Hi, just a quick mash-up of what I wrote somewhere about HD 25.
*Clamping, isolation - When I'm commuting for almost 4 hours it can be quite annoying. On the other hand I was angry that my ATH-SJ5 has weaker clamping force after a year, thus less isolation, it would easily fall off, so I should be happy with what I have now. The only problem is that I have to have full-sized, cheap headphones in both places where I live during the week. Otherwise I'd have to buy 2 good home headphones, or carry one with me while commuting between those 2 places....(as using HD 25 at home is bad for the clamping and you won't be able to endure the clamping for several hours).
*Earcup size - Circular, ca 6,7cm outer size, 2,7cm inner size. I have bigger ears so they barely cover them but the size is ideal for a portable solution.
*Earcup size - Circular, ca 6,7cm outer size, 2,7cm inner size. I have bigger ears so they barely cover them but the size is ideal for a portable solution.
*SQ - It's good but a large portion of the price paid covers the build quality and such. It doesn't suit rock-crossover genre much (distortion effect on guitars etc.) but I was surprised how good Alanis Morisette's Flavours of Entanglement album sounds. I just expected more "wow effect", like when I heard BD DT 231 which has nice amount of bass, detail and great soundstage (for the money).
UPDATE: Recently I noticed that my SH HD438 sound a lot thinner but has
better soundstage while my ATH-SJ5 is muddier in general but has similarly pronounced bass
. So the sound quality jump isn't that small as a thought when I was writing this review, just that SJ5 probably has similar sound signature while I was expecting even more bass (hehe).
*The cable - Frankly, 1,5m is a little too long x). I have to fit the rest of the cable in my pocket and the microphonics still remains the biggest problem I have now. It's loud, annoying and very impractical cable, it gets very stiff in winter due to the temperature 
. The jack is great, rock solid.
. The jack is great, rock solid.*Built quality - light, flexible, small, durable, replaceable...all the things I'd personally expect from much cheaper headphones for the cost of lower SQ but this is how the market works. Since it's not as bad as mobile phones or laptops, I'm ok with that.
Conclusion:
I like them a lot, it's just that I'd be ok with lower SQ and lower price because for portable solutions the built quality and isolation is what I was looking for (given that the cost is higher in the Czech Republic).