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Sennheiser’s HD 558s are well made and reasonably attractive but have a plasticky appearance at odds with their £150 price. The over-ear headphones design is practical, though, as well as comfortable for extended wear. If you wear glasses you could find the headphone cups pressing uncomfortably on the legs of your frames.The headphones have a 1/4in stereo jack plug on a removable cable and come with a 3.5mm converter. They’re slightly higher impedance – 50 ohms – than most consumer headphones, and we had to crank up our MP3 player’s volume to a higher level than usual to get a decent sound out of them. On our iPod Touch we found the rich bass neutered at lower settings.
This isn’t uncommon for headphones with impedances over 40 ohms, so they aren’t ideal if you do most of your listening on the move. You’ll ensure the best sound quality by connecting them directly to a sound card or a powered amplifier with a dedicated headphone port.
The HD 558s sound fantastic, with a wide open sound and a brilliant sense of space, but we could still hear the most subtle elements and tones of even complex, layered tracks. They’re among the few over-ear headphones we’ve found that can rival the crisp detail of a good pair of earbud-style sound isolators. We were particularly impressed by their bass reproduction, which was rich and warm without overwhelming the rest of the sound.
If you want to buy a pair of headphones for home listening and have the money to spend, we can’t think of a better choice than Sennheiser’s HD 558s. They win our Ultimate award.
