Performance

The Rosewill RHTS-11004 sounded good right out of the box, but you should give them some time to make them sound their best. The pads are a tad too hard to begin with, which impedes the seal and decreases the bass. After a week of casual use, the pads have softened up sufficiently to allow for a good seal. The clamping force is quite light and the headphones are very light weight, which makes them comfortable to use for extended periods of time. As with all closed back-headphones, your ears will heat up over time. They are, in this respect, neither worse nor better than the competition with pleather pads.

To begin with, I had doubts whether the mini-jack plug on the headphones would stay in during a normal commute, but the jack seems quite firm, and you have to jerk the cable violently in order to get it to pop out.

The RHTS-11004 delivers a solid performance in the midrange and upper midrange. They are sibilance free and the tonality is slightly warm, which makes them comfortable to listen to. The lower midrange is bumped in order to give them some fake low-end presence. It is not horrible, like on some supra-aural headphones, but it is noticeable. The bass drops very rapidly around 40 Hz and lower, but that is the case with the vast majority of supra-aural headphones.

Sound stage wise, these supra-aural headphones suffer from the same problem as the Sennheiser PX-200 IIs which shifts music sound to the very left or right.

The bass is quite snappy and the amount of upper bass is sufficient to enable you to feel the bass, but do not expect any earth-moving bass from the RHTS-11004. The positive here is that, with the managed tight bass, the midrange is clear and well forward in the sound picture, making most vocals stand out. Even in complex passages, the drivers do not sound muddy, which is quite a feat. If you only listen to really bass intensive music, these headphones are not for you, but these have a good tonal balance for the everyday listener who enjoys a variety of music. The bass experience will most likely depend on how good a fit you can achieve. I used them as supra-aural headphones with the ear cups pushed pretty far forward, which allowed for a good fit.