The thing about the HD201 is that in any of these HD (so called) headphones it seems that you get what you pay for. Plastic made to break. Not used in any PRO STUDIO ROOMS that are serious about your headphone mixes and we are www.chrislieckstudios.com. I think that you need invest more and get a more flat pair of headphones such as the AKG 240's. Again these can't take a great deal of volume without breaking up. This new bread of phones if for more amateur recording. Average at best. These phones have a bump so that if you are recording a vocalist that hears more high mid response it that bump at 50hz or in that basic area will cover up that mix that you need to cut vocals. I like phones to have cuts if anything at that lower frequency so that when you are tracking they vocalist you don't have to have a separate headphone EQ for the singer. I have to do that a great deal with newer so called HD phones. I also like to match phones meaning if I have three pairs of headphones in my studio I want them all to be the same. I don't want to have two singers in the booth and one has a lower volume than that others. Also these phones are not as sturdy as I would like. I have read other reviews of these whereby they state that they are sturdy and I find that the cheaper the headphone the more likely it will break upon impact to the ground. Most singers drop their headphones all the time and the few times these headphones fell I was nervous that they were done. Back to the sound, I was just not that impressed with any one thing with these phones. Isolation was minimum thus drummers would not like them, and the fact that they are not that isolated is not a good thing. We used them just the other day on a drum live session and I had to move to a set of vic firth for the drummer to hear the click drum.
No on the other side my engineer likes them a bit more than I do so I have them an average rating as he likes this line of headphones and he works at the Guitar Center so he gets to hear a great deal of all of the new headphones either before they come out or when they are in the store. Normally I hear from him as to liking a specific set of phones. He will call me and rave about them. I did not get that call on these headphones and the reason we had a pair is s student left them at the studio and we started using them in the C room for a while. The student was mixing on them and never mix on headphones if possible. That is not a great idea for any mixing engineer. I would just invest in good pair that standard producers and engineers like the AKG 240s or any great AKG line that is commonly used by professionals.