While your first inclination here might be to look at the product name and think the HD 490 PRO is positioned below Sennheiser's HD 500 and 600 series, let me remind you the Sennheiser group sold its consumer audio division to Sonova a few years ago. Sennheiser.com now hosts predominantly the pro audio tools, and it's Sennheiser-Hearing.com that now hosts the consumer products. There is even a split in the operating teams in these divisions now, even if the undergoing tech in these products are still being made in the same place(s). Either way, the HD 490 PRO is a set marketed by the same family-owner Sennheiser group and for studio use, so it's not a replacement or addition to the consumer line. I am just happy the 400 series from Sennheiser has finally got an update too, even though the end result can be somewhat confusing for the consumers. You will notice the HD 490 PRO is not sold by, say, Headphones.com which sells the HD 600/650 etc., and the more pro-oriented retailers such as Sweetwater and B&H (in the USA) still get to sell the likes of the HD 490 PRO in addition to the consumer division products.

The end result is the HD 490 PRO is actually rarer than you think, and thus is also less susceptible to discounts the consumer division products see more often. Despite this, I have seen the HD 490 PRO get closer to the $330-350 mark at times in the USA, with the occasional sale in the UK seeing ~£300 discounted units. Noting also that the HD 6XX, which really is the only competition from the Sennheiser family that can be better for monitoring/mixing—especially with EQ—that also costs less, is only sold from Drop in the USA, those in other countries will actually find the HD 490 PRO costing the same, if not less than the HD 600 and HD 650, more often than not. The likes of the HD 560S and the HD 25 are less expensive, but the HD 490 PRO is a superior set of headphones in almost every way. So there's an argument to be made about this being a viable addition even within Sennheiser's own competitive headphones lineup split across two divisions.

Step outside Sennheiser and now things get murkier. Given I have mostly consumer-grade wired headphones here, I can't tell you for sure that the HD 490 PRO is the set to go for studio use in this price range. I do have headphones that are marketed for studio use, but they are mostly in the >$1000 range—think Audeze LCD series and MM-500, for example. There things are notably improved in a few aspects compared to the HD 490 PRO, especially with the mids reproduction and detail retrieval. Treble smoothness, which is a basic feature of any decent studio monitor speaker set, is actually significantly harder to achieve with headphones. The HD 490 PRO does a decent job here in that regard, especially with the Mixing Pads. In fact, initial comfort aside, I urge people to swap the pre-installed pads to the Mixing ones as soon as possible to get a much cleaner sound that is far more amenable for studio use too. It's not perfect though, and the overall feature set is less useful for the mainstream audience—especially with the plugin that can be highly useful to some and raises the value proposition of the HD 490 PRO. Yet I appreciate what we get here with the new chassis, the smart cable design, the basically foolproof manner in which you can just pick up and use these headphones without EQ and still have a good time. I've started to see the HD 490 PRO being used in some local studios too, showing that the Sennheiser brand reputation ultimately will trump a lot of other factors. Seeing the street prices hit lower, even if it's not as often as other mainstream products, will only make the HD 490 PRO more popular I feel. It's not a perfect set by any means, yet does enough to interest more than just the pro market.