled muddy feeling is grealty reduced. It went three days without a charge, and that's quite good IMO. Anyway, I won't be using any power hungry cans or IEM on the go as of now, so this feature isn't too important for me. Still, it adds to the versatility and value so it's definitely a plus.

Bass Boost: I'm having difficulty deciding whether I like it or not, the sound stage seems to suffer from levels two and three, no matter am I using the speakers or headphones. It's a fun feature, but I'll have to do a lot more testing before I can say anything concrete about it.

Notes: Huge distortion and hiss under Windows 7 and Linux Mint 9/10 when running YouTube, Spotify or any flash applications. Hasa been getting quite annoying lately and I'll stop using this product because of it. Nobody else is complaining so I guess I just got a bad one, but I've lowered the SQ rating to three stars although it's really good when it does actually work.

It's an unfair comparison, but I'll compare them to AKG K 272 HD, source being FiiO E7 USB DAC for both. (I equalize the AKG by +3dB through 20-80Hz)
 
Build:
The soft, pillow like earpads are a godsend. The leatherette feels comfortable, and doesn't cause sweating. The joints and headband aren't as assuring, and feel prone to breakage. Since they're a gift for my gf I won't break them just to try it out. Oh well, atleast they're very light and you just forget about them in five minutes. The short cord has a cute tiny 1/8" plug that won't get in the way with portable use.

Sound:
First time playing Ayreon on them, which has plenty of beautiful female and male vocals, melodic instruments, reverb and all sorts of funky effects, I found the XB-500 mids lacking, and they just didn't seem to come from anywhere in particular, and there was this weird veil that took all the detail away. After the headphones had burnt in my ears in a week, the mids didn't bother and I wholeheartedly found the sound enjoyable, with a really entertaining lows and good highs. For 40€ the SQ is great, although bass at times felt a bit bloated and uncontrolled. With gaming the mid-range veil and smooth bass are a non-issue, and in gaming the soundstage doesn't run inside my head too much, so for gaming they're a really valid option, although they're certainly not horrible for music use either. Definitely not for the most critical listener, though.
   When my ears had settled for these cans and I swapped to the 272 HD, my ears faced a complete blackness in mids and highs and the dimension was far greater than with the XB-500, like there'd be another world inside the headphones. The bass felt a bit clinical and fell short after getting used to more, so props for the XB-500 making things sound 'fun' and groovy. All in all I preferred the bloated bass while gaming and listening to some genres like dubstep and rap, but with dance, metal and electronic music the 272 HD feels much more at home due to the crystal clear detail all around (especially when the shortcomings of bass are equalized.)

I'll listen to them for a month before handing them to my gf and see if my opinion changes, but I think I'll look for Beyerdynamic offerings the next time I feel like I want something with bass. They're a lot more expensive though, so I've got to cut the XB-500 some slack and admit they're awesome for the price. I'll try out the XB-700 if their mids would be better. I'm not rushing to the store to get another pair of XB-500 for myself, I'm sure my gf will plain love them! Although the overall tone of this review is positive and I like them, there's just something I'm missing that I have in the AKGs, hence the sub four star rating. Still, great value.

I got a gift card to this store and the only worthwhile earbuds they sold were these (others being some $10 really uncomfy looking Sony and Philips ones). I knew these are widely loathed, atleast among the elitists in 4chan. I can see why, but they're exaggerating in my opinion, these are fairly decent, especially if you can grab them for $30 something. More than that and you could do better, I suppose.
 
Sound Quality:
There's a load of bass, and it sounds OK and doesn't distort, but it could be significantly faster (in dubstep and speedcore, music detail is lacking. They're loud but not clear). On the go you won't notice this, so it's a non-issue for me. The highs could extend further, but then again these buds are really easy on the ears because they don't hiss or shizzle. Still, the highs are rolled off enough for these buds to sound excessively smooth at points, but for this price I forgive them.
A word of caution: these earbuds are quite sensitive, so using them from a laptop or computer headphone out is not advised or the noise will drive you insane. They might be less sensitive than IEMs of some sort but compared to regular headphones they're sensitive. The wire is also badly insulated and cracks and pops when it brushes with artificial cloth due to the static electricity, but that's only noticeable when not listening to music and in a fairly quiet environment, so that's another non-issue.

A huge plus for me is their durability. I've stepped on the wire and buds, dropped my cellphone with these plugged into them, slammed a car door on the wire and drove over the left earbud with it, ran on the forest and got tangled on a tree from the wire and the thin thin wire doesn't mind at all, although there's a crack on the left side bud they still sound as they were the day I bought them. And they look good too!
 
When these finally die from all the abuse they get, I'll get another pair, or get the CX-250 which have been said to be a bit more for less.

PS. Someone could maybe merge all these Sennheiser CX-300 II entries, there's now 4 of them.

Every time I put these headphones on I have to get used to some little nuances. That's because with some records, the mid-highs sound ever so slightly more hissy than with my Audioengine A2 look-a-likes, and my subwoofer is way more muddy and loud than the articulate, accurate bass of the AKG K 272 HD. The initial impression wears off after the first few minutes, from which onwards I really start liking the sound of these cans.
[EDIT: I confess, I didn't want to write this because I thought all the hi-fi people in here would flip at me but honestly, with equalizing by +3dB at 20-80Hz region and a -2dB at 14kHz onwards or by just putting the bass boost to level 2 from FiiO E7, the sound is much more pleasant and warm from these cans, while retaining their accuracy and fast nature. I don't perceive any negative effects after equalizing, they still remain accurate and fast.]

AKG K 272 HD shines with Benassi Bass and other raw sounding effects in music, which might be a partial reason why I like chiptunes and dubstep nowadays so much. There isn't much to say about vocals with these cans, they sound good but not exceptional. Some very nasal female singers sound really hissy, since the cans give them a boost of their own due to the mid-high fuzzyness (which might just aswell be the general sound-signature of neutral headphones, don't know. Anyway it goes away with the equalizing). With orchestral music and soundtracks the mid-high fuzzyness makes the track sound a bit noisy or sterile, but the bass boost setting in the FiiO E7 compensates that well when set to level 2. I've read the sound stage on these isn't too good, but at least in games I found them really good at pointing out enemy locations based on footstep whether they came from above, below, or somewhere else.

They're a tad sterile and nasal without EQ, but with it they're absolutely terrific. I was considering getting a crapton of other cans while these weren't satisfactory, but to me these are just perfect when I get rid of the excess sharpness.