[Anarchy965]

I've heard talk on head-fi that only the HD-25-1's are audiophile quality and the HD-25-SP's supposedly are not, but I've also heard people recommend the SP's a few times. I ordered the SP's about an hour ago but I'm not too good a judge of audio quality yet since these will be my first good pair of cans(though I can easily tell the difference between my er6i's and my old Sony MRD-V150's.

I'll never use the V150's again, they're terrible. I can also [easily] tell the difference between my new audio card and my old onboard audio<---{yechk!}) By the way the SP's are only 89.99 w/ free UPS ground shipping from J&R!

 

[incognitoedleon]

They're okay headphones. I'm not impressed by the sound quality across the board. However, they have a fast, aggressive sound and work well with rock. The SP's provide excellent isolation and they're quite durable. They're fun headphones, but don't get your hopes too high.

 

[jagorev]

It's a darn good headphone that sounds very fun. Hard to beat for an isolating traditional headphone in this range, especially with rock music.

And "audiophile" is a relative and fairly useless term. I consider the Grado SR60 or Senn HD580 to be audiophile in relation to most mass-market products. But I know people on this board who will claim that the only halfway-audiophile headphone being produced now is the Stax Omega II, since the Orpheus, K1000, R10, Qualia, and L3000 have all been discontinued. They will sometimes condescend to use a RS1 or HD650 when they want to go slumming.

So..yeah...what matters is what sounds good to you, and matches your budget nicely. Hope the 25SP works out for you!