Monoprice Premium Hi-Fi DJ Style Over Ear Pro Headphone

After some reviews, and not being able to buy some expensive headphones, I end up choosing these babies. Oh boy and they really have a sexy bass, I tell you that! And be assure that these are for the bass heads out there looking for a budget headphones, and will no be disappointed for the money.PROS: Sound quality for its price, detachable cable, crisp highs, good mids, bass is clean and powerful.CONS: Earpads make your ears sweat and can get unconfortable, zero soundstage, tend to get muddy in complex music._I'll give some insight on the sound of the headphones, and what I got to compare is another budget headphone - the Superlux HD681. I bought both on amazon.co.uk at £17'ish shipped to Portugal.So, knowing what Superlux is capable, I decided to test the Monoprice with just three tracks that tells me what I want to know on the headphones for my personal liking:Note: I am using an amp but not equalizing the sound. And I didn't let the cans fully burn in yet (using them for almost 1 and a half hour now [while I wrote this review])._Sound:- Kanye West - Love Lockdown- Alexandre Desplat - Birth - Prologue- Massive Attack - TeardropThese tracks give me insight on the bass, range, dynamic, balance, mids and highs. You can tell from all tracks, the bass is the soul of these cans but, the bass tends to muddy and compromise other audio aspects on busy tracks, like the mids.Mids are ok and feel good, and personally the highs are a bit overwhelming (really depends on what you are listening) and tend to be fatiguing, a thing that some reviews told to be good in these cans. I was expecting that Monoprice wouldn't even compete with the Superlux in this matter (Superlux have super harsh highs).The Monoprice have practically zero to none soundstage, and for me this is the most disappointing thing about them.The Superlux soundstage is superb comparing to the Monoprice. But Superlux also wins on detail and clarity. The Superlux are cold and bright; the Monoprice sound is warm and ease on the ears. You get the picture... Both need some tweaks on the equalizer, and then you sure have a awesome potential headphoneThe cables are well built and seem of good quality, but I noticed a bit difference in sound by using the long and thicker cable opposed to the short and thiner one. The short one make the headphones sound better. Don't know if the long one has more impedance or something like that, but in fact I noticed a difference.They have great sound isolation and leak almost no sound.EDIT ON SOUND 08-JAN-'15: After months of fair use, these sound even great. Damn the bass... If you are going to listen some heavy bass music this puts an instant smile on your face._Comfort: They are comfortable enough. But the headband feels awkward. I feel like someone is pressing a finger on the top of my head. The ear pads are OK on quality but they indeed get sweaty like everyone says. You can get the Beyerdynamic EDT-250 velour pads to fit directly, but they cost more than the Monoprice headphone. :) The pads might not also fit everyones ear as they tend to almost not to fit mine (I don't have large ears btw) Personally the clamping force is noticeable, for some it could be nice to wear but for me is a bit uncomfortable (I'll give them a stretch time to time)There are some users that mod these headphones by adding a cushion headband selling here on amazon, they claim that with EDT-250 ear pads the comfort goes high as it can.EDIT ON COMFORT 08-JAN-'15: These headphones really need a new pair of earpads. For me this is the biggest problem concerning confort. Its not even the fact of the sweat part, but the quality of the "leatherette" itself and the pads are not the most soft ones, they look on ok pressed with your finger but over the ear, its a different story._Portability: Being able to rotate 90º, swivel and having a removable cable, they are impressively portable._Overall: I definitely recommend these. They are basically perfect for the price, unless you are looking for soundstage. With their amazing bass, sound quality, detachable cable, and price.Go on and put some Dubstep or other thumpy style music to use these :DThanks for reading

They aren't the most comfortable headphones but what they lack in that they make up for in price and sound quality, they punch a bit above their price bracket and that's impressive, but the headphones I've compared them too also punch above their price bracket so it wasn't too fair. Overall though I rate these strongly, good isolation more than pleasant sound despite the lack of frequencies. They did well with what they had, dirt cheap pads and a slight squeezing force but it's tolerable, and if you can find aftermarket earpads jump at them (although given the price it'll depend on if you think it's worth it)

If you were looking for a high definition sound quality this was it. I haven't tried many expensive headphones, but I reckon this would beat others much more expensive. Perhaps, this is because it suits my taste.If you hate booming sounds, like bass but equally value thin subtle sounds then this is for you.Negatives: Not much, some reviews are saying the build quality has deteriorated over the years, my last one completely snapped after 7 years so I'm going to buy another. If the new one is anywhere near durable as the last one I'm more than happy.EDIT- I just bought one for 7 pounds more the what I originally paid and the sounds are not natural anymore. It sounds like any other cheap headset out there but perhaps better than the worst ones. The only saving grace is the separable audio lead- and this is still one of the cheapest available headsets for that. Just a shame that the quality had to worsenUpdate- My reservations about quality were unfortunately true not only in the sound quality but also in build quality-less than 6 months in the headphone is cracked now- and barely maintaining the shape with the help of outer plastic. The previous one failed almost exactly the same way except it took 6 years :(Update 02/01/2022Exactly 6 months later, the headphone is no longer fit for purpose.Update 09/01/2022After buying a replacement set of headphones (Marshall pre-owned), I had a bit of an inspiration and managed to fix the broken headphones with some cello tape. Couple days later the headphones arrive and sounded fairly horrible in terms of sound clarity but decent in bass. This led me to fix the older set of headphones to compare. Not sure if this is necessarily the case but there seems to be some sort of trade off between bass quality and sound clarity. By clarity, I mean being able to tell the different instruments apart, feeling like you're in the middle of an orchestra that's playing just for you. Of course, it's probably way too much to expect for a cheap pair of headphones but to be honest the first pair got pretty close.Now that I'm aware of the base clarity trade off--(still not sure if it's a real thing, but I've seen two decently priced headsets equally crap in clarity but great for bass) -- I've noticed that the first pair probably had the worst bass performance but I never missed it. There's maybe one or two songs where you appreciate the bass at lower volumes but there's always the option to crank up the volume. Now that I've managed to fix it, I've put the rating back to 4 stars. Would've been 5 if it didn't break so easily.