Tom's Views

I owned the  Sony MDR-V500 headphones  for fifteen years.  So I’ve used them with numerous and varied CD players, iPods, mixing boards, headphone amps, and stereo receivers.  So let me review them here because I found them to be exceptional audio devices in numerous aspects.

The MDRV500 headphones offer probably the best sound of any unit in their price class.  They reproduce the high frequencies clearly, not too strong on the bass, especially once you’ve adapted to listening to the Sony MDRV500.  But the bass level can be regulated with an equalizer.  Actually, the reduced bass output makes these phones quite suitable for iPod listening, since iPods tend to be heavy on the bass anyhow.  I found the Sony MDR-V500 headphones to be the best-sounding for the cost that I’ve ever owned, and I’ve owned many headphones from Sony, Koss, Grado, Sony, and Apple over the past 35 years.

Given the relatively cheap price for the Sony MDR-V500 headphones, I didn’t find too much to gripe about in them, except that the ear pads wear out rather quickly (after only two years).  I’ve had to replace them on my set several times now.  But replacements can be gotten for roughly $10 a pair.  So this deficiency is a minor one at worst.

So if $50 to $100 is all you’d want to spend on a decent pair of earphones, then I’d highly recommend the Sony MDRV500 headphones.  For that cost, you get a fairly flat and durable pair of quality audio head gear.

Benefits Of The Sony MDR-V500 Headphones

• I found the MDRV500 headphones extremely light; especially after having adapted to wearing the Koss Tech 2 headphones for more than a decade prior. They’re even lighter than my Sennheiser HD-650 phones.
• Thus, I could wear the MDR-V500 headphones for hours at a stretch without discomfort.  The music you’re listening to will wear you out before these headphones fatigue your ears.
• These headphones sport foamy, soft ear cushions, coated with a thin, highly flexible black film that gives them a soft, leathery feel.  This further enhances the comfort level of the MDRV500.
• The ear cushions have oval-shaped openings that make them work well as an ear-surrounding design.  However, these openings are rather small, such that my ears just barely fit inside.  Thus the inner edges of the leathery cushion rims always touch my ears when I have these on.  This might be a problem with other phones whose ear cushions are not as soft as those in these MDR-V500 headphones.  But this causes no discomfort with this studio monitor grade headset.
• The silky soft ear cushions are medium sized in circumference, but not terribly deep.  Thus, the front of the driver speaker touches my ear.  But again with the overall softness of the ear cushions, this does not interfere with comfortable listening for long periods for me.
• The MDR-V500 headphones are light enough and offer a wide enough range of headband adjustment, that they do not press too hard against my eyeglasses.   Thus, I need not remove my glasses at all while listening.
• The headband itself on the MDR-V500 headphones includes spongy soft padding as well that further enhances overall comfort.  These phones indeed feel as comfortable as they sound good.
• The MDR-V500 looks like it sounds too.  It’s black with silver trim with a red and gold “Digital” sticker on the back of each phone, that gives them a modern, hi-tech appearance.
• The MDR-V500 headphones offer “retractable” ear pieces.  These can fold up inside the headband that shrinks the size of the overall unit down to a small enough size to fit in the small black pouch that’s included.
• The MDRV500 headphones can play sufficiently loud, with the wide dynamic range over most of the audio frequency band that I can hear.  This makes them particularly suited for widely-varying musical volume levels such as found in classical music.
• For pop music listening, the MDR-V500 headphones can play loud enough to hurt my ears without any noticeable gain in distortion or loss in fidelity.
• While the connecting audio cable is not detachable via unplugging it, replacement is not terribly difficult.
• New cables are readily available as well from numerous Internet vendors, even today, nearly two decades since Sony introduced the MDRV500 headphones.
• These Sony stereo headphones can be worn with equal comfort either way (left earphone on left ear, or left earphone on right ear).  The angle adjustment on each earpiece probably accounts for this nice feature that I utilize when hearing those cheaper hit compilation CDs, where the stereo left and right channels are mastered backwards from the original LP or single versions.
• The MDRV500s reduce surrounding noise pretty well, which is a feature the closed-air design that they employ. They use a metal plate that boxes in the driver speaker in each earpiece, and keeps sound both in and out.
• Thus, there’s not much audio spill with the MDR-V500s.  These are a good choice to listen to when other people are close by and do not wish to be disturbed.
• The MDR-V500 headphones, in spite of their lightness, seem quite forgiving of abuse.  I’ve often dropped these earphones on the table or floor when done listening.  They’re not fragile, and thus, hold up well in rough listening environments such as studios and DJ gigs.
• An iPod drives the MDR-V500 headphones quite adequately.
• There’s no need to use an equalizer to cut down on the bass response of the MDRV500 headphones.  They sound pretty good with “flat” music sources indeed. While a bit strong on the mid-range audio, they’re not so bad that they require an equalizer, though one does make them sound spectacular when you lower the mid-range a bit.

What I Dislike About The Sony MDR-V500 Headphones

As I said above, given how cheaply priced these headphones are, I really can’t find to much to legitimately complain about in them.  But here are several gripes I managed to scratch out:

• The MDRV500 ear cushions begin flaking and pealing only a year or two after purchase.  They’ve left little black specks in my hair and ears.
• These phones are not equipped with gold connectors.
• The cables are not as easy to replace as they would have been if made detachable.
• The MDR-V500 headphones seem to favor the mid-range frequencies somewhat, and this can make my ears ring a little after prolonged listening.

To summarize: I found the   Sony MDRV500 headphones   to be decent for my listening purposes. The MDR-V500 unit lacks only a few of the features that I expect from a truly great pair of headphones.  So I would definitely purchase them again.

I’ll add any new information I discover to this post as it comes in, about these earphones.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Other Stereo Headphones Reviews
• Sennheiser HD-650 Headphones Review
• Sony MDR-7506 (MDR7506) Headphones Review
• Sony MDR-7509 (MDR7509) Headphones Review
• Sony MDR-V700 (MDRV700) Headphones Review

References

• Sony MDR-V500 Headphones    on CNET
• Sony MDR-V500 Headphones   specifications