The Sennheiser HD 201's are a set of headphones, designed for use in the studio. While not the best studio headphones out there, they are still indeed intended for this kind of use and beyond. They serve really as a low end alternative to those who couldn't afford something like the HD 280's. I've used the HD 201's at a home studio where I work pretty consistently with the producer who owns it. We don't normally do bigger sessions in there, but he has two sets of these headphones as extras just in case they're needed. The only use that these will see is for monitoring during recording if there are a bunch of people there who need them. He's got a number of other better pairs of headphones that are the primary headphones for monitoring during recording for both myself as the engineer and the players on the session. While incredibly cheap, the HD 201's still do have the feel of being cheap. They're not the sturdiest headphones and I can see them breaking rather easily, although the ones I've used have worked fine without any issues yet. They're also not the most comfortable headphones, so I wouldn't recommend them if you're going to be doing long studio sessions with them. As far as sound quality is concerned, it's pretty middle of the road here and definitely not suitable really for checking mixes on or anything where critical listening is necessary. The price will certainly drive some people to buy these, and while they're fine as back up pairs, if you're looking for a go to set of headphones it's definitely going to be worth it to spend a bit more money on something like the Sennheiser HD 280's, which I believe are some of the best available in their price range. If you can only spend what the 201's cost, you're going to get what you pay for...