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Love my v700djs. They sound terrible, seem pretty fragile, and aren't comfy at all, but I love them anyway lol
Kind of my feelings on them. Sorry to bring this one up from the dead, but I just found out that this model was discontinued and was in the process of writing a postmortem of them for my blog when I thought to check Head-Fi to see if anybody had said anything.
Basically, back in my younger (and therefore stupider) days, these were my first "real" headphones. I didn't like them at first (I should have listened to that intuition), but since I was forced to work with them (my parents were tired of shuttling me back and forth to Best Buy to return one after another pair of headphones which sounded like rubbish), I eventually got used to them, and even replaced them when the left swivel joint broke beyond repair.
I'll say this much. Everything you've heard about their fragility is true. I'd love to post a picture of my second pair--they're held together with twist ties, Gorilla Glue, and magic--but it's dark out and my crappy camera doesn't like taking indoor shots.
Soundwise, it's difficult to even evaluate them on account of their condition, so I'll do my best to recall what I experienced when they were new. Definitely on the dark side, though bass monsters they weren't. It was more like somebody lopped off the treble and hyped up the upper mids a bit. They had a midbass hump, but it actually wasn't excessive. In retrospect, this is exactly how I would design a DJ headphone. The rolled off treble would protect against fatigue at high amplitude, and the midrange and bass bumps would facilitate beat matching to drums and bass, respectively.
This whole ethos gradually changes as the fit inevitably loosens and the pads flake and lose their ability to insulate, until there's almost no bass. That's what they sound like right now. Basically, like every description of Bose speakers I've ever read: no highs, no lows, and grainy and indistinct. Switching back to my DT880 after listening to my old V700 for a few seconds reminds me of the revelation I had the first time I tried a couple truly decent pairs of headphones (the SRH440, and then the M50). And, unlike the state my second V700 was in when it was a little over two years old, my DT880 looks almost brand new. I like to joke that I could throw my Beyers at the wall and they'd break...the wall. I wouldn't want to see what happened to the V700 if I tried that. I get a little squeamish seeing carnage like that.
So rest in peace, MDR-V700DJ. Or, in pieces, as is so often the case.
