Billed as ‘advanced DJ headphones,’ the £70 Hercules HDP DJ-Adv G501 headphones are a chunky looking affair, sporting a distinctive black and green glossy exterior.
Offering 3 axes of rotation, the pivoting ear pads let DJs preview tracks with that time honoured ‘one earphone on’ look, while the design also means that the cans can be folded down and not take up so much space in the record bag.
Targeting DJ monitoring, studio and production uses, the headphones certainly go loud enough, offering 102 dB at 1 mW sensitivity, and a wide 10Hz-25kH frequency bandwidth range, powered by 50 mm diameter drivers.
Taking the headphones out of the box, the first thing you’ll notice is their size. They are big. And very shiny.
Once you’ve screwed in the replaceable cable you’ll quickly come across the first problem with these headphones: because of their chunky styling and cumbersome swivelling design, trying to twist the earpads around into the right position can be like wrestling an octopus in a mud wrestling pit.
With the extra pressure of a live gig or DJ slot, having to solve a Rubiks cube-like conundrum to get the headphones in place quickly became incredibly annoying to the point of almost being unusable.
However, once safely ensconced on your noggin, the sound quality was impressive, with the king size earpads offering good sonic isolation, and the big drivers providing an excellent, full bodied sound.
The volume was also loud enough to be heard over the band and sounded great, with no distortion or harshness.
The problem is that DJing and sound engineering involves putting headphones on and off repeatedly, and we soon grew weary of the constant battle to reorientate the headphones into the right position.
Worst of all, one of the channels stopped working after just four sessions, so we had to give up on the things altogether and send them back.
In summary, they sound fine, but we certainly can’t recommend them for professional DJs or soundmen/women, although they’re probably fine for fairly gentle home use.
Hercules HDP DJ-Adv G501 ratings
– Build
– Sound Quality
– Ease of use
– Value for money
– Overall
Technical specifications
HDP DJ-Adv G501
Advanced DJ headphones
- 102 dB at 1 mW
- 10Hz-25kHz: wide frequency range
- Powerful drivers
- 32 ohm impedance
- Large aperture
- 1.97″/50 mm driver diameter
- Convenient cabling
- 6.5’/2 m cable
- 1/8″/3.5 mm stereo mini-jack plug
- 1/4″/6.35 mm stereo jack adapter
Mechanical specifications
- Ear-cups: Closed-back Circumaural
- 3 rotation axes:
- Earpieces: vertical rotation (180 degrees) for easy 1-ear monitoring
- Earpiece supports: horizontal rotation (90 degrees) for folding and transport, and to direct the earpiece toward the user’s ear when headphones are worn around the neck
- Earpiece supports: vertical rotation (90 degrees) inward to fold the headphones for transport
- Plug: single-wire plug with ambidextrous design (connects to user’s choice of left or right ear-cups)
These headphones are worth there value. A lot more than Beats. They lasted me a lot longer than my pair of beats and in my own opinion the stars given by this review are un-just. My pair have lasted me a very long time and still going! I have made many many tracks and the in depth sound I can realise and use through these headphones is very very good for there pricing. Cheaper than beats and better quality.
I bought a pair of these on an Amazon lightning deal. Have to say for the price they are immense. Excellent clarity, good bass and wide soundstage. They look good as well. I also own the Technics RP DH1200 headphones which cost three times the price but the Hercules are just as good.
did anyone have cable issues? like kinks?
I also had the issue where the connection in the cable got loose and I lost a channel after only 6 months of gentle home use. Sound great, look great, but poor connections, apparently.