i got my hands on a used pair of shure srh440 cans. short impressions based on a couple of hours of listening and guitar playing and some comparison with the goldring dr150s i have for 5-6 years (i'm no english native, so please bare with me):
- fit and finish are decent for the price. i've seen a lot of sub-100€ headphones with awful build quality, and those are none of them. these are certainly better built than the goldrings.
- comfort is almost perfect. my head is on the small side, so i have to set the headband the shortest possible, but it's all right. on a small spot, the band touches the top of my head, making a small sweaty spot after a certain time, and that's really all i could complain about.
- the sound is pretty neutral, flat and enjoyable. these are not fatiguing headphones at all, neither regarding comfort, nor regarding sound.
- some reviews state that the treble is well extended for a closed pair; now, compared to my good old goldring dr150's, that's the only department i find the srh440s a bit lacking. especially at female vocals, i could use a bit more treble, but that's just me.
- bass is not overwhelming by any means, pretty tight, fast and controlled.
- the soundstage could be wider, but it still almost matches the goldrings (which are open). no complaints here.
- now the fun part: guitars sound ridiculously alive with these cans. i'm a bedroom rocker, i pick up my guitar when i can. for the last couple of years, i mainly used software emulated sounds and headphones for playing (neighbors...) and man, the 440s make it even more pleasure to play then ever before. the texture, the attack, the presentation did all surpassed my expectations.
- these supposed to be some monitoring headphones, and they really excel in that department. these are very analytical, revealing headphones, so bad recordings do really sound awful, and carelessly compressed audio files do sound crap. i also noticed that some of my flac rips sound considerably worse than the same records on cd, so i re-ripped a couple of discs with more care. also, these cans constantly remind me that i should practice a lot more and play more clearly, precisely. the goldrings offer similar details, still seem to be more forgiving.
considering that my son was just born two weeks ago and i need some closed stuff to keep the noise at the minimum, the shures came as a blessing. for laid back music listening, i'd still prefer the goldrings more forgiving, slightly warmer presentation, but i doubt they'll get much use with the shures being more quiet for the family and way better for guitar playing.