I have such a mixed reaction to the MOONDROP COSMO, and I am sure I am not the only one. This really feels like a product that had multiple teams working on it, but not had someone supervise everything to ensure the end result worked well. Look at the chassis, for example. It's notably bottom-heavy and less comfortable than any of MOONDROP's other headphones, which is a shame given this also happens to be the most expensive one. The COSMO headband seems to have been made by a giant, if the sizing options are anything to go by, and yet the suspension band is a thin piece of suede which doesn't do much to comfortably distribute the ~550 g on the top of your head. The ear pads are notably thin too, and this also contributes towards the COSMO sounding equally thin. Out of the box, I would pick the $300 MOONDROP PARA over this $900 COSMO any day of the week, and arguably even if they were priced the same.

What stops this from being a disaster throughout is the part where the actual headphone drivers are actually very, very good. Don't worry about all the technical jargon MOONDROP throws at you in the product page, all you need to know is that the engineers who have designed and built these planar magnetic drivers have done something we usually see in headphones which cost significantly more. While the stock tuning is not to my liking, it showed enough to know the COSMO is easily capable of more. Even a simple pad swap with MOONDROP's EP-100A pads changed things tremendously for the better—at least for my preference. It still has a weird honk in the 1-2 kHz region and the treble is more relaxed than optimal in my opinion, but at least now you have the bass notes hitting harder and vocals having some weight behind them, as opposed to sounding like they were being played through a balloon before. EQ really makes the COSMO though, and I can't think of any other headphones which benefit so much from it. The COSMO has ultra-low distortion in the first place, and the drivers are highly resolving. A $900 set of headphones with another $30-40 for more comfortable pads lays a base for you to customize the COSMO to your preference, and can arguably compete with some flagship headphones too. Too bad the comfort can't likewise be improved with EQ though! This will ultimately be a dealbreaker for many, and I can't see myself recommending the COSMO as a result of just too many cons.