Shipping was especially fast and these arrived today.
I won't make any rash comparisons, but they sound *very* good indeed. They are closed, so not so airy or spacious as open cans. Nonetheless, they maintain a bit of air, and they are quite good at separation. They have luscious mids. They have very *significant* bass, though it is not muddy, and I wouldn't even say that it's overemphasized. Rather, the cans I've been listening to recently (the Senn HD650s) tend to make everything sound like somebody's interpretation of "natural"--meaning nothing out of Senn-balance. The Sonys make jazz and acoustic sound defined but pretty natural. They produce a thumping, guillotine-cutting version of rock and electronica when that's what you shoot through them. They are more like closed Beyers than they are like open Grados. I'm not missing the Senns at the moment. Given that these Sonys were just about a third of the cost of the Senns, I'd say they're an excellent bargain. I'd bought them for portable play, but they're far to nice to get bashed and scratched in the back of my bag.
