As I mentioned in the introduction, the s-500 are sealed-back, circumaural headphones, with lots of leathery padding so they sit comfy on your head, even after 10 hours of hardcore no-blink gaming.  Other than the name on the box, though, there aren’t any indications or endorsements by any particular personal1ty on the box that tells you that these are gaming headphones.  Nothing really jumps out at you about the s-500, say like a demon with a chainsaw and a desire to smell blood and burnt 2-stroke oil, in terms of looks or specifications.

They look rather plain.

Microphone on the left, golden cellophane nominee on the right.

The s-500 come in two colors, black and white.  The white seems a little too iPod-ish, but the black ones are pretty sharp with all the gloss on the earcups.

The padding is held to the earcups with a soft glue, but it’s a stickier version of the stretchy stuff you get sometimes in the post or the veggie ground-round packages.  Underneath the padding is more foam, and then the driver itself.  Notice the roughly ear-shaped cutouts on the padding.

They don’t have a lot of twist to the cups, like the Grados 360-degree freedom (see below).  It didn’t get in the way, but just made it difficult to store them easily.  And they are a bit bulky.  At around 350g, the s-500 are also heavy, too.  They sit a little forward on the head than what I’m used to, on the top of your forehead so you’ll definitely notice them on your head.  These ain’t no dainty little set of cans.

Everglide also include a nice little clip-on microphone, with a foam screen, to round out the package.  There aren’t any specs on the mic, but it is very sensitive and people can hear me in-game quite fine.  It actually worked better than two fancy-pants Sony mics I had on hand for comparison.

Unfortunately the little mic blew its clip to pieces the first time I clipped it to the s-500’s substantial cord.  Speaking of, the cord on the s-500 is a single thick and soft plastic affair, but with excellent vibration rejection into the headphones themselves.  Usually with sealed headphones are everything quiet until you hit the cord, and then, ouch!  You can knock the cord on the s-500 and it is almost inaudible.  This is excellent.

Anyway, I simply reattached the mic with some handy packing tape.  I'm all out of duct tape.   I would have preferred a boom mic like a Plantronics or Steelsound set.

Compared to my Grados, the s-500 dwarfs them in comparison.

 Supra-aural, open-air Grado, and circumaural, sealed back Everglide.

The circumaural design means that the s-500 sits around your ears, providing your ears maximum comfort.  The opposite is supra-aural, which sit right on the ears.  Both types of cans can be open-air or sealed.  The very best headphones are both circumaural and open-air.

Let's take a look at the electrical and frequency response of the s-500.