Alright guys
What are he topre of headphones.
I want to skip the nonsense and get some quality cans that I would have ended up with either way.
I don't know much about headphones or any audiophile stuff but I'll be reading the rest of this thread to learn
STAX
an almost perfect analogue.
I do occasional audio editing, my father worked in studios and taught me some basics:
1. the quality and interpretation of the sound will always remain subjective. what you think is the absolute best to your ears may be complete garbage in the opinion of somebody else
2. compile a list of favorite tracks, go to a store where they have the high-ends on display and listen to all of them.
I also play the piano and I know how an acoustic piano should sound like. So what I did is, I went to the studio and played an acoustic kawaii concert grand so that I know how it should sound. Then I went on to the kawaii cn-35 with multiple headphones and tried them all out till I found the one that most closely matched how the sampled kawaii cn-35 sounded to the acoustic one in that same room.
What I look for in high-end cans is clean, clear sound. It should not be bassy, not be light. But it should reflect how it was mixed. If the original production is mastered with bass, you should hear bass. So another thing I do is, I know that some genres / producers put more / less bass in their productions and use a wider or narrower stereo image. So I took some of my tracks and verified that this headphone sounded like I know these artists are known to produce (their unique sound).
This all led me to my beyerdynamic. But again, it is all subjective, so it may sound horrible to your ears.
EDIT: High-end phones that are used in the studio at least are not made to provide you with the "sickest bass that will make your head explode" but they are made to be studio monitors on your head. That is, to provide you with an accurate depiction of how a production was intended to sound. For instance, vocals are often edited to lay ON TOP of a band or the rest of the track. So when somebody starts to sing, you hear the rest a bit reduced and the vocal easily stands out. For instance, listen to Norah Jones. You should be able to hear this distinction on high end cans, but not on cheaper ones because they lack the clarity and detail.
So that's my 50 cents :-)