Just picked up a pair of KEF M500 on-ear headphones
on sale at Visions. It's not a full review or anything, but so far, I'm impressed. Overall they are:
- on the mid-upper end of physical comfort. Might not be great for smaller heads as they don't have a lot of clamping pressure compared to some headphones, but I didn't have much issue, if any, with sliding or overtightness.
- certainly portable as they fold up nicely into a case and the cable is removable.
- unspectacular in terms of noise isolation. I don't think I would wear them in an airplane. I'm not one to subscribe to actual noise cancelling HP and I hate the discomfort of IEMs, so I was hoping these would have a bit better of a seal, but with the window open I can hear Stoney Trail from where I am with the headphones in.
- easy to drive even with lesser electronics.
- voiced pretty neutral, maybe a smidge dark in a pleasant way. They don't handle the deepest bass notes as naturally as others I've heard, but I prefer their bass profile over what I've heard from something like the Shure SRH840 or Audio Technica ATH M50s - it's punchy and not too intrusive and does dig deep enough for most source material. The treble is balanced and overall best described as smooth.
If I had any real complaints, and this is minor, but they do lack some bite with the upper-mid registers of brass instruments compared to what I expect in real life. It's not offensive or distracting, and that allows them to be very listenable. I think their sound profile would be very easy to listen to more fatiguing genres for a long time. I wouldn't have regretted the purchase even at ~$220+-ish and at the price they're on sale for I'd definitely recommend them, maybe even go as far as to call it a steal, but YMMV.