Sennheiser HD 205

Headphone giant Sennheiser has rolled-out a slew of entry-to-mid-level, well-priced headphones commemorating their grand 60th anniversary in the business. The HD-205 headphone picks up the sealed-design gauntlet from the economy-line HD-201 model by beefing up the bass response detail and bringing in more vividly rendered, transparent-sounding highs. The mid-range sonics still remain somewhat recessed, giving the HD-205 an accentuation in the lows & highs typical for headphones at this general price point. The upper high-end response is reasonably well-controlled, however, so the HD-205 manages to avoid the deadly sin of edgy harshness in the upper mids and highs, a real no-no when using portable digital sources that may already tend towards a brittle sound in the higher frequencies. A solid headphone choice for the budget-concious listener wanting ambient noise attenuation and killer bottom-end sonics in a fairly inexpensive, solidly well-built, and rather terrific-looking headphone.

The HD-205 has an efficient 32-ohm impedance/ 112dB sensitivity rating, making it well-suited for portable use with laptop computers, Mp3 players and portable CD/DVD devices. You should get good output volume from the HD-205 with just about any portable audio source without requiring the use of a dedicated headphone amp… Of course, an amp would maximize the potential sound quality of the HD-205 and make a big improvement on the spatial soundstage imaging, musical dynamics and overall detail resolution as heard through your headphones.

The construction of these headphones appears quite durable with simple sliding-headband fit adjustments and a sleek chrome/silver/black color scheme that's pretty darn schwingy-looking. The HD-205's mid-sized, supra-aural, pleather-padded earcups swivel away for one-ear DJ mixing applications. The clamping force of the headband does feel extremely secure and may be perhaps be a bit tight for the larger-noggin listeners out there. Letting the headphones stretch while clamped on a basketball for several days or clamping them over a thick stack of books will help alleviate that issue for big-head types like ourselves. The single-sided headphone cord exits from the left earcup is terminated to 1/8" [3.5mm] mini-plug. A full-size, threaded 1/4" adapter is included in the package along with a nifty padded carry-pouch to protect your headphones while in transit. A 2-year product warranty is standard with all Sennheiser headphones.