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If you are going with V700's, then you're bound for a tough time, because of the muddyiness of the sound.
I recommend Sony MDR-V6 or MDR-7506 (literally the same thing) because the sound is so much crisper. Although the V700's are good enough when mixing trance with a strong kick (i.e. uplifting and everything NOT psy), when you try mixing psytrance with V700's, it's hell because you can barely sense the kick. With the V6's, the sound is so utterly clean that your grandmother could mix with them  (j/k).
On the other hand, the ONE downside to the V6 is the lack of swivel. This can be a huge inconvenience especially if you're the type that likes shoulder-to-ear mixing during transitioning, so you can quickly move the phone down and up to hear the overall sound on the monitors/system rather than one ear on the phones and one exposed, which does not give as accurate a portrayal of what's going on. And yet if you put on the headphones normally and expose an ear, it's a pain to keep moving them on and off, so this is quite the disadvantage. DO NOT OVERLOOK THIS, even with any non-swivel headphones! It might bite you later on when you plunk $200+ CAD on a pair of cans.
I'm not a huge fan of the Sennheiser HD-280 for DJ'ing (otherwise for home listening they ROCK) because they are just too big and clunky and you'll look like a dork while spinning. But seriously, their size does get a little in the way when performing the aforementioned shoulder-to-ear trick. Also, the fact that the cups are elongated, not round like the V700's, means that when doing shoulder-to-ear, the cup won't entirely fit over your ear, as it's positioned sideways in that situation, so you'll be left with an imperfect seal and a bit of an inconvenience. However, when wearing these headphones normally, this is an advantage as they TOTALLY encompass your ears; hence "circumaural" not like the V700's, which are supra-aural (pressing ON your ears), which causes MAJOR discomfort after an hour or two of prolonged use.
Another issue with the Senn's is that the headband tends to crack (or, they have cracked once on mine). However, the Sony's have this same problem -- in fact it's MUCH worse, because the plastic is much cheaper and more crack-prone. After a few months of use from my V700's, back when they were brand new, the right swivel cracked entirely; I managed to jury-rig it for a while, but eventually the left swivel was starting to crack as well, at which point I sent them in for servicing (they were still under warranty!), after which I was careful to extend the headbands to MAX, thereby reducing pressure on the swivel joints. Since then they haven't cracked (a year has passed at least).
You will hear a lot about the swivel-joints cracking on the V700's because it is indeed an issue about these 'phones.
The V6/7506, however, are built extremely well and are immensely durable -- you will NOT have to worry about build quality with them at all, except if for some reason you decide to drive a truck over them. However, be mindful of the lack of swivel -- if you forget, and you try to apply shoulder-to-ear, especially if you do it suddenly (from habit by using phones that do have swivel), they WILL crack at the joint. This is not a fault of the headphones, but a fault of you applying extreme abnormal pressure to the joints at an angle which they were not designed to withstand. There was a thread on this a long time ago here on TA where someone cracked their V6's in just this way. So be mindful.
As a "disclaimer" for my opinions, I do in fact own all three headphones mentioned in this "mini-review": Sony MDR-V700 DJ, Sony MDR-7506, and Sennheiser HD-280 Pro.
Happy hunting, and please don't discredit other great headphone models like HD-25 etc! Just be sure to do your research and know what you're getting into -- for reference, it took me 3 pairs of $200+ CAD headphones to finally find my 'babies', the 7506's.
Last edited by Alccode on Aug-13-2003 at 04:50
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