A simple method to distinguish the 5α- from the 5β-isomers of 3-oxosteroids based on low-frequency 1H NMR spectra was proposed. Additional 1H and 13C NMR characteristics were derived from the comparison of completely assigned spectra of the 5α- and 5β-isomers. The effect of substitution at different positions of steroid skeleton was evaluated on a series of isomeric 3-oxosteroids, prepared for this purpose.