 In spite of all the requests, I've never gotten around to reviewing anything from Fostex. That changes today because our friends over at MassDrop asked me very nicely to check out their latest collaborative effort, the Fostex THX00 MassDrop Edition. Possibly the most ass-kicking pair of cans I have yet had my hands on. Intel has brought DDR4 to the mainstream with their Core i7-6700K and Core i5-6600K processors. Check out the link in the video description to learn more. Alright, so let's take a little look around these babies, shall we? The cord is an unnecessarily thick and heavy braided affair that reminds me of the one on my Denon AHD 2000s. It feels, you know, reassuringly premium if you're into that sort of thing, but I'd have preferred something a little more practical and super preferred something detachable. It just doesn't sit right with me to have a $400 product potentially damaged by a $5 piece of wire. Moving up, the headband, according to the product page, was designed with minimal padding because thanks to its curvature, it just doesn't need anymore, and I wish I could agree with that statement. I almost did because the moderate clamping pressure of the ear cups supports a lot of the weight of the headphones without crushing my skull, so it could have been outstanding, but it comes away with a quite good rating here because of this. Who made the boneheaded call to put these hard seams on the underside of the headband? I mean, can we just all agree once and for all that Beyerdynamic does headbands perfectly and copy them already? Moving on, we find the smooth and satisfyingly clicky steel rod sizing mechanism along with a Massdrop logo silkscreened on the one side of the magnesium alloy body and a serial number on the other, which brings us finally to the business side of things. The gloss-finished mahogany ear cups house custom-tuned 50mm dynamic drivers based on the Fostex sound signature that so many people love, but with bass toned down a little bit and some of the edge taken off on the highs. More on this later. For now, though, they look absolutely stunning both on and off your head, and while I'm still partial to genuine leather, the faux leather cushion covers are made of some kind of eggshell protein or something that in theory improves breathability and in practice didn't make my ears sweat. Submission accomplished, I guess. The ear cushion pads themselves are a little bit firm for my liking, although they are sufficiently plushy, meaning that a solid break-in period with the THX00s is a must, though frankly, I don't think if I wore them every day, eight hours a day for a year, they would quite match the cloud-like comfort of my HD 600s. In spite of those complaints, though, largely thanks to their lightweight, thoughtful, no-nonsense construction, I have no problem classifying the THX00s as very comfortable. But let's talk sound. In my usual battery of tests, run on a Mayflower ODAC and O2, ranging from music you wouldn't like very much to music you'd really hate if you were some kind of audio snob, the THX00s absolutely blew away my expectations. Female or male, vocalists take the center stage, which is right up my alley. Highs are astonishingly detailed, but without the fatigue that I get with longer listening sessions on my AKG K7XXs, and the lows honestly remind me of nothing else in my entire stable. They're just so well controlled. It's like my ears are hearing the kinds of sounds that I'd expect to feel in my chest at a live performance, with the only thing missing being the actual physical impact of the percussive note on my body. And they pull this off without being like tuned for millennials, overpowering. I mean, I'm not much of an EDM guy, but man, give me a bass drop on these any day of the week. It is freaking exhilarating. And on top of that, I am not much of a closed back headphone guy either. The HD8 DJs impressed me with their bassy and fun sound signature, but in time it was back to the HD600s with the K7XX, only really coming in behind them for comfort reasons. With that said though, it was pretty easy to forget that these are closed back. I don't feel like I'm listening in a small room or that my music is unnatural, and like I'm giving up part of the experience to spare the people around me who don't share my musical tastes or for sound isolation. On the subject of which, my daughter was fussing for about 10 minutes while I was listening to these at a very reasonable volume, and I totally didn't hear her, which means they'll have to take away my Dad of the Year award, but that's okay, because at least I got a kick-ass new set of daily driver headphones out of the deal. Because that is what you're looking at here. In spite of my minor comfort complaints, these tickle my ears in a way that I just haven't experienced before. I love tight, punchy bass. I love clear vocals. I dislike highs that are accurate to the point where they're just kind of unpleasant to listen to, and the THX-00s do lots of what I like with very little of what I don't. What a great product. If you're shopping for a new headphone in the $400 range, oh yeah, did I mention they're pretty expensive, I'm confident that if you buy these, you'll be happy you did. Just move fast, because I don't know how many of this cross-branded skew they're actually making. Speaking of moving fast, have you wanted a website that moves fast when people try to use it? Yes, my friends, head over to squarespace.com and build your simple, powerful, beautiful website today. They've got 24-7 support via live chat and email. 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