KEF Porsche Design SPACE ONE Over-Ear Noise Cancelling Headphones

Pros: - Sound quality is great - The over ear design does a great job of soundproofing, the ANC (Active Noise Cancellation) is only necessary in some situations like traveling. - Detachable cable - Slick look and sturdy feel

Cons: - Newegg listed this as a $419.99 pair of headphones on sale for $99.99 ($320.00, 76% savings). This is a closer price to the $400 KEF Space One WIRELESS BLUETOOTH headset. It felt very misleading when making the purchase. - The over ear design is a bit small, and may sit a little too snug on big ears. - It is clear they chose cosmetic over function for the battery panel. It requires you to push into the foam of the actual headphone to feel for a small bump. Once you find it, push it firmly with your finger (likely the tip of your finger because it is a small bump) until the outside panel of headphone pops open. If you're not careful, you could damage the speaker while replacing the battery. - The button for the ANC feature is an On/Off button. Turns on instantly, but requires you to hold it for 3 seconds to turn off. Seems longer than necessary. It took me a little while figure this out because I wasn't holding the button long enough. and there are no instructions pointing this out. I initially thought I had a defective product.

Overall Review: Despite the false pricing information, this was still a good deal @ $100 for a pair of $280 quality headphones!

Pros: Incredibly smooth, never overly bright yet great detail on the highs. Bass is deep without ever getting boomy. Midrange is typical KEF strong. Extremely comfortable for the average size head and ears, good sealing as that's needed for the noise cancellation to be most effective. The over-the-head band is also supple and gives great stability should you need to move around. Sound quality is the best feature. Noise cancellation isn't quite as good as the later model Bose, but the heft of the build on the Space One is such that it blocks out most ambient noise without even engaging the NC function. The large but robust travel case is thinner than that for my KEF M500 headphones, these will now be my travel headphones.

Cons: Do not confuse these with the current model with the same name that *IS* wireless Bluetooth capable. These are wired, which I prefer. One can get a higher-quality wire and hear the improvement. With wireless, whatever you get, there's no getting it better. If you have unusually large ears, the earcups may not seal. If you have a particularly wide skull, the "clamp pressure" could be a bit much and isn't adjustable.

Overall Review: Would highly recommend for the person wanting high quality music. These are good enough to use at home too!

Pros: Sound good. Very nice looking. Did I mention they are nice looking? Because they are. Not wireless, if you're like me, and hate changing batteries because 1: You have to change batteries, and 2: you have to buy new batteries, this is a good thing. Active noise cancellation works well. Seem to go up on sale often.

Cons: Active noise cancellation requires a battery. Aux Cord is long enough for me, but probably not for you if you have your PC anywhere else but close to you. If you have abnormally large ears, like I seem to, the headphones can be difficult to get on comfortably. Somewhat heavy to wear, I'm not particularly bothered by this, but keep it in mind.

Overall Review: I was in the market for a new pair of headphones and I saw these on sale for $99, I had never had any headphones worth more than $50, so these are a major step up for me, I am very happy with them, the first pair I got were defective, the left headphone sounded tinny and full of static, I RMAed them, and the new pair is just fine, they are music headphones as I understand it, but they work just fine for video games.

Pros: The ear pads are super plush and the headphones overall are incredibly comfortable. I could wear them for a long period of time and not even think about it. It's almost like they disappear when you put them on. The aluminum headband feels rock solid. The bass extension is deep. The travel case is also quality. It feels nice to the touch, and the zipper is solid and unzips easily. The leather accessory pouch is a nice touch.

Cons: Bass is over pronounced and boomy to the point that it is fatiguing, even for closed backed headphones. They sound great if you eq out the low end a bit. ANC is good but still lets vocals through clearly, which is good if you're on a crowded street, but not if you're in an office trying to pretend you can't hear anyone around you. ANC does a great job with other noise like cars and trains though. I'm not a fan of the flat cable that these came with. It's hard to train and feels like it's always tangling and getting in the way.

Pros: They bought it at a steep discount. The noise canceling option is excellent

Cons: But it is a quality that can never be bought at the original price.! But it is a quality that can never be bought at the original price.!!.... It was very difficult to find the battery cover open button.

Overall Review: But it is a quality that can never be bought at the original price.! It was very difficult to find the battery cover open button. However, as a result of looking at other people, the results were found. [Inside the right speaker section, there will be something sticking out in the 6 o'clock direction. That's the battery cover open button.] If you have purchased, you must know this information.

Pros: great sound great noise cancelling comfortable for a time

Cons: comfortable for a while, but if you have glasses on they get uncomfortable quickly which is a bummer on long plane rides. lost the wire.... I'm here writing this review while searching for a replacement wire... so far I haven't found any replacement wire on any website anywhere for any amount of money which makes me knock off an egg.

Overall Review: I think some people might not like the fit but I thought it was fine unless I was wearing glasses... it was still fine with glasses just for a shorter period of time. Can't find a replacement cord anywhere in the world through any phone number or email or website (help me) so I knocked off an egg.

Pros: Without NC engaged: excellent balance and resolution from bass thru treble; very fast transients with long decay; excellent imaging and fine soundstage for closed backed cans - really, no negatives at all. With NC engaged: a few db of level boost, with an additional few db in a fairly narrow band in the bass region - this does not extend to nor interfere with the superb midrange, but the phones are definitely a bit more bass heavy, though not in a way that is annoying nor artificial ; NC is subtle but effective, and the bass boost itself serves to help block external noise: however, while this isn't the finest NC I have ever heard, it is the least destructive of the integrity of the music. However, there is in addition some collapse of the soundstage (although it is still very good for a closed back headphone) - imaging remains precise. Note that the isolation provided by the large ear pads is itself sufficient to block out enough noise that the NC does not need to be engaged in many circumstances. . Truly an impressive set of headphones in either mode. FYI: additional headphones that I own include Audeze LCD2 (Fazor), Sennheiser 650 & 600, Audeze iSine X earbuds, and the Sennheiser Momentum 2 bluetooth NC headphones In comparison to these headphones, the SPACE ONEs do not have the midrange magic of the Sennheiser 6xx (driven by a proper tube headphone amp), but then nothing really does, and the SPACE ONEs still have an excellent midrange with superior transparency to the Senns from top to bottom. Surprisingly, they sound as fast as the Audeze even though they lack planar drivers. While the Momentum 2 are a superior bluetooth headphone that I quite enjoy, they do suffer from the same limitations that every bluetooth headphone must cope with and do not compare to the KEFs, even when used in wired mode. The KEFs are nearly the equal of all of the non-bluetooth headphones listed here in soundstage and imaging when the NC is not engaged, which is amazing for a closed back headphone. Ear cups are not as large as the Senns nor the Audeze, and some care has to be taken to place them properly even if you don't have large ears. However, comfort when they are placed right is above average and the memory foam pads not only mold themselves to your head in a way that provides excellent isolation, but they do so without causing overheating even in extended listening sessions. No complaints about the headband at all. Overall size compared to both the Senns and Audeze makes them truly portable, and this is how I have used them since purchasing them.

Cons: Seriously, none of enough importance to discourage me from strongly recommending these. It would be nice if there were no effect at all on the superb sound of these headphones when the NC was engaged, but I have yet to hear any headphone where this is true, and the SPACE ONEs are still by far the best NC headphones I have heard when the NC is engaged, - and I've auditioned just about everything. TL;dr version: these are the finest portable headphones I have ever encountered.

Overall Review: Highly recommended. All listening has been done using the terrific Apogee Groove DAC / headphone amp with a MacBook pro using all lossless audio files.; I expect these headphones to sound even better used at home when paired with my Schiit DAC / headphone amp stack - but I'm enjoying them too much in the current configuration to take the time to test them in a home set up. EDIT: after having finally tested them with even better headphone amp / DAC combinations, I can say that the KEFs scale nicely with whatever electronics you have available; with a variety of higher end home amp / DAC combos (including the Schiit stack) they sounded even better, with tighter and deeper bass (which was already quite good) and a remarkable retrieval of treble detail such as room echoes and cymbal decay

Overall Review: Used when I got it. Check the photos.