[akvr]

Hello
Those will be my first headphones. I want detailed and high quality sound, also for music but not the main purpose, i will use to hear talking and other things.
As i understood, HD518 is better but i want without sound leak, so
1. How bad is the leak if i'm on my room alone?
2. Which is better on the things i mentioned and how big is the difference?
And overall, which has a better sound?
Thanks

 

[Southak]

Both headphones have very good sound quality. The HD 518 are very open and leak a lot of sound - HD 439 is closed and doesn't leak sound at all. Overall the best sound quality is the HD 518 but this is as you would expect - it costs 50% more. I think you would be happy with both headphones so you have to decide if it is more important to have a closed headphone with no sound leakage or an open headphone, with better sound quality, but which leaks sound.
 
Do also consider that if you would use the headphones with a mobile device (iPod, MP3 player etc) then the HD 518 is harder to drive and often mobile devices do not provide it enough power to go to decent volumes. Also because it is so open if you use it on the move then the music will be drowned out quite easily.

 

[akvr]

thank you very much