Rating: 
Summary: Very impressed...
Review: Another Sony switchover.... gotta say, these are some really great headphones... what everyone says is true - you do hear things you've never heard before, even in music you are familiar with. There isn't too much I can say bad about these things - the bass isn't as deep as I would like it to be (using an EQ fixes that, and these headphones can definately handle deep bass without a sweat, but they dont have that to start with), but the audio is exceptionally clear among the whole spectrum, especially on highs and mids, and distortion really isn't a problem. At first, the sound seems to crackle a bit, but this was in part due to some of the lower quality stuff I was listening to, and in part that these were new. After letting them play overnight and wear in, I am hearing much less - this is just my second day of using them, and every hour the noise decreases more. They seem to sound better as I wear them in more with my types of music - rock, metal and trance - so those who say they dont work well with these genres are often those who have tested them right away and not wait a few days before making a consensus. Also, these things - rated at 64ohms impedence - could hardly be heard on my portable player... so for portable use, consider your device before you buy these headphones. What are the plusses? Well, everything but that which I have already stated... they are very lightweight and sometimes I forget I am wearing them, the detachable cord is handy (since I have already pulled it out 3 times, which wouldn't have really been good on the cord if it wasn't detachable), and the quality is excellent... plus, if you look around, you can get them (comparably) pretty cheap :) I dont know how I avoided good headphones for so long!! :)
Rating:
Summary: Good Quality - Worth the money
Review: I payed $200 for these headphones and since then my father has bought a pair and 3 of my friends, too. I wont argue with any reviewers as the specifications of the headphones speak for themselves, and I guaruntee that these headphones can out-sample any stereo system that you have. Here are the specs: 18Hz to 28,000Hz @ 90dB. What do you think the average human ear is capable of hearing? Approx. 40Hz to 22,000Hz. I use them for gaming, music, I even use them as ear-muffs when outside in the winter listening on my Sony MD. I have never needed an amplifier with these headphones. I run them straight from my sound card and any other device and they perform very nicely. The HD-570's comfort and quality is uncomparable to any headset on the market. Sennheiser represents professional quality at a price that is worth the cost.
Rating: 
Summary: Not so great-check out a pair of Grados
Review: I didn't purchase these. I only tried them out at a HiFi store. While they weren't bad, they weren't great either. I ended up buying a pair of Grado SR-80's for $83 which blew all of the Sennheisers out of the water. The padded phones and strap are extremely comfy on the Sennheiser HD570s, but the sound just isn't there compared to Grados. The thing that I noticed is a little whoosh while listing to these. The large phones kind of give a seashell over the ear effect. Also, the sound wasn't nearly as clear or bright or strong on these as on the Grados. I would strongly advise anyone who is shopping for a nice pair of earphones and cares about sound quality to at least LISTEN to a pair of Grados before you buy anything else.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing! Add a whole new dimmension to music!
Review: These are simply the best pair of headphones I've ever owned, by far. I listen to headphones for hours everyday so when my old pair of Sonys broke I decided to splurge on these. What a difference! The sound quality is incredible, I feel like I'm listening to song that I've listened to 1000 times before for the first time! you can hear every note and every instrument so clearly. They are also extremely comfortable, all other headphones I've had get a bit uncomfortable after a few hours. But the velvet padding on the earpieces makes these actually feel good (better than having nothing on your ears). Bottom line: These are incredible and well worth the cost!
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Waste Your Money...Seriously. Bad.
Review: These headphones are incredibly horrible. I would give them zero stars if I could. I would maybe pay $10.99 for them... if I was short on cash and I wanted really crappy headphones. There is absolutely ZERO bass (although there's buttloads of treble! [I can't even hear the bass guitar in most all of my cd's]). They sound like everything is being filtered through a tin can. If you listen to rock music or you need accurate sound reproduction, don't even consider buying these. The only thing I would ever use these for is MAYBE listening to talk radio (but i never do that anyway). Another big problem with these headphones is that they let all of the sound escape: someone across the room can hear every bit, even at comfortable volume levels (another problem: they don't get very loud). I have a pair of Panasonics that came with a $30-40 cd player that make the HD-570's sound like a bag of crap, minus the bag. Although I must say they are VERY comfortable. Thats about the only good thing about them. Everything else about them makes me never want to buy a Sennheiser product again. But if you really want to spend $100 on a pair of headphones, buy about 4 or 5 flimsy panasonics at wal-mart (they'll be way better than the HD-570's, i promise).
Rating:
Summary: Great natural sound
Review: These headphones sound fabulous with most music. They are very uncolored and don't fatigue or rip your head off. The midrange is very smooth and silky and they image vocals well. They are also the most comfortable headphone I've ever worn. I listen to hard rock, jazz and classical and find all that music pleasing through them. I use them for listening to CDs and in my home studio. On the down side, as some people pointed out they are very inefficient and require a decent pre-amp to drive them. My Sony S2 Walkman can barely drive them so I use these with a Rotel stereo pre-amp or Mackie mixing board. They also distort if you drive them to moderately loud levels so if you like your rap music loud, these aren't for you. I demo'd these against several other Sennhieser models (560 & 580 I think) and 3 Grado models in the same store. I also listened to some Sony MDR-7506 and AKG K240S Studio in another store. I thought the Sony's were a decent pair of phones and so were the AKGs but I found these to be superior in terms of having a very natural and smooth sound. The Grado's ripped my head off because they have a very bright and forward sound.
Rating:
Summary: Great bass, high end WAY too high
Review: I was really looking forward to owning a pair of Sennheiser's, given their reputation for exceptional sound quality. When they arrived, I put them on and found they were the most comfortable set of headphones I'd ever worn. I'm a musician and have played in many studio environments, with many different types of headphones, and these are the most comfortable I've used. Once I started listening to music with them, I was first amazed at the clarity of the high end and the "punchiness" of the low end. After a few minutes however, the high end became annoyingly grating. I tried multiple sound sources and amplifiers, and the results were the same. I took them into the studio with me to get my engineer's opinion, and he concurred that these are "enhancing" headphones and not true headphones. They're unacceptable for my use, because they do not produce music as it was recorded. Maybe someone out there with a sound source that's lacking high end will appreciate these headphones (such as vinyl albums or tapes?), but for anyone listening to CD's or MP3 (who isn't?) I think they'll be disappointed. I wanted to like these headphones - I really did. They're currently on a UPS plane somewhere headed back to where I got them.
Rating: 
Summary: very comfortable, low sensitivity, weak deep bass, bright
Review: The first thing that you will notice when you put on the HD570s is the exceptional comfort, which is a notch above every other headphone that I've ever used. They are excellent overall, although not necessarily the ideal choice for you, depending on your personal priorities. They are a little weak in the deep bass, but if deep bass is not a high priority for you, then the HD-570 may be an excellent choice for you and an exceptional value. The HD570s have the lowest sensitivity of any headphone that I currently own. If you were to try to use them with any sort of portable music device, they would not play loud or produce much bass no matter how loud you turned it up or enhanced the bass, so if that is how you would expect to use them and you like it loud, you would be advised to look elsewhere. Sennheiser claims that the diaphragms in the HD-570 have improved damping characteristics. If so, they should produce less harmonic distortion than most headphones. They do in fact sound unusually clear, and after listening to them I found myself questioning whether the harmonic distortion produced by my HD-580s is audible, which possibility had never previously occurred to me. There is an obvious emphasis over the treble broadly (confirmed using sweep tone) such that the overall octave-to-octave balance takes on a somewhat bright quality. The sound in fact is superficially similar to speakers with metal tweeters, however, whereas the overly bright sound of metal tweeters is partially due to one or two isolated resonances that ring on after the signal has been removed, in the case of the HD-570 headphones, the brightness is due to an emphasis broadly over the treble region, absent of any apparent resonance. If you like a slightly bright sound, you will probably like the sound of the HD-570, and if you find yourself entirely at home with speakers having metal tweeters, you will in all likelihood have no quarrels with the slightly bright sound of the HD-570s. For that matter, because the frequency response in the treble is unusually smooth albeit emphasized, that emphasis can be easily corrected simply by turning down the treble slightly, resulting in an unusually smooth upper frequency response and absent of the brightness, which happens to be how I am listening to them right at this moment. The slight weakness in the deep bass, however, can't be corrected using the tone control on your receiver. If you turn up the bass, what will happen is that the mid bass and upper bass will get louder, but the deep bass won't be changed much, and the bass will take on a muddy character. If loud, deep bass is important to you, the HD-570s are probably not the right headphone for you. However, if the deep bass is not that important to you, if you plan to use them with a system where the power supply is bigger than a three-volt battery pack, and if distortion-free sound and smooth frequency response from the mid bass all the way to the (tone-control-corrected) upper treble are what matters most to you, along with unparalled comfort, then the HD-570 should be an excellent choice for you, especially considering the price.
Rating:
Summary: Versatile and all-around good--but replace the stock cord
Review: I tried a pair of HD570s awhile back and was quite disappointed. Actually, "frustrated" is a better word. They seemed to have a great deal going for them in terms of presenting a big, open soundstage (to the extent that headphones can present a soundstage), but there was this gaping hole in the midrange. Reminded me of a speaker with a damaged tweeter, even with the extra power and clarity of a good headphone amp. Now, with different equipment to drive them with (same CD player, but now with an external DAC added and a better headphone amp), I decided to give the 570s another try and bought a pair at an online auction. I'm much more favorably impressed this time around. For one thing, that hole in the frequency response is pretty much gone--I guess the boost in power output from the DAC and the new amp made the difference. The 570s aren't quite the equal of their big brothers in the Sennheiser line, but they project the music vividly and powerfully, and work well with a variety of musical styles. If you happen to like listening to DVDs through headphones, they excel in this capacity. (During the T-rex attack scene in "Jurassic Park," you can hear the dinosaur's snout rubbing against the plexiglass roof of the tour vehicle as she's trying to get at the kids inside--a detail I've never heard anywhere else but through these headphones.) I imagine that if you've got a decent sound card, they'd also work well for gaming. However, Sennheiser does discriminating buyers (and its own product) a disservice with the low quality of the cord that comes standard with these 'phones. Fortunately, the cord is easily detachable, and can be replaced--which I strongly recommmend doing. A replacement cord, such as the Equinox 590/595 from a small company known as Stefan AudioArt, puts the performance of the 570s into a completely different league. The harshness disappears, the midrange is fleshed out, the bass firms up, the treble becomes more refined, and you'll be pretty amazed (I was) by the clarity and definition these moderately priced headphones can achieve. The Stefan replacement cord almost doubles the price of the 570s, but it's well worth the money--it turns a decent pair of headphones into an excellent one.
Rating:
Summary: Worth every penny
Review: I was hesitant about spending a lot of money on headphones, but let me tell you. They are worth every penny. The velour earpads and open-air construction allow your ears to breath. These headphones are so lightweight you can forget you're wearing them. Also, you can wear them for hours and your neck won't get tired. They are so light that I was a bit fearful at first of treating them rough, but I've learned it's okay to toss them around. I throw them down on my desk all the time. I've run over the extra-long cord with my desk chair about a million times and I've even accidentally yanked the cord out of the headphones by stepping on it and standing up... no damage. They are still as good as new. My ONLY gripe is that I think I look a little silly wearing them because they stick out so much. These are not compact, but they sound amazing and are super-comfortable. Keep in mind before you buy these: they are open air headphones and therefore you will not be blocking out all the sound from around you. You will still be able to hear stuff, so don't expect total silence when you put them on. In fact if I'm wearing them and the music is off, I can hear almost as well as when I'm not wearing them at all.
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