Yenona Adapter-Free DJ Headphones

Today I am reviewing the Yenona Studio Pro Over Ear headphones from Yenona Audio. Special thanks to Allen at Yenona for granting me a small discount in exchange for a review. 
 
I was made aware of these awesome, budget cans by @Pharmaboy. Have to give him a shout out as well. 
 
Link to product, as of 12/11/16 they are $49.99! Cheaper than what I paid by a few bucks, well worth it! https://www.amazon.com/Yenona-Adapter-free-Headphones-Monitoring-Isolation
 

 
 
Let's start off by giving a brief background of myself, I'm currently 29 years old and have been listening to portable audio for about 16 years. In high school many kids had an early days iPod or some sort of MP3 player. I was rocking my good ole Sony Walkman CD player with some around the head over ear Philips earphones. I went through a few Walkman's and quite a bit of those Philips, they were cheap but I didn't know any better and loved em. Eventually by 2006/7 I upgraded to an iPod and moved through a few different gens until earlier this year when I moved onto a few different DAPs (Fiio/Xduoo/Opus), also about one year ago I started getting heavy into Chinese IEMs, thanks to this forum and AliExpress. This has been an expensive but great journey over the last year. 
 
As of current my desktop is a MacBook Pro with a Burson Audio Air via USB and my portable is an Opus#1 DAP. Both essentially have the same performance and essentially neutral sound sig. 
 
Now that that's out of the way let's get into these great budget cans. The Yenona are not made of materials like wood or aluminum/metal but they seem sturdy enough and cutting back a bit on the quality of materials has led to them to put some more money into the focus of the sound. That's what's most important to me, whats the point of super beautiful pair of phones that sounds like dookie, am I right?
 
Some specs:

1. 50mm Drivers
2. 20hz-20khz Frequency Range
3. 32 ohm
4. Sensitivity 110db +/- 3db

 
 
The pads are the main thing on these, big soft pillows that sit on your ears. Headphone itself is relatively light. The headband is nicely padded as well, Yenona is etched in the top with red stitchings on the edges. The outer shells have the Yenona logo, not sure what exactly it is but it looks cool! The cable itself is nothing to write about really, straight plugs, on side is 6.3 and the other is 3.5, the cable is also coiled on the 3.5mm side, and is red in color probably the weakest part of the phone.
 

 


 
 
Now lets get into the most important aspect, the sound! These babies have a pretty well controlled bass, if any bleed its very minimal. The treble is well detailed, large sound that can get a bit bright but is never harsh. I listen to a pretty wide array of music and Yenona have performed well with everything I have thrown at them. I gave them a 150-200 hour burn in, consisting of JLab Burn In track and Drums & Breaks Spotify station. I mainly used this with my Opus#1, pairs fantastic IMO.
 

1. Bass: Punchy and pretty well controlled, goes low but they are not bass cannons. Nor would I want them to be, that would cover up the other freqs. They have just the right amount of bass IMO. Midbass might have slight bleed but that is easily remedied by a pad change which I will cover later. 
2. Mids: Very well detailed and with a very natural sound. They seem to have a slight forward sound but it's not too for forward as to reduce the highs. A good amount of air provides a nice sound space, not a wide stage but nice staging none the less, slightly out of head. Vocals can get a bit strong but I've found it to be track dependent mostly.
3. Highs: Simply put, they are crisp yet they are smooth. The are detailed but non-fatiguing. Many companies will roll off their highs but Yenona has mostly kept them, giving way to some pretty good micro details in them that can get lost in other phones. 

 
Now, for the cons (and mods). Thankfully not to many and none that are of high importance. First off, the 3.5 on the right speaker is not good, it does not hold well, thankfully as said the 6.3 side is the one that plugs into the cans themselves and I use the 3.5 part of the cable for my DAP. Next, the treble can get a bit bright and bass can bleed ever so slightly, thankfully too this can be easily remedied by simply swapping the pads for HM5 pads. The thinner inner of the pad will allow for a bit more airy and clarity while pretty much cutting out that midbass bleed, downside is you lose the big cushion of the stock pads. Also, for about $15 shipped I got a custom 6.3 to 3.5 stereo cable from Cables For Less, I AB'd against the stock cable today and you get a slight boost in clarity and the bass becomes much more well defined. Special thanks to @peter123 for making me aware of the pad mod and sending me his extra pair of pads all the way from Europe!
 

 
 
Overall, these cans are one my favorite purchases I've made so far from this site. In my top 5. Stock they are very, very good. With the couple of cheap mods they are extremely good. I will definitely be keeping my eye on Yenona's future products. 

INTRODUCTION: A couple months ago I happened to see these headphones on Amazon.co.uk. There were many more reviews on Amazon.co.uk than Amazon US: most were very positive, with few coming from product give-away. I also viewed 3-4 YouTube videos about these 'phones. The common theme seemed to be young listeners using them at work, with mobile devices, or in some cases in home studies, and being rather shocked at how good they sounded. Most reviewers weren't sophisticated audio types or headphone fanciers, yet many spoke about sound quality, as if surprised to find themselves doing so. That interested me, so I ordered them from ebay; total cost, incl. shipping - $78.58.
 
Appearance:
I thought they'd look garish (that candy-color cord certainly does)--but they actually look understated and, beyond the chrome outside of each earcup, rather handsome. The 1st pair had a dead left channel, so after 3 weeks waiting (return/credit/reorder, this time from Amazon for just $59.99), the 2nd pair arrived. I'd never actually heard them, so after attaching am aftermarket cords (because that stock red cord looks like a Twizzler), I plugged them into my Matrix M Stage HPA-1. Would they work? Would they sound ½-way decent?

 

Yes...oh, yes! In fact, on that 1st day I had trouble taking the Yenona's off my head. They were shockingly good. That's with zero warmup, straight out of the box. I was really unprepared for how good they sounded.

 

Several weeks later, after ~125 hours of warmup, I had listened to them with a range of music (classical, pop/rock, R&B, blues, reggae, world music, jazz, American songbook singers) on 3 different amps:

 

-- DAC/amp, FiiO 10K

-- Matrix M-Stage HPA-1 (fed by Audio GD NOS 19)

-- Lake People G109A (fed by Audio GD NOS 19)

 
Usability:

Unique among headphones I've seen, these not only have a detachable cable, but one earcup has a 3.5mm jack and the other a 6.5mm jack. That silly-looking red cable addresses this design: one end has a 3.5mm jack, and the other a 6.5mm jack. This gives considerable flexibility for mobile vs home listening.

 

I never tested that cable & in fact, quickly ran into issues with the 3.5mm jack while using my excellent Ghent Audio 2M, 3.5mm to 6.5mm cable: the Yenona's 3.5mm jack is rather  loose--my cable fell out repeatedly. Finally I gave up and plugged the cable's 6.5mm jack into the Yenona's 6.5mm input on the other earcup. That is solid & secure.

 

Still, the low price of this product has to be evident somewhere, and input jacks seem to be the place. I would hesitate to repeatedly plug & unplug cables with these headphones on daily basis, tempting though it may be.

 

These headphones are rated at 32 ohms and were easy to drive with any headphone amps on hand (I didn't test them with a mobile phone or other miniature device).

 

The final picture above shows the 6.5mm end of my Ghent Audio cable plugged into the Yenona's,

 

Comfort:

Once adjusted for my rather large head & ears, these headphones were extremely comfortable. I haven't weighed them, but I'd guess they're in the 250-300 gram range, considerably less than the  Fidelio X2's. The pads are soft (though not squishy) & quite deep; my ears don't touch the drivers. Clamping pressure is low and the padding inside the headband is more than sufficient. After awhile, I simply forgot they were on my head. My ears do get warm during extended listening, as the seal is good and the pleather pads don't breathe much. Also, the soft foam of the earpads may eventually become a problem, though it hasn't been yet. I'll try replacing the pads w/extra thick Brainwavz HM5s (which may be slightly large for these 3.9" diameter headphones). But that's hardly a necessity…right now, it's all good. Overall, these are relatively light, manageably sized headphones.

 

Tonality:

The Yenona's have a warm sound, more of a welcome flavor than an overpowering coloration. Also, it changed as I moved from amp to amp, with more warmth on the FiiO, most of all on the HPA-1, and least on the Lake People.

 

The bass is good. VERY good. I'm not sure how much sub-bass there is (the Fostex TH-X00's definitely had more)--but the bass range is all there, strong in quality & quantity. If you want accurate reproduction of string or electric bass, the Yenona's will give you all of it. They'll also reproduce high-impact bass waves from well-recorded studio music with large bass transients: such the title cut of Donald Fagen's MORPH THE CAT, where the opening note is a huge pulse w/Freddie Washington's Bass, Fagen's Fender Rhodes, and no doubt over-dubs of each + 1-2 uncredited synths. At high volume, this cut is a real speaker killer. The Yenona's transmitted that full pressure wave…I really felt the bass (not all headphones can do this).

 

Interestingly, th bass didn't seem to bleed into the midrange or affect the balance of these headphones. I listened to much classical music on the Yenona's—a cruel & revealing test for typical  U-shaped, "fun" headphones—and was surprised how consistently good they sounded with this very different music. Every instrument in the orchestra sounds like it should. Again, not all headphones can pass this test. 

 

However, the Yenona's bass can become boomy & overblown when the amp itself is warm & bassy. This happened occasionally with the M Stage HPA-1 on certain recordings.

 

Treble is very nice: there's a little bite when it's present in the recording, and otherwise a nice sparkly  sheen. Just about perfect. Definitely not fatiguing or hyped, nor does it sound shelved or recessed. Particularly on the Lake People amp—the most "honest" of my HP amps—I could clearly hear more upper midrange & treble energy in some recordings, yet it never became bright & sibilant. The Yenona's have a graceful, non-aggressive way of signaling brightness in recordings…a neat trick.

 

Resolution:

To my surprise, these headphones have real resolution, far more than I expected from these inexpensive closed headphones. I could listen deeply into familiar recordings; details had subtlety & texture (this was  a big surprise).

 

Again, it was classical music that revealed resolution, as I could distinguish subtle instrumental timbres, the difference between singers, small sounds in the orchestra, etc. Also, in closely miked studio recordings of singers, intimate breath sounds, lips touching the microphone, etc. could be readily heard.

 

These aren't top-shelf Sennheisers or Grados. Still, the Yenona's seem to have more resolution than other headphones I've heard, including the Philips Fidelio X2's and Fostex TH-X00's.

 

Soundstaging:

Another pleasant surprise: the Yenona's have real soundstaging, admittedly not as much as open headphones, but more than other closed headphones I've heard, including the Fostex TH-X00's. There's real depth and space here. This was especially clear in classical recordings and naturally miked studio jazz recordings.

 

CONCLUSION: After all the analytical listening was done, I find myself grabbing the Yenona's every time I feel like using headphones. They're so light, comfortable, and easy on the ears that they've displaced the Fidelio X2's as my go-to 'phones. I've forgotten all about their low price and how they shouldn't be/couldn't be this good…I just put them on and listen. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

 

 

Footnotes:

1. If you search for the Yenona's, you may see a white-stitched variant lacking the red design highlights and shipping with a black cable, not red. For those in the U.S., be advised it's difficult if not impossible to purchase this variant (I tried). The pair you get in the U.S. is the red design.

2. I like the earpads of the Yenona's well enough to email the manufacturer and ask if I can purchase a couple extra pairs. For those who buy aftermarket earpads, you know the rarity of good-quality round pads (all the terrific Brainwavz being oval; and the Beyer rounds being velour, not usually desirable when replacing pleather originals).