Headphone made by Pioneer are universally loved in the DJ community. The Pioneer HDJ-1500-K Professional DJ Headphones build on the success of the HDJ-1000s, and offer many important improvements to appeal to new generations of DJs around the world.

Design

If you have the pleasure to own the classic HDJ-1000, you will notice where the basic shape and construction comes from. However, unlike the HDJ-1000, these headphones have completely abandoned the outdated 90’ design in favor of something more contemporary.

They are low profile and look remarkably good on the head. The black version has almost no branding, which just adds to their image.

When not in use, the Pioneer HDJ-1500-K Professional DJ Headphones neatly fold into a small package for easy and safe transportation and storage.

Build quality

One thing that plagued the 1000s was their atrocious build quality. Those things broke like nothing. That was simply unacceptable for headphones that were intended for demanding, professional use. Luckily, folks over at Pioneer got the memo and the HDJ-1500-K have a much simpler but more robust construction.

Hinges have been upgraded to take much more abuse, and pads are made out of plastic materials and memory foam. The only downside is that all this extra durability added quite a bit of weight. Despite the strong clamping force, these headphones have a tendency to move around on the head.

Sound

The Pioneer HDJ-1500-K feature copper-clad aluminum wire voice coils, which are able to reproduce powerful bass, while preserving all detail in other frequencies. Mids are full of detail and make for a very enjoyable listening of all music that focuses on impactful vocal performance.

Surprisingly enough, sound isolation was nothing but excellent. We weren’t expecting too much, given the shape of the earpads, but the HDJ-1500-K proved us to be wrong.

What is in the box?

Accessories that come with these headphones are rather modest, but they do the job. You get a soft pouch, a removable cable, and a single ¼” adaptor. Pioneer also offers an optional hard case, but you have to pay extra for it.