DENON AH-D501K

When spending your hard-earned headphone cash, you want to make sure you get the best bang for the buck possible. The Denon AH-D501 is a solid-sounding headphone made more so by its amazing price. The D501 has respectable clarity throughout the entire frequency spectrum with good presence and musical body to the overall tonal presentation; it represents a nice audio upgrade over the 'entry-model' D301. Sure, the overall sonic detail remains a bit undistinguished at times and does not offer quite the clean extension at the edges of the frequency range possible with much more expensive sealed-earcup designs. However, its tough to get fussy considering the inherent difficulty of making a strong-performing closed-cup headphone in this thorny category while still staying at a very reasonable cost. Good candidate for listeners on a tight expense account looking to significantly improve the sound quality from a portable CD player, computer, or iPod/Mp3 device.

The AH-D501 lightweight construction is fairly basic with no real size adjustments other than the wide plastic auto-fit brim. The fit of the headband is ideal for big noggin owners but smaller-headed folks might find the headphones almost too loose at times. Of course, the isolation will not completely attenuate all ambient noise due to that loose fit but the D501 does provide respectable "leakage" protection from the earcups to the outside world. The mid-sized supra-aural earcups are padded with a smooth glove-soft pleather and rotate 180 degrees for one-ear DJ-type mixing. The headphone cord is modular in the D501 model; a 3.5ft non-detachable Y-cord extends from the headphones and a 6 ft extension cord is provided in the packaging allowing for about a 3 meter cable, give or take. The cable terminates to a 3.5mm (1/8") mini-plug. Standard 1-year manufacturer's warranty serviced exclusively through Denon-USA.