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Sennheiser HD 25 Amperior and HD 700 headphones: premium sound, premium price (hands-on)

Sennheiser HD 25 Amperior and HD 700 headphones: premium sound, premium price (hands-on)

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Sennheiser's new HD 25 Amperior and HD 700 headphones are on display at CES 2012. They're both expensive, but have premium audio quality to match.

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Gallery Photo: Sennheiser HD 25 Amperior and HD 700 headphones hands-on pictures
Gallery Photo: Sennheiser HD 25 Amperior and HD 700 headphones hands-on pictures

Sennheiser has two new models of headphones here at CES 2012: the HD 25 Amperior and the HD 700, both of which are very expensive but sound quite good. The $349 Amperior has an aluminum outer shell in either silver or blue, microfiber ear pads, and a fully adjustable head band for maximal comfort. It has a standard 3.5-mm headphone jack and detachable adapter with a microphone and inline controls. In my testing, music was punchy and loud; you could really hear every sound and I found their audio quality to be pretty impressive.

The HD 700 is an even higher-end reference headphone that retails for an astronomical $1000. The model's headlining feature is its vented magnet system, which manages the airflow to prevent any unwanted resonance, or "turbulence." Sennheiser recommends that they be used with an amplifier since there's not enough impedence from most standard audio jacks to fully maximize their potential, though that severely limits their portability. Surprisingly, I preferred the sound quality of the Amperior to the 700 — it just sounded a bit too airy and lacked the same "oomph" as the cheaper model in my opinion.

Sennheiser HD 25 Amperior and HD 700 headphones hands-on pictures

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