Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
If you are looking for something that will be suitable for mp3's and such, and you don't have the money to upgrade to a more elite set of headphones then these will be fine for you. Depends on your listening preference. Some mp3's sound great w/ these, others sound like crap. Depending on how it was recorded. If you're looking for high-quality, true sound, I'd opt for the MDR-V900's. I have those coming in now, I purchased them on a whim while reading reviews here @ audioreview. I'm going to handing these down to a friend, so they aren't really worth much to me. But for monitoring and finding crystal clear highs and accurate and defined bass, I had to upgrade. For the price, you can't beat them, especially if you're looking for something quick, that you could buy @ the wiz or circuit city. They've worked for me, but I felt it's time to step it up a lil. :)

Strengths:
Rugged design, haven't had a problem w/ any stress fractures or anything of the sort. They're comfortable, but compared to something you pay over $100 for I'd say they're not. I can see if you want something suitable for everyday monitoring if you're a teen, but there comes a time when you have to upgrade, once you hear another set of headphones and they completely denounce the presence of these. The price is the strength of these headphones.

Weaknesses:
I just broke them trying to see if I could get a better fit, lol. Aint that a mofo, I'm just happy my MDR-V900's will be here tomorrow. :D Now if this were the V900's that had broke, I'd shoot myself in the foot! haha

Similar Products Used:
Some KOSS's back in the day, and then eh... Some other Sony's nothing special.

Summary:
If these are $20, they aren't that bad but you can do so much better (Koss KSC-50 or UR-20).

The CD-180s presiding sound is a hollow one. They sound like very cheap closed headphones, which they are. Vocals just stick out with their hollow, forward sound. Strings just sound wrong, piano sounds worse, and male vocals in particular suffer badly. Deep bas is completely absent, they barely make a peep under 40Hz, and upper bass is somewhat exxagerated. The same goes for treble where you can barely hear the highest octave, but lower treble stands out a bit.

The soundstage - being able to place insturments or sounds accurately is another weakness of these headphones. Their one strength they have in this regard is to make something from the center sound like it is coming from the middle of your head. The problem is that the sounds tend to either occupy this glob in the center of your head or the far side of the spectrum. You can tell if something is center, elft or right, but that is all.

For the price, you really can't expect much out of them, but you can do so much better for the money. If you are looking for a cheap closed headphone check out the Koss UR-20s or UR-30s, which aren't as hollow sounding and are less fautuging, or the Phillips HP550s if you like a more bright (More treble) sound.

If you don't mind having open headphones, which sound much better, look at the Koss KSC-50s for $20 - they sound a whole lot better then the Sony CD-180s, or the KSC-35s, KTX Pros, KSC-55s, Porta Pros, Sporta Pros - they all have the same drivers and share a very similar sound.

You can indeed do worse then these headphones at this price, but you can do a whole lot better too. They are a step up from the headphones that come with a portable player, but that is about it.

Strengths:
Inexpensive

Weaknesses:
Boomy upper bass, hollow, colored midrange, little treble. somewhat uncomfortable, soundstage, fautiging, minimal isolation

Similar Products Used:
Sony MDR-V200, Koss TD-65, Koss UR-20, Koss KSC-50, Sennheiser HD500, Sennheiser HD600, Sony MDR-V600, Phillips HP550