The Lowdown
These headphones perform pretty well, and the detachable cable, choice of left or right earcup cable attachment, and overall sound quality are commendable for a mid-priced DJ headphone. However, when you hit this kind of price bracket, you expect decent design too, and I found these to be overly plasticky and a little ugly.
Video Review
First Impressions / Setting up
They come in a lined, stitched plastic drawstring bag, and on the first inspection, they look alright. They’re styled as full-sized headphones, which means big and chunky with deep earcups, thick padding, and a wide, thick headband. These are trimmed in blue, and one nice touch is that the outer edge of the earcup is styled with the same diagonal lines as used on Hercules’s DJ controller jogwheels.
The company’s catchphrase “digital core analogue roots” is written in blue across the top of the headband and also features in white stitching on the padded underside of the headband. The hinges are of indeterminable strength, as they’re encased in plastic, and the whole hinge area is rather wide, which gives quite a cheap feel like all of this section is simply black plastic.
One nice touch is that the coiled cable supplied (that has the usual 1/8″ to 1/4″ adaptor on one end) is detachable, but more than that, you can attach it to either the left or the right-hand earcup, depending on whether you’re left or right-handed. Depending on which hand you habitually grab your headphones with to remove them, this may make things more comfortable for you and is something I’ve not seen before.
In Use
The headphone exhibit a vice-like grip on your head, which is acceptable, indeed preferable, in DJ headphones, as the harder they’re pushed into your ears, the more they block out external noise. However, in this case, I think they are a bit too tight because they aren’t the most comfortable. I actually found it harder than with most to put them on and take them off, due to the pretty tight headband and its lack of flexibility.
The earcups have good rotation forward, but not backwards, and also they rotate downwards way past 90 degrees, so no complaints there. I did find the very wide couplings to the headband to be a bit clunky and intrusive, though.
Conclusion
These headphones perform pretty well, and the detachable cable, choice of left or right earcup cable attachment, and overall sound quality are commendable for a mid-priced DJ headphone.
However, when you hit this kind of price bracket, you expect decent design too, and I found these to be overly pasticky and a little ugly. They’re also not the most comfortable to wear, and again, once you hit this price point, real leather rather than plastic would be nice in the earcup. There’s also a question mark over how strong those hinges are; I may be wrong, but they look completely plastic to me which doesn’t bode well for the abuse headphones invariably get when they’re in nightly use.
In conclusion, if you’re interested you should check them out for yourself because if you’re trying to match your headphones to other Hercules gear, and you find the sound quality and fit to be to your taste, they’re a reasonable buy.
