My instant impression on these was stick these on your head and listen to rock music, the bass is so punchy it keeps up with even the most intense kick drum beat and you can literally here the air punch between the kick drum pedal and skin when you're listening to punk music as the air goes thwack! The bass reflex is utterly amazing for rock music.
The sound on live tracks is awesome I'm listening to Bro Hymn by Penywise as I type this and its an experience that makes your head twitch as if you're in the room listening to the recording live. I can hear the siblance on live recordings, and the electric guitar distortion is well pronounced, the exact opposite of a chainsaw harshness, when it gets coarse, its still clear and pronounced in the mids and the highs and vocals are still present. The stage is fairly narrow as is to be expected for over the ear cans, but it is there. Your stage distance feels like you're standing about 30degrees of the singer.
As I switch over to listening Lupe Fiasco Superstar there is plenty, if not too much bass, which means you don't need to listen to music very loud, but though the bass drivers do take over its in a pleasant way it doesn't kill the mids and highs the way a set of headphones such as Beats would kill the mids and highs, it definitely is coloured and almost excessively so, but it's not bad by any means. It does better at playing a better mixed hip-hop/R&B crossover such as Drake - Hold on, we're going home, or even a true R&B/Funk cross over such as tracks by Michael Jackson where you can Jam before putting on a track like Unbreakable and drift off to the Butterflies. It will even do justice to disco such as Leon Ware - Whats your name.
I think I found this set of phones at a happy medium listening to Jamiroquai - Tallulah. If that is your thing the flutes are well pronounced, as are the vocals and the mids and lows blend almost perfectly to create a very flat and wide sound stage. The horns are crisp, they pronounce a good mix for that kind of crossover between house and jazz where they become very musical. You can throw in some other stuff like Aphex Twin, if you like that crossover to Acid House and ambience also where these cans come alive with a song like Flim the problem is you'll end up wanting to turn it up way to loud, utterly gorgeous.
