That said, it is not completely neutral. It does have a somewhat warm midrange that makes it fantastic for listening to vocals. Overall, for the price you pay, these cans offer a decent amount of detail and an overall balanced sound that should please audiophiles who are on a budget. Bass is accurate and tight, but a bit on the light side. As others have said, they can be a bit sibilant on some recordings. Bass is measured and punchy. It’s far more reserved than the consumer standard, which may take a while to bed into if you’re accustomed to the mainstream tuning of, say, a Sony or Bose pair. However, depth is solid. Sub-bass isn’t particularly strong, with the real action starting around 55Hz. Shure’s ultra-wide 5-25000Hz frequency coverage claim was always going to turn out optimistic, given it goes well beyond the upper and lower bounds of human hearing.

My only real design/hardware complaint is that they come with only one long 3m cable. I’d happily use the Shure SRH840A as general-use headphones, but they’re not made for that job.

Sound very nice, the treble is sweet and has a very nice and neutral sound to it. They can be a tad bright but that can be a good thing for some people. We’d file the SRH840As' design as ‘classy but conservative’. That gold lettering/stitching certainly adds a touch of exclusivity, and the overall feel and level of build quality is better than you'd get at the entry-level. As an amateur hi-fi enthusiast I'm certainly no head-fi expert, but that won't stop me from saying that the Shure SRH840 professional monitoring headphones are a sweet sounding set of cans. There’s one part of the SRH840 that seems curiously vulnerable for headphones that are otherwise heady-duty. Thin cables poke out of the earcup and snakes around into the headband on the outside. We assume this is to let the folding mechanism move freely without risking the cable, but it does leave you worried that a sharp snag could leave you with a useless pair of cans. The only niggles with this great pair of cans is that they are a bit heavy. That's not to say they're uncomfortable (they are fairly comfortable), but they have a good deal of mass. Overall they have a very sturdy build, but I didn't like the exposed wires above the earcups. Thought that was a bit of an oversight on Shure's part and could lead to damage if you're not careful. But if you treat your audio and tech toys with reverence and care (like I do), you should be fine.

Secondly: these are really not as durable as you would expect for the price range: after several years of moderate use these things are a sight to see: In terms of comfort, i have to say that these are really great! My ears completely go inside the ear cups and the clamping force is at the right level to where the headphones feel secure on my head. The ear cup size is pretty large, so it should fit around pretty much everyone's ears. Viewed from the perspective of a studio engineer, they’re much more attractive. The SRH840 fold up across a plastic hinge at the top of each earcup, and the cups also swivel around 180 degrees, letting you easily listen to a single channel without the other interfering.The SRH840 are an ideal choice for professional audio engineers and musicians in applications such as studio recording and critical listening. Striving for accuracy and detail, the Shure SRH840 are very clear-sounding, slightly bright-leaning headphones. They have a great top-end, which is both insightful and a little unforgiving at times. After a short burn-in, we found that it’s well-executed enough to avoid adding any extra sibilance to recordings. Let’s start with the bass, which sounds great. There’s plenty of bass to speak of here, and while a totally natural-sounding pair of headphones would offer slightly less, the fact is that once you get used to that you can adjust your mixes accordingly. Or, if you’re not mixing but rather listening, you might like the ever-so-slight bass boost the headphones have on offer. That’s not to say that these will be good for mega-bass fans — people looking for huge bass boosts should keep on looking.