Don't blame you for not liking them, it is a personal choice - but they have good enough isolation that they needn't be that loud even in live situations. I use Sennheisers when I need more isolation, though 99% of my work is acoustic music with 85 dBA average levels... Been using the Sonys since 1982 or so, whenever they first came out. Most of the advantage for me is consistency - I know their sound very well. But then, I don't use headphones for pleasure, just for work... Lou Judson • Intuitive Audio 415-883-2689 On May 10, 2006, at 2:32 PM, Tom Fine wrote: > Yes, those are the Sony headphones I do not like one bit. I can see > how people would use them for monitoring live recordings in loud > venues, but I'd sure have ringing ears for a week if I used those > phones at that level. > > -- Tom Fine