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I'll often unbox a headphone and take a good hard look and listen and then make a guess at the price before looking it up on-line. I'm usually 25% - 33% low...and disappointed at how much things cost. Not so with the Sennheiser HD 4.40 BT, I guessed $50 high at $199. It's $149...sweet.

I think I guessed high because this headphone is so damned good looking to my eyes—simple curves, subtle color accents, a quality feel. I'll quote Sennheiser from the HD 4.40 BT product page, "Elegantly minimalistic—using tough, high-quality…

Sound Quality
In general, the HD 4.40 BT is moderately warm, quite smooth, and wholly inoffensive.

Wired
On the wire, bass is a somewhat exaggerated and mid-bass centric. This is going to be the biggest problem with these cans for audiophiles who will easily hear it; a little forgiveness for the affordability of these cans and all but the most diehard fanatic will readily accomodate. Fortunately, it isn't ridiculously overblown like so many headphones, and my guess is most consumers will enjoy it quite a bit. It's quite obvious with music, but with movies and videos it'…

Raw frequency response plots show the HD 4.40 BT fairly sensitive to movement on the ear below 200Hz. It's a little surprising as the pads are so plush; I think it may be because the space forward to back in the ear pad opening is a bit tight and the dummy ear was breaking the seal. On a normal sofer ear it's likely to seal quite a bit better; I did hear these as more on the high side of bass responses measured.

Response is generally along target lines, but can clearly be seen to be forward in…

Continuous Improvement
Hi again, fellow headphone investigators! The article I had originally planned to be Episode #15 was shelved and replaced by #16: The Smoking Gun. Since then, the LCD-4s which I reviewed have been replaced by Audeze because at some point they were damaged—no one knows where or how.

Regarding the Focal controversy, I personally disagree with Tyll's decision to keep the Focal Utopias on the wall of fame, since no one seems to be able to find a current-production unit with the warmer, more neutral…

I couldn't resist.

I was looking around for potential headphones to review and stumbled upon Amazon's Best Seller list. I've recently heard from an trustworthy industry insider who said Amazon sells 40% of all headphones sold in America. Their top seller's got to be pretty good, right?

At the moment, the Cowin E7 is Amazon's top selling wireless, noise canceling headphone and has a four star rating with 3,800+ reviews. We headphone geeks might recognize the brand, but I very much doubt if the average person has…

Sound Quality
Well...they make sound.

Actually, I shouldn't joke—they performed better than I expected. 'Course, I expected something pretty horrific.

Because the audio signal always goes through the active electronics circuitry, sound quality in noise canceling and non-noise canceling modes in both wired and Bluetooth connections are quite similar.

Wired and Bluetooth Non-noise Canceling
In this mode, the overall sound quality is bass heavy with a zingy treble. Bass boost is quite strong and centered in the upper bass/low-midrange (~200Hz) area giving…

Measurements Bluetooth NC Off

Because of their similar performance I'm grouping noise canceling and non-noise canceling modes together for discussion.

Raw frequency response plots with NC off show significant changes in bass response with positional changes on the head. Bluetooth mode looks significantly worse, my guess is that's just the luck of the draw. These were difficult to get a good seal on the dummy head…

Right off the top I'm going to encourage any budding social media and music producers in need of their first pair of "real" headphones to take a good hard look and listen to the Sennheiser HD 471. This is a terrific headphone at a terrific price. Sennheiser's website shows the price as $109, but they're commonly available for around $70. Read on for the full scoop!

(The HD 471i is for iOS and HD 471g for Android devices. I had the 471i for this review.)

Sennheiser HD 471i ($109; ~$70 street)
After experiencing…

Sound Quality
To my ears, the HD 471 is a relatively neutral headphone, with the treble gently shelved down, and a slightly weak bass response. Let's say mildly mid-centric and a little rolled-off up top. When I compare it directly with a very good (and expensive) sealed headphone like the MrSpeakers Aeon, I hear the Aeon as having a smoother, more liquid, more coherent representation of the music. Switching back to the HD 471 I hear it as slightly incoherent, boring, and less able to portray the whole of the music with its subtle detail. What I don't hear, other than the slightly…

Electrostatic Advances

I have a love affair with my Stax SR-007 Mk2 phones, which I judge to be superior, smoother, more musical and accurate than the expensive SR-009 model. What's with Stax? For them "better" seems to mean brighter, but why manufacture an even brighter headphone when the 007 model already sounds too bright? Stax seems to be obsessed with detail at the expense of musicality or even accuracy. But after-market amplifiers have sweetened that tune to a great extent.

I own the first-generation KGSS…