Headphone World - Blog

Execs

 Clean up, powerful audio efficiency, with deep bass and no distortion at best volumes
 Provides an excellent sense of depth and space inside the stereo field
 Detachable cables?one with iOS device controls and microphone, one with no

Negatives

 Can be not comfortable during extensive listening intervals
 Expensive

At the top of Yamaha’s new Professional line of headphones, the $399.95 (immediate) Yamaha Pro 500 is a formidable beast. At first glance, it may appear to take its cues from the Beats school of design and style, with a focus on shiny plastic and logos. Nevertheless the Professional 500 is no knock-off, and it sounds flat-out excellent. Armed with a nice array of accessories and a detachable cable that helps extend its value, the pro 500 is, nonetheless, not a bargain. It is a luxury and an investment—but its rich bass and wide stereo field earn it our Editors’ Choice award for high-end headphones.

Design and style
Visually, there is actually a world of difference between the entry-level (but still pricey) Yamaha Professional 300 plus the Professional 500, but it’s all within the details. In photographs, it is really hard to see, however the materials used along with the surface finish on the professional 500 combine to give it a more luxurious look. It will come in black or blue, and the paintjob contains a nice two-tone, automobile finish quality to it that is easy on the eyes.

The professional 500 is also an around-the-ear, circumaural style and design, as opposed to the on-ear, supra-aural Professional 300. The design differences are not just visual. First off, the pro 500 is much more comfy than the pro three hundred, but which is not saying much—the latter is among the less comfortable headphone options we’ve tested just lately.

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So, while the same is not true of your Pro 500, it still can feel large, or like it is exerting much too much stress on the prime of your head, but this only appears to be to happen during extensive listening periods. Adjusting the band a little bit can alleviate the issues, which is not really the case with the 300. The professional 500′s ear pads feel additional plush, as does the underside of its headband, along with the around-ear design and style works significantly better for comfort along with the overall listening experience than the 300′s large-but-on-ear style.

Another improvement in comparison to the pro three hundred is the inclusion of a detachable cable—two, in fact. The professional 500 includes a cable with a microphone and three-button remote for iOS devices, as well as a cable without having controls at all. Call clarity is very par for the course here—you and your call partner will understand each other just fine, but you’re still dealing with cellular audio quality. The contour with the cable is flat, like numerous Beats models, and feels extra durable than a typical audio cable housing.

There’s a cable input on each ear, allowing you to choose which ear you want to have it dangling from, and it also creates the ability to connect another pair of headphones to it for audio sharing.

In addition to the two cables, the pro 500 ships with a ¼-inch adapter, a cleaning shammy, and a rigid, zip-up carrying case.

Efficiency
The semi-recessed positioning on the drivers in each individual earcup helps the pro 500′s overall spatial performance—treble sounds can feel extra directional, providing a seemingly wider stereo field and greater depth to the overall blend than we might hear if the drivers were flat versus the ear.

As would be expected of a $400 headphone pair, the professional 500 does not distort on deep bass tracks. Even at maximum, unsafe listening ranges, the Knife’s “Silent Shout” and Thom Yorke’s “Cymbal Rush,” two songs that feature different types of extreme bass content, were delivered cleanly. What’s far more, the professional 500 packs a major amount of deep bass—it’s not so overly-weighted towards the low frequencies that issues sound unbalanced, but there is definitely a hefty low frequency presence here.

On classical tracks, like John Adams’ “The Chairman Dances,” the professional 500 provides the perfect combination of low frequency presence as well as kind of wide stereo field usually associated with open-back headphones. The lower register instruments don’t overpower the combo while in the slightest, but they are delivered with a round bass presence which is matched nicely by the mids and highs. This means deeper drum hits are both resonant and crisp, as well as the bowing from the low strings provides a nice mid-frequency attack to it, followed by beautiful, rich bass sustain. The higher register strings and percussion also shine—but never as well brightly or harshly. There’s perhaps additional bass presence here than purists might want, but this frequency reaction arrives very close to my personal ideal.

On Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,” the attack of your kick drum loop is fierce through the pro 500, taking on the feel of a club PA system. The treble edge of your attack, the sub-bass thump, and deep bass synth hits underneath it all combine for a powerful and rich delivery, and nonetheless none of this outshines Frank Ocean’s, Jay-Z’s, or Kanye West’s vocals, which are all delivered with a nice crisp edge that keeps the combination from ever getting muddy. Simply put, whether you’re listening to classical music or an intense hip hop blend, the professional 500 delivers items cleanly, with wonderful attention to each realm on the frequency range.

An obvious comparison to the pro 500 could be the Beats Pro by Dr. Dre, which is bulkier and perhaps cooler looking, and designed for DJ use. But both models deliver a similar frequency reaction, and are worth checking out side-by-side, should you have an electronics store near you which can make it happen. They both offer a serious bass response without the need of heading overboard, and while I prefer the pro 500, it’s easy to see some listeners favoring the Beats Pro.

If both of these options are away from your price range, but you yearn for the kind of wide stereo field and rich bass I described earlier, the Sennheiser HD 558 is about as good mainly because it gets under $200, and while the aforementioned Yamaha Professional three hundred is unpleasant, it also offers a very nice sound signature for a lot less than the 500. But quality is not cheap. The pro 500 sounds so good, I feel it is fairly priced, even at $400. It will make your music, regardless of genre, sound exciting, so it wins our Editors’ Choice award for high-end headphones.