These headphones sound great. I did a direct head-to-head with a pair of HD 515 (the 555 is the big brother). The 515s sounded tinny in comparison and I would recommend the 555s over the 515s for the extra $50. BEWARE! These, like all open headphones, leak sound like mad and wouldn't be recommended for public places unless you like annoying your neighbors with faint treble.

Great gaming headphones. I get awesome audio positioning with these.
HD-555's + Soundblaster x-fi= uber.

These are pretty good headphones. They have a nice, balanced sound. Compared to the HD 515s, they are warmer and less tinny. The clarity is good all round, with both bass and treble notes clear.

I've got some comments to make, though. One is that these need to be powered by an amplifier. They sound tinny and bass-less on computers with bad sound cards, and portable music players. I would not listen to these with my iPod Touch, I'm sticking to earbuds.

Also, you need to have good quality recordings. If you have low bitrate recordings, you'll really notice it. Listen from CD, or get some lossless or high bitrate recordings.

Finally, they sit a little tight on my head. However, they are still very comfortable. The velour pads don't itch at all.

4 out of 5.

With a little tweaking you can get these to pretty much murder anything else in their price range. First and foremost, even runs of cable!