I recently purchased the Senal SMH-1000's from B&H on sale and I have been comparing them for a few days now (after giving them about 48 hrs of burn-in on my dynamic playlist) side by side with my Sony MDR-V6, via an audio splitter, and I have come to some conclusions. Keep in mind that I am not a professional sound engineer so my tests are all practical and observational.
The Senal ear cups are smaller, by about 10-15%, despite it reporting to have a 40mm driver (speaker), the same size as the MDR-V6. I can fit my entire ear inside the Sony whereas I have to wedge my ears into the Senal. If you have medium sized ears or larger, you will NOT fit inside these.
People report the Senal as having a deeper, richer sound (despite having a smaller frequency response, with the low end at 10hz vs the Sony having a low end of 5hz), but even after the burn-in, and wearing both pairs at the same time on my head, just swapping between them as quickly as possible while the song plays, there is absolutely NO way the Senal I am testing has a richer base or a fuller sound.
It could be that I've got a dud on my hands, but they do function so I suspect that the pair I am using is representative of the rest of them.
They sound fine for vocal monitoring, but they do not pronounce road rumbling or any low frequency sound in a clear way like the Sony pair does.
Do these require longer burn-in time? That's how they sound to me; like they need more burn-in time or something like that and they are just tight. Reviews online have said that they sound good even without burn-in.
I would wait for a deal on the Sony MDR-V6 and skip out on these based on what I am hearing at this very moment. I may just return them despite getting a good deal on them.