• Register  |  
• Login  |  
•   Advanced Search 

The first thing I noticed about these headphones is they're half way between supraaural and circumaural. If you have small ears they'll probably fit around your ear, if you have large ears they'll probably sit on your ears. I have medium sized ears, I find the sit on my head above my ears, but they hang free at the bottom. It's unusual, and it won't suit everyone, but it seems to work ok.

My second impression is that these are a well built, musically well balanced pair of headphones. Nothing dominates sonically, the bass, mids, and treble all works quite well together.

The bass probably won't satisfy a true bass head, but for most people it should be more than enough, and they respond quite well to equalization. The bass is low enough, it's strong enough, and the quality's quite good. Some headphones distort the bass, but these do quite well.

Mids are quite clear, and as I've said are well balanced with the rest of the music. There's no obvious veil, and detail is pretty good.

Highs are interesting. With most music they're good, and well balanced, but with an occasional piece of music they're slightly too sharp or prominent. It only happened on a couple of my test tracks, and generally only for part of a song. Perhaps this just means they're showing what's recorded. Detail in the highs is quite good.

They worked well for female vocals, Diana Krall, nice bass, well balanced. With Rap I used Eminim, the bass was quite low, and quite strong, just as it should be. The mids were slightly recessed and veiled, but not much. Highs worked well. Sara Bareilles was good, though the highs seemed a little strong, and the mids recessed. Joss Stone sounded good, again slightly recessed mids, but really not too bad.

Comfort is pretty good. I'd rather they were a little larger and sat fully around my ear, but people with small ears may find this anyway. The top headband is metal covered with a leather like material, and could use a little more padding, but is comfortable enough. Because of the small ear cups I couldn't ear them for more than a half hour or so, but I'm particularly sensitive to small ear cups. They should work fine for portable use, as they sit quite tightly on the head, though not uncomfortably so.

Overall these are quite impressive headphones for the price. If you want to hear every detail and nuance in the music you'll have to spend quite a lot more to do a lot better. These are probably a good sweet spot for most peoples casual listening. My only concern is the small ear cups and that the padding in the headband could be a little deeper, but don't let that put you off a great value headphone.

California Headphones sent the Laredo to HeadphoneReviews.org for an unbiased independent review.