Nothing will replace a pair of good near-field monitors and an acoustically treated room, but this is the next best thing in a reasonable price category. I really like them, very comfortable during long mixing sessions at night, and once I got to know their sound "signature" my mixes translate fairly well to a wide range of speakers, requiring only some tweaking. I take away 1 star for the finish quality which is not top notch, mostly plastic that doesn't feel very premium, but I guess Sennheiser used the available budget where it counts the most - on audio properties, and I'm glad they did.