Density functional theory (DFT) studies were performed to investigate the effect of substituents on the properties of benzdiyne derivatives. Twelve substituted benzdiynes-C(6)X(2), where X = F, Cl, Br, Me, CF(3), CN, OH, NO(2), NH(2), OMe, NMe(2), and Ph-were considered along with the unsubstituted 1,4-benzdiyne. The structures, vibrational frequencies, and IR intensities of these benzdiynes were studied with a popular three-parameter hybrid density functional (B3LYP) combined with the split-valence 6-31G(d) basis set and Dunning's correlation-consistent polarized triple-zeta (cc-pVTZ) basis set. The relative stabilities of the substituted benzdiynes were studied with the help of reaction energies of isodesmic reactions, which showed that the electron-withdrawing groups destabilized the benzdiynes more than they did the corresponding benzenes, whereas the electron-donating groups stabilized the benzdiynes more than they did their benzene counterparts. Correlation analyses revealed that field/inductive effects played a more important role than did resonance effects. The changes in atomic charges and spin populations due to the substituents were also studied. The asymmetric nu(Ctbd1;C) stretching modes obtained were close to the 1500-cm(-)(1) mark. Reinvestigation of the experimental results supported these results; a weak IR band at 1486 cm(-)(1) was assigned to this asymmetric stretching mode in C(6)(CF(3))(2) F. Some other benzdiynes also had large IR intensity values for their asymmetric nu(Ctbd1;C) vibrational modes due to the coupling with other vibrational modes. Heats of formation for the substituted benzdiynes were obtained from the reaction energies calculated at the B3LYP/cc-pVTZ level of theory.