For that specific purpose, the 490 is worth it
Written: Sep 30 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Best of the portables.
Cons: Worst of the home theatres.
The Bottom Line: I would recommend this to people who are planning to use them in low to medium noise environments.
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| mr_chupon99's Full Review: Sennheiser HD-490 Consumer Headphones |
I'm a rare breed of audiophile. While there are many poor audiophiles out there, who have that one marvelous piece of equipment in their life, I am the "portable audiophile". I want the best sounding music on the road. I'm also a poor audiophile, which means I'm not about to blow $300 on a portable amp. Anyway, when it comes to headphones, Sennheiser comes to mind as being great sound and great comfort. So I picked up a pair of 490 headphones and put them to the portable test.
I'm not going to start shooting numbers at you - I barely know what they mean anyway. But I know what sounds good and what sounds bad, and these sounded good. Not great, and certainly not anywhere near the HD600 model. But they beat out the majority of the Koss and Sony and Optimum models out there. The only thing I was disappointed in was the bass response, which while clearer than any headphone touting "Xtreme BASS" only really presented itself in quiet environments.
So here we have an open headphone design which doesn't perform that well in noisy environments. This is a hit for portability for sure. You'll also need a player that packs a very good built-in amplifier to get good volume out of this, and expect your battery milage to drop with a piece like this.
Would I buy another brand then? One cheaper with ear pads which don't start to hurt after an hour? Here's the conundrum. I don't want to sacrifice sound.
The solution I found was to simply get a cheap pair of closed headphones (Koss just spits them out apparently), to use in noisier areas where sound quality won't matter all that much. If I'm studying at a library, or hanging out in a park (or rollerblading / biking in one), I'd choose the 490s. As you can clearly see, from my experience the 490s only perform well in low to medium low noise environments. They're not bad headphones, and I got what I paid for. But more comfort, and less drain on my portable's amp would help it a lot.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
mr_chupon99
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Member: Adam Richards
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Reviews written: 57
Trusted by: 5 members
About Me:
Video game guru, and a loving sexy man for any women who needs one[wink].
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