[pukism]

I would like to buy a general purpose headphones with some emphasis on bass. The XB500 appears to be great in many ways except for sound leak. What would you recommend in similar price / quality range?

 

[Kukuk]

I think the AKG K81DJ's are very comparable in sound, though isolate very, very well.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

The AKGs lose bigtime in soundstage, it's the headphone with absolutely worst soundstage I've heard even compared to XB500 it's far behind as well as bass extension, the AKG have lots of punchy mid bass but lacks subbass response IMO, bass extension and soundstage and comfort wise put aside they are very similar, a warm presentation (mids are a bit more present in relation to highs) with very up-front / on the stage sound. I don't know any similar sounding headphones in that range.

 

[pukism]

what about Audio Technica SJ33?

 

[ramzes235]

here info about the audio technica sj series  http://www.headfonia.com/audio-technicas-entry-level-trio-sj11-sj33-and-sj55/

 

[Kukuk]

I had the SJ55's, and I can say they really don't even compare. They have a decent amount of bass punch, bur their overall sound seemed very weird to me. I guess the best way to describe it was it had a lot of strange peaks and valleys. The upper-mids were kind of spiked, while the lower mids were almost entirely dropped out. Some bass notes seemed outright missing, while others seemed to stand out too much. I think they were the strangest headphone I've ever heard, to be honest.

 

[pukism]

What about Denon AHD301, Panasonic HTF890 or JVC RX700? Or should I just stay with XB500 and enjoy it?