Headphones and earbuds are something you've certainly seen a lot of on this channel in
the last few months, and while a few of them have been really noteworthy, there's a pair
I use every day that hasn't really got the attention it deserves.
These are the Sennheiser HD 439, and in the last year they have been my go-to monitoring
headphones. Let's see why.
Before getting into why I love them so much, let's talk about the not-so-exciting part
about these headphones, design and build quality. While they're not really ugly, they won't
make anyone drool either. The metallic-looking accents are nice, just like the grill on the
outside of the earcups, but that's pretty much it.
The plastic build feels cheap and relatively fragile, and they get scratched pretty easily.
Making up for the unexciting design, the comfort is stellar: the earcups are really light and
large, they can extend and swivel a lot in both ways, and overall I can keep them on
for hours with absolutely zero problems. It's also nice that they came with an extra
3.5m cable, which comes handy if you need to move a lot inside the room, and a 6.3mm
gold adapter plug if you need to use them with something else than your smartphone or
laptop.
So, sound quality. While these are marketed as closed back headphones, the build resembles
much more closely a pair of open back ones, so many times you'll see them being referred
to as "semi-open back". Whatever you like to call them, the sound
signature actually is more on the open side. With a wider than average 17-to-22.000 Hz
frequency range, the sound is open and natural, with accurate rendition especially on the
mids. Sound is just slightly warmer than you'd want
for a pair of monitoring headphones, but bass is not overpowered by any means.
Overall, you get a lot of detail. I love how clearly they can reproduce vocals, which is
nice for music listening but most importantly for my voiceovers. Besides, I can hear background
noise in my recordings really really clearly, which was something I had never paid attention
to before using these. Sound stage is also excellent, which is something
I find essential for music listening and movie watching.
In terms of max volume, you can pus h them a lot while keeping an incredibly clean and
distortion-free sound in almost all cases, so well done Sennheiser.
At 32 ohms they're also pretty easy to drive, so they'll do pretty well even on mobile devices,
even if you'll of course get better results on your PC with a decent amp.
When it comes to isolation and sound leakage, they're pretty average at both: they isolate
enough to use them comfortably inside an office, and at half volume leakage is low, but as
you start to push it to cover ambient noise, you'll definitely become noticeable to people
around you. In short, they'll work perfectly for quiet
to moderately noisy environments, but not so much if you go beyond that.
As for specific music genres, being mostly neutral they can handle everything you throw
at them, so whatever you like to listen to you'll be pleased with their response.
Something that might hold you back from buying these is the unstable pricing. You can find
them for as high as 140$ bucks or as low as 50, but you should be able to grab them for
an average of 70$. If you can find them at that price, have no
second thoughts on whether you should get them: they're by far my favorite headphones
when it comes to listening to music or watching movies at home, and they still hold up relatively
well if you need a pair to go outside. They might not be the most attractive pair
you'll ever bump into, but the sound quality and the comfort absolutely make up for that
in my opinion. I'll admit that these are a bit atypical for
a pair of monitoring headphones, but if you're looking for something more accurate and detailed
in the 100$ range than the vast majority of consumer grade headphones, these are pretty
much unbeatable.
So that was it for today, I hope you guys enjoyed this little insight into my gear,
and definitely let me know if you'd like to see more by leaving a comment or clicking
that like button. As always, thank you so much for watching,
this was Gio, and I'll catch you guys in the next one!