Sony MDR-XB500 - Cheap discontinued (sub)bass masters

So I just picked these up on craigslist, $20. Can be found used on ebay for $40 ish. New were $60, discontinued now.

Comfort: Comfort masters, huge (huge...) soft pads, very light weight.
Just look, far right. Far left are the larger brothers, XB700. I would love to try those, look at those pads. For reference, the XB500, on far left, pads measure 1.5". No kidding.

Pictured next to HD650


So comfort is good. Isolation is pretty good, but they do have some vents on the back, so not perfect.

Sound- given these were the extra bass linup, I expected terrible. And they are actually OK. Bass boost, but not way to much, and its not just midbass, it goes low, as seen in measurements. I lowered my bounds to 5hrz because of how low these things play. Trebble isn't too much, like many cheap headphones. But some weird things do happen.

Measurements:
Pretty good chanel balancing, up in the higher registers could be measuring inconsistancies too.
Look at that bass... doesn't roll off until about 10hrz.




So I would recommend these, if looking for a cheap bass monster. But things get wonkey in the upper mids/highs. But if you just want bass, for cheap, these are your headphones, great comfort too.


Innerfidelity measurements:
http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/SonyMDRXB500.pdf
Full article:
http://www.innerfidelity.com/conten...tra-bass-headphonespage-2#u3mmpKDC0ocfjUsj.97


EDIT: one interesting side note: There is basically no internal volume to the driver chamber, The driver chamber area is only about as thick as the driver itself. Most of the volume is within the pads...

 

Egads! Off road headphones?

Rob

 

They do look a bit... strange, but it makes them very comfortable

 

If I recall correctly, I believe the XB500 actually had more bass than the 700, but the 700 was cleaner.

And then there was the ridiculous XB1000...

 

i had these, with eq removing little bit of the upper and mid bass they are very enjoyable with dnb or score music, i had XB700 to, they have less mid and upper bass and bigger soundstage

 

at the end i decided to sell them and stay with the xb910 for dnd, those things are ridiculous

 

I wouldn't be here without the Sony XB series, my friend had the XB 500, I got the 700s. It was the XB 700s that lead me to HF and eventualyl here, reading through the XB 700 threads there I even did the "back tape mod" to give them better control. Fun headphones, and the comfort was legendary... and the bass... with a Fiio E12 it was thunderous