Ligthweight, comfortable in wearing

These headphones have a tendency to remove the depth out of the music, combined with a metallic kind of echoe.

When hooked up to my AMC-amp, I noticed the mentioned weaknesses immediately. Maybe I should grant them some more to burn in (or get more used to it).
But, especially in the not very expensive segment, these headphones look like a good buy to me.

Similar Products Used:

Sony, AKG

everything is excellent!

not find

Very good pair. If you want to buy a good headphone with mid price, that's it!

Similar Products Used:

SEN HD433, Aiwa, Philip

Very clean sound, excellent treble response. Very comfortable, you hardly notice that your wearing them. Detachable cable.

Somewhat poor bass. Prone to distortion on sound containing a lot of loud bass. Open design not suitable to public listening. The whole design makes me think "very delicate". You won't be tossing these babies around.

I was impressed by the clarity of the sound. In several cases I heard sounds I had never heard before on other phones (I owned a great Sony pair but don't recall the model).
The only downer (and for me it's a big one that offsets the excellent treble response to bring about the average rating) was the bass. With my old Sonys, bass was rich and warm. With the HD495, it comes off as, well, lobotomized I think is the best term to describe it.
It's there, but there's just no OOMPH. Trying to boost volume only introduces distortion in the weak bass.
Also, these babies need a lot of power to shine. Normally, my Sony's were ear-splitting reaching -40db on my Kenwood VR-3080. With the HD495, I have to boost it to about -25db.

Similar Products Used:

None

Excellent Value, comfort, broad and deep sound range

Hard to fault but if I was really being critical, the silver finish is a little tacky....solid aluminium would be cool (and costly) :-(

Being far from in the know when it comes to headphones I spent quite some time looking around and trying various phones. I was buying on a tight budget so needed to balance quality with cost and I intend to use various sources ranging from MP3 player --> PC --> TV.

Why the Senn 495's then? well the specification looked good and I know from previous experience that Sennheisers are always a very safe bet. That said a work colleague let me try his Grado SR60's and they sounded excellent but I did not like the short cord plus they cost nearly two times more than the Senn 495's.

I searched the web and find some amazing differences in price for most of the Senn range...I stumbled across the Askdirect website and found the 495's at the bargain price of £34.95.....as I live in London I could also save myself the delivery costs! I checked on this site for other 495 reviews and the vast majority have been highly complimentary so I took the plunge and got the phones.

Well to my untrained ears the phones give a broad and deep sound....the bass is very full but not so much that it over powers the more subtle tones...which themselves seem crystal clear.

My CD walkman really lacks the power for the 495's but the volume is acceptable, PC sound is fine and from my Tv it is excellent (the TV has a dedicated headphone amp). With better hardware all I can assume is that the sound quality will be nothing short of amazing.

I'm really pleased with the 495's - I'm not sure I would pay the original price of £54.95 but for someone buying on a shoestring, the price I paid at askdirect was excellent value....in this price range you could really buy alot worse than the 495's.

Fantastic sounds, excellent value....go on treat yourself!

DANNY

Similar Products Used:

Various cheap phones (Sony freestyle etc.) some old old Senn's (from 1989 not sure of the model) and tried Grado SR60, Senn 475, Senn Eh220, Senn 25SP before buying

comfort, sound

Reliability

I submitted an earlier review stating that my headphones broke after a couple of months. I emailed the support people at Sennheiser and they suspected the problem was with the cable. They sent me a new cable free of charge and it fixed my problems.

I'm giving the headphones 5 stars to counter my previous 1 star rating. If the headphones didn't have any problems, I would have given them 4 stars, since they had problems I am giving them 3 stars.

The headphones are very light and comfortable. The sound is good, not great. I have yet to hear any headphones that I would consider to have great sound.

Similar Products Used:

Koss

Imaging, highs, mids, lows, comfort....everything!

None found yet.

After reading the reviews here, I decided to buy these headphones refurbished from Sennheiser's website, expecting a repaired set of phones. Turns out that they look brand new, and the packaging was clean and sealed! I think they're brand new, as they looked totally mint!
At first listen I was very impressed, but I thought they were a bit fatiguing after only a half hour. Now it's been about a month and I have to say they have become completely listenable (I guess a burn in period is necessary, also proving that they might have been brand new). If I had to pick one word to describe them, it would be "air". These phones reproduce sound better than any loudspeakers I've ever owned and I find myself wanting to listen to music only thru my phones! Imaging is incredible and they are almost tonally neutral. Also, the bass extension is far superior to any other phones I've heard. You forget that you're wearing them even after extended periods--they are incredibly comfortable. They are an incredible bargain at about $67 from Sennheiser (about $150 retail)! If you're looking for new phones and you pass these up, you're a dumbass (sorry, but I have to get my point across!).

Similar Products Used:

Various Sony and JVC headphones.

Just a small comment: having read all the rave reviews below, I've found a bit compelled that the HD-495 silver are said to be "better than the Grado RS1 or Sennheiser HD-580", at least 3 times as pricey. I had to check out myself. I went to a shop and plugged them on the last Technics DVD Audio player. Here is my verdict : as good as they are for their price, the HD-495 silver are NOWHERE as good as the HD-580, and by a WIDE margin. I invite you to go out and check this yourself.

So please, try to be a bit less subjective in your enthusiasm, so that your reviews are more believable and thus more useful.

Extremely comfortable, good balanced sound, easily driven
directly by portable CD player.

None at this price

I love these cans, geat sound for under $100! Sound is very balanced, civilized and relaxed with good detail retreval and ambience, bass is not quite as deep as larger cans like Senn HD580 or HD600 but quite good for bargain smaller cans. These are extremely comfortable and so light you almost forget you are wearing headphones, unlike Grado cans, to me this is very important. Because they are so light construction is not as robust as other cans, but I had no problems

Very efficient, no problem to drive these directly from portable CD player, which is how I use them. I have Senn HD580 also using headphone amp and it is superior in all respects to HD495, but cost much more and cannot be driven
by portable player.

I compared Senn HD495 directly to Sony MDR V900, Sony top
studio phones, and I prefered the 495 sound which was more
balanced and musical, although bass was not as deep.

Similar Products Used:

Senn HD580, Sony MDR V900

Comfortable

Broke after a couple of months

I purchased these refurbashed from sennheiser.com for $65. I mainly purchased them for comfort since I listen to them all day at work. My koss headphones that I have used for about 10 years sound great, but they tend to become uncomfortable after 6 hours.

They worked OK for about 2 months and then they had problems. It sounds like I am only getting half the sound. It's not a left/right thing. Both channels sound like half the sound is missing. The problem is with the wire connection into the headphones. If I shake the wire it will sound good for a few seconds and then die. The headphones look like they can't be taken apart.

Similar Products Used:

koss

I'm in love with these headphones. They're the first "expensive" headphones I've ever purchased and I'm glad I did, just makes mew onder how well some of the more expensive headphones sound! Very clear and crisp IMHO, relatively good bass. Only fault I notice is that when I turn them up real real loud, it distorts a bit but I usually don't listen to my music that loud anyways. Great buy I think.