Budget easy studio headphones, sound great for their price.

These headphones handle heavy bass very well and get real real loud. They do a great job dampening sound around you and fit tight. I like em. If you play edrums and you need some monitor headphones or just need better headphones than your Razers, I'd say get these.

There's a reason studios keep these handy

The Good (aka, what it does better than my ATH-m50s):

1. Outstanding isolation from exterior noises. I bought these because I found myself working shoulder-to-should with a colleague in a small room many years ago. I wanted the material I was listening to to bother my colleague as little as possible, bleed-wise, and I also needed as much exterior isolation as I could get without resorting to noise-cancelling phones. These were the best option on the market at the time (10+ years ago) and likely still are. If you don't care about outstanding passive isolation, then you should probably be looking at a different pair of headphones.

2. Tons of detail and separation... for better or worse, instruments don't smear together with these.

3. Solid sub-bass performance. I wouldn't make mix decisions with these (or any) headphones, but they handle (for example) the decay phase of 808 subs a bit better than my ATH-m50s.

4. Indestructible. Over the past 10+ years, I've travelled all over the western hemisphere with these... crammed them in bags that didn't have the room, tripped over the cord dozens of times, and had fellow passengers literally step right on them as they climbed over me to get to the plane's restroom... nothing, not a scratch, still perfect.

5. Designed to be 100% user-serviceable... this means Sennheiser makes every component readily available to purchase separately and parts are easy to install yourself by hand or with a small screwdriver... no soldering required and no special tools necessary to pry things apart. When it was time to replace the headband on my 280s, all I had to do was order a cheap Sennheiser-made part, un-snap the old part, snap in the new part, and they were back to factory-fresh. I didn't fully appreciate just how great this is until I had to "replace" the headband on my ATH-m50s... which isn't actually that replaceable, you end up having to buy some third-party neoprene koozie to zip over the flaking band... sigh.

The Bad:

• Constrained soundstage. They have a very present/upfront sound that lets you more easily focus on individual parts, but that focus comes at a cost.

• More sensitive to the type of headphone amp driving them than my ATH-m50s. When paired with consumer-grade headphone amps, the sound quality is still great, but you lose a bit of fullness and sounds can occasionally feel a bit like icepicks in your ears... making them generally more fatiguing for long listening sessions than my ATH-m50s, which seem to do a better job of staying musically-pleasing across different output sources (I know impedance rating plays a role in this, among other factors). If I'm using MacBook Pro headphone out, I go with the m50s... if I'm plugging into the headphone out on a good interface or mixer, I often reach for the HD 280s.

• Great isolation doesn't lend itself to great breathability. I don't find the 280s at all uncomfortable, but the seal the ear pads need to form to accomplish all that isolation also traps in a bit more heat than you might be used to -- several hours in, you might feel a bit of sweat on your ears start to cool right after you take them off. I've never had beads of sweat running down or anything close to it, but YMMV.

In Closing:

I still recommend ATH-m50s (now m50X) over these when people ask me about general-purpose passive phones, as the m50s are a bit more comfortable, more flattering to most types of music, and more consistent across different output sources -- but I'm glad I still have the HD 280s handy for a range of specific use-cases in which they are a better fit than anything else anywhere near this price range: great external isolation while tracking, low sound bleed when those in the same room as you need some peace and quiet, and the ruggedness and compactness necessary for airline travel. I know that, sonically, I could spend $300 more, and another $500 for a dedicated headphone amp, and have my mind blown, but I'm too hard on headphones... these are the only pair that have held up to all my years of abuse and accidental cord-yanks.

If I owned a studio and needed several pairs of cans for artists to wear while tracking, these would be at the top of my list for all the reasons I cited above.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

A enduring, reliable, and quality pair of cans.

Got mine in 2020, I used them pretty much everyday, stuffing them in the top department of my laptop case for work, then taking them home to record and all that. And I recon I've used mine a bit too much because the cable tip got bent, but apart from that I've had no complaints with sound quality. My friend once got some new Audio Technica ATHM40's, and we decided to use them for a recording session. But for whatever reason, they made my mix sound thin, and just unpleasant. Switched to these, and it sounded much fuller. Though I might upgrade to the Beyerdynamic DT770 pro's soon.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

Solid for the price.

These babies have been in my studio for a few years. When I moved to Tennessee, I accidentally broke my AKG mixing headphones. I know, it sucked. I went to my local Guitar Center and essential said "I need something cheap and I need it today, what ya got". Naturally, they tried to up-sell me immediately to which I said (in my head) "get fucked". But, one of the guys in pro audio recommended the Sennheisers and I bought them immediately. Now, several years later, they are all I will use. Not the perfect mixing/tracking headphone, but for the money, you can't beat them. SUPER flat response! My only complaint is that they are pretty bad about handling (sub) low end. If you are mixing any tracks with heavy lows, use monitors. These aren't gonna get you there. Other than that, these are great!

Price Quality

In terms of price quality, these headphones are almost perfect in my opinion.

Despite being closed, they don't have too much bass and are extremely clear, besides the audio quality they provide is good enough for production if you don't have an acoustically treated room.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

Still one of my favourite Headphones

I was looking for headphones to make music with. I found these on a reseller's page and using it to this day. It has a good sound coverage. You can also use them for playing bass.

Great recording cans for the long haul

I got my pair of HD 280 Pros circa 2008. The price was great then and it's great now... even with more options available nowadays, it's still hard to go wrong with these if you're looking for a reliable pair of headphones to use for tracking vocals and instruments.

To be clear, these are great recording headphones, but not ideal for mixing. You could do worse, but the EQ response is really not flat, plus you'd want open or semi-open backs if you're gonna mix with headphones. These are what you want for when you're recording yourself playing guitar, for example. Headphones like this are great to have in a studio for that purpose.

I've had mine so long that the pads have needed to be replaced twice, but they just keep on chugging along.

breugh to dee doo BRRRR ree ohhhh ok i'll fucking stop

these are very good headphones that I like to use when recording and stuff like that. for listening I don't use these anymore, even the earpods (although sometimes) mainly due to me having tinnitus and my doctor recommending me to stay away from these

Solid headphones

These are great, versatile headphones for mixing or plugged into an amp. The design is comfortable, and the passive noise attenuation is good. No frills, they get the job done and most importantly are durable – these have been my main headphones for almost 7 years with no issues.

It's pretty good!

I think these are amazing headphones for MAKING music, just not listening to. There are much better headphones out there for that! But these are just nice and bland, so it lets you hear what your music sounds like without any special EQ's or anything applied to it! Now, my problem is the noise. You can hear the headphones a ton from the OUTSIDE! Mic's will pick up what's playing, which is bad. But for the music I make, that doesn't matter! (Yet...)