Shure SRH940 Professional Reference Headphones

EDIT: After a few more months of listening, I'm updating this review to be more realistic and critical. It's important for buyers to be aware of flaws as well as the areas the SRH940 does exceedingly well. I also had a chance to listen to more high-end headphones for comparison. I've also removed parts where I say what other reviewers say, since that's a useless and misleading thing to add to my own review.I've owned a number of very high quality headphones (Sennheiser HD 650, Audio-Technica AD2000, Beyerdynamic DT880, Ultrasone Pro 900, and for over 5 months now the Shure SRH940). I also tried some other ultra-hifi ones like the Audeze LCD-2 and as of recently I own the Sennheiser HD 800. I've also owned some mid/low fi ones way back (Sennheiser HD 280 Pro).Simply put, the Shure SRH-940 is an incredibly detailed sounding dynamic headphone with TREBLE better than any headphone I've heard under $900. Keep in mind that every headphone has different strengths and weaknesses, and you should first make sure the SRH-940's sound signature (treble leaning) is to your tastes, but if it is, I'm not aware of many alternates even close to this price range. That said, I've come to realize a few major weak points in the SRH-940, namely, the mids and bass are only what I would call "good", and the overall tonality/coloration is a bit unnatural. In short, the SRH940 will render complex subtleties (fast electric guitar music for example) with unrivaled speed and fine detail, however it struggles to render classical music and some vocals naturally -- that is to say, violins, guitar, voice, etc. will sound detailed but distinctly artificial, compared to competing headphones.Sidenote: First of all, I'd address the notion one reviewer brought up of the SRH940 comparing favorably to Sennheiser HD800s. Short answer: No. Long answer: To my ears, the SRH940 treble beats many well-regarded headphones near its price-point like HD650s, DT880s, etc. It however does not even come within a mile of the HD800 treble quality or detail -- and to say the SRH940 mids or bass deserve being mentioned in the same sentence as that of the HD800 is just... almost insulting. The HD800 is so astoundingly good, I can't even fully put into comparative words. Not in the same league by far. That said, the SRH940 treble is still ahead of its competitors in the price point.Edit 2: I have now purchased a Sennheiser HD800 myself and have listened to it for at least 20 hours. I can confirm the above sidenote. Unless you are hearing impaired, the SRH940 in no way even comes close to the sound quality of the HD800. The sound *signature* (that is to say, the relative volume of the bass, mids, and highs) is similar (although the HD800 has more bass), but frequency response has nothing to do with sound quality. The rest of the review to follow I left in the perspective of when I did not own the HD800 (which is still valid because I'm comparing it to headphones within its price range).(Pros)I currently have a Sennheiser HD 650 as well as these Shure SRH-940s, and I keep both (for reasons described below). It's not an exaggeration that after several months of comparing both, the SRH-940 is considerably better than the Sennheiser HD 650 in upper highs and treble detail. This says a lot, because the HD650 is one of the best headphones you can get under $500. It's surprising how crystal clear and detailed sound these SRH940's can reproduce.I have personally compared the SRH-940 with Sennheiser HD650s, Beyerdynamic DT880s, and Audio Technica AD2000s. My overall evaluation is that the SRH-940 beats ALL of them when it comes to treble quality and ability to reveal subtle details in the music. It's that "I'm hearing things I've never heard in the music" feeling that the SRH940 absolutely excels at. [Before you get too excited though, it has one big "flaw" that I've come to realize with extensive listening over the past few months: The bass and mids are only "good" quality, and the tonality is a bit unnatural. More on that in the cons section.]Particular strengths that stand out are:- Incredible detail, accuracy, and resolution - you hear EVERYTHING. These could literally reproduce a pin drop across a room and if your ears could hear it in real life, you would hear it crystal clear with these. This is the area it destroys the Sennheiser HD 650 in direct comparison.- Pristine treble, the best I've ever heard under $900. The Audio Technica AD2000, DT880, and Sennheiser HD650 are known as some of the best for good midrange frequency reproduction, and the SRH940 is a league ahead of both of these (I've owned all of them). The treble, and similarly the detail of this headphone, is THE selling point of this headphone IMO. The upper treble on the SRH940 (10+khz) is just brilliantly good to my ears. Extremely detailed and accurate, very present (not recessed), yet somehow very smooth. Many headphones with pronounced treble suffer from sibilance issues (that harsh "SSssssss" sound on some high notes), and the SRH940 manages to avoid this entirely (unless the recording itself contains it).(Critique)As mentioned above, I still kept my Sennheiser HD 650s, and I have recently been leaning towards the HD650s for general use. There are a few reasons for this.- The SRH-940 is comfortable, but not nearly as comfortable as the Sennheiser HD 650 to me. Sennheiser's upper end and Beyerdynamics are known for amazing comfort - you can barely feel them on your head. This is quite nice for movies and long term listening. The SRH940 becomes mildly uncomfortable on my extra large head after ~4 hours. A Sennheiser HD650 becomes uncomfortable... never... at all (literally).- The SRH-940's critical flaw to me is its tonality. The subtle sound "coloration" is not natural like the Beyerdynamic DT880s or Sennheiser HD650s. On the HD650, listening to a classical orchestral piece, the violin, flute, piano, etc. sound quite realistic -- you could almost believe you were hearing the real thing. The SRH940 might sound better on first impression due to its detailed sound, however there is something distinctly "off" about its tonality. Violins sound a bit unnatural, like there's something not quite right about their tonality. It's difficult to explain, but sadly it's the truth.- The SRH-940 has good quality bass and mids, with bass just a bit shy of neutral. If you are used to bass boosted headphones you will notice there is less bass, but once your ears adapt you will notice some very good quality crystal clear bass. I don't necessarily have any problem with the SRH940's bass and mids, however they're not brilliantly good for the price range like the treble is -- they're just about average. The Sennheiser HD650's ($350-$500) mids and bass are much better than the SRH940 ($200-$300). In particular, the SRH940 bass is not as impactful (strong physical sensation of bass) or effortless as my Sennheiser HD 650s, and I believe the SRH940 has some resonance/balance issues on the lower end as well. For example, some bass tones sound great on the SRH940, while others seem rather lacking. Most music on the HD650 is absolutely brilliant in its warm and beautiful rendition of the lower end ("warm") frequency spectrum. The HD650 has the ability to really capture you "emotionally" in the music due to its stunningly accurate and liquid lower end. The SRH940 reproduces the lower end well, but there's something missing. I believe this is what largely contributes to the previously mentioend "unnatural" sound of the SRH940 on classical music.- Not really a con so much, but the fact that the SRH-940 is extremely detailed and precise means it will reveal all the subtleties of your music; as a result, if you're used to listening to badly compressed music or random stuff from grooveshark or youtube, it will not sound so great. It won't sound worse than cheap headphones, but basically the SRH-940 treble sound quality is so good that you need to find sufficiently high quality recordings to reveal its full potential.(Sound Signature)As mentioned, make sure the SRH940 sound signature is for you. The SRH940 to my ears sound a bit on the bright side: Treble is very slightly louder than neutral, and low end bass is slightly quieter than neutral. Those who prefer headphones with excessive bass and suppressed treble may not like these. Those who hate treble also will not like these (even though it's very smooth and pleasant treble - not sibilant or harsh at all - coming from someone who experienced painful ear fatigue from listening to Sennheiser HD 280 Pros).I should note that when I find a flaw in a headphone I try to correct it with equalization. On my HD650s for example, I found the treble to be recessed (a bit quieter than neutral), so I applied a treble boost equalization -- which fixed the problem perfectly. I have not yet been able to find any equalization solution to the SRH940s unnatural coloration issue mentioned above (and I'm thinking the coloration problem isn't one related to frequency response but a more complex interaction or resonance that effects timbre in a more complex way).(Misc)These do not *need* a high end DAC/Amp to sound good, but they will definitely max out your laptop's standard audio output port. Listening from a MacBook Air audio port, I'd say SRH-940s sound about 60-70% as good as they do on my desktop DAC/Amp (an Audio-gd NFB-12). This is actually pretty good, compared to something like the Sennheiser HD650, which sounds maybe 40% as good at most.In short, you'll enjoy these a ton from your ipod or standard computer audio out, but with a higher quality DAC/Amp / sound card, they'll sound much much better. In particular, the bass quality increases considerably. Bass will muddy up the rest of the sound spectrum just a little bit out of a standard audio jack. Treble quality also increases noticeably if you have the ear for it... very precise treble sounds you might find in electronic music (or subtly, in vocals) will sound cleaner and incredibly crystal clear from a good audio source.From a standard computer, it's just slightly muddier sounding in treble, and a bit blurrier distinction between bass and the rest of the music, but not much. This is just because a standard MacBook sound output for example is fairly good (certainly way beyond most headphones capability), but these headphones are much beyond "fairly good". They will exceed pretty much any computer's sound output capability. My desktop PC's standard audio output is much worse than my MacBook Air, so unless you have a PC sound card you might consider upgrading to bring out the full potential of the SRH-940.Despite its flaws, I still have no problem giving the SRH940 5/5 stars. It's an admittedly specialized headphone -- it has brilliant treble and detail, and average mids and lows (to be perfectly honest). The treble makes up for any shortcomings to warrant it 5 stars within its price range to me. Just keep in mind its strenghts/weaknesses before buying to make sure it's what you want. Due to unnatural tonality issues I cannot any more recommend this as a general all-purpose headphone like the Sennheiser HD650 or HD600 excels at. Instead I highly recommend it as a specialized analytical/detailed treble-leaning headphone.

After months of research for the perfect closed-back headphones that shared open-back qualities. I found the Shure SRH 940. I'm a very careful person with ALL of my studio gear, so even after reading how delicate these were, I believed I would be the exception. My purpose was to use these to produce music and sound design while in the family room, not to disturb others and then I can take back to my studio when I needed complete my production. The sound was so on point with what I'm used to on my Sennheiser HD600 headphones that I could easily translate between the two and my studio monitors. Not that they sound a like, but the the likeness was enough to my ears to adapt quickly to different environments with positive results. Because I thought I bought the perfect headphones, I even called Shure, in which a tech said he had been using the 940s for 7 years with no problems. Well the first pair I purchased broke after 5 DAYS! Literally I picked them up from the sofa and noticed them broken on the number 3 slot on the headband. Thinking this was a fluke in manufacturing, maybe I got a bad pair. So I exchanged them on Amazon for another brand new pair, only to find that not even 20 days the next pair broke in almost the same spot. I have an average size head and always carefully put them on and took them off. No one else touched them, EVER. And I just didn't feel comfortable knowing that they could break at anytime, made me even more paranoid to be careful. I've read so many horrible reviews about them breaking, but still thought I might get lucky. I couldn't take that risk again. Please beware about these headphones. I wanted to love them, the sound and the price are perfection, however they WILL break at some point. I'm just glad I didn't have to deal with a warranty and company promises because it happened within my return period. At this price point for reference headphones, I have found Audix A150 headphones and are very satisfied!!! I have left a review on the Audix Facebook page and will on Amazon soon.

Se rompieron al tercer mes de uso muy ocasional

Very clear, well-balanced, nice timbre, clean, good treble, not for bassheads, good image, good soundstage for a close-back headphone. Absolutely not weak points here concerning the sound (maybe a lack of sub-bass).Very good sound quality. Absolutely no doubt one of the top best close-back headphones, I could say below 700 dollar (100.000 yen (August 2024)) if you look for quality or audiophile sound.(If you take care of them, the slider won't break so easily as many reviewers say)

ただただ一つ願いが叶うとすれば、この音質で頭頂部が痛くならないヘッドホンにしてくれることを願います。というのも、このメーカーさんの他の機種を聞いても「なんか違うな」ってなるからです。あくまで個人的な感想ではありますが、一日中オーディオショップ内で色んな機種の音を聴きましたがこれに叶うやつは高級機を含めていませんでした。それくらい素晴らしい。かれこれ五年はこの機種しか使ってません。なにを聴くにもこのヘッドセットで聴けば満足するんです。もし購入するならばやはり実際の音を聞いてピンとくるものが一番なので、面倒でも聴いてください。頭頂部の構造と、耐久性については他の方も上げている通り課題がありますがそれを差し引いても聴く価値はあると思います。改良版の発売を願い、星は3にいたします。

音質、装着感は申し分ありませんが、少し重いです。

The sound quality was slightly quieter, less "center stage" since the padding feels about half as thick as my previous model. Also, the top part that sits on your head has a thin strip of padding, so it kinda hurt after a while. I have never experienced this problem before. I used an older model of Shure headphones that these were supposed to be *the* improved version of, but they both broke from the same exact problem. The arms bent, and now they broke from me just taking them off of my head.I have a "smaller head" so I have never had tight fitting headphones, and I bought these 5 months ago, they already broke. Shure cheaped out and I should have listened to the Youtube reviewers that were not "tech reviewers," and stayed away. I don't expect to be helped by Shure without having to pay alot of money, and my last set was not honored by them, so I am just going to use my in-ear headphones for now.No matter how shiny and clean the new thing looks, if it doesn't work it becomes worthless. Stay away from this set, and stay away from Shure over the ear headphones!