hd 558s pretty much shit on everything in its pricerange

alright cool, I'll take a look at them. thanks!

I thought mason was being a retard saying 558s are $150, but apparently they are just $100 more expensive here in Canada...

But yeah, I had 558s and I love them. If you get headphone hair though be warned these headphones are super bad for that.

HM5's are amazing headphones for their price, and in my opinion are the best closed headphones in their price range. They can also be found for under $100 as the Jaycar Pro Monitor Headphones, so they are by far the cheapest headphones on the list.

The AD700s are great gaming headphones, and have superior soundstage and imaging for <$200 headphones. They also have a reduced low end (can be somewhat remedied by an amp) and generally don't play well with a majority of music.

The DT880s are awesome generalist headphones and they might be my pick for best overall headphone under $300. They also happen to be double the price of the other headphones that you are considering, so you have to take that into consideration.

Other headphones you might want to consider are Senn HD 5X8, AKG 702, AD900, and DT770.

thanks, this is awesome! that eliminates the ad700s for me since I listen to tons of music, and I'm leaning more towards the dt880s (since I saw them for sale on amazon at like $157) and hd558s. I'll take a look at the other ones you listed, thanks again

558s and ad700s BOTH have considerably more soundstage than dt880s. DT880s will probably give you a more well rounded listening experience for other stuff, but I use my 558s for movies/music while I'm at my PC and have no complaints.

edit: Oh, and you don't really need an amp of any kind with 558s, plus you can foam mod that ish into basically 598s.

based on your extensive comparative testing with ... ?

I've listened to both the dt770 and the m50, I liked the 770s sound more. I'd personally go for a more open pair though like the senns or ad700. Don't listen to me though since i use fucking grados for gaming lol. Worst soundstage in existance

I have 600 ohm DT 880s that i use with the O2 amp+dac http://www.jdslabs.com/products/48/o2-odac-combo/

They're super comfortable and sound amazing, very balanced sound, and good for gaming too.

The ad700's are comfy as shit, that's all I can really say. I can wear them for hours without noticing while some of the heavier and/or tighter headphones start to hurt after like an hour.

Mind sharing why you're replacing your M50's? Just curious because a lot of people at work recommended them, and I just got a pair.

They're excellent price/performance, they sound good, fold up, etc.

However, they are a little bass-heavy and they can be uncomfortable if worn for a long time.

But there's always going to be better things as you spend more money, and m50s are good for the price, just not the best possible headphones you can buy.

Personally I'd go with DT 770 Pro's + Schiit Asgard 2.

i just kinda want to replace them for something that sounds better, they've served me very well and the sound is great but there are definitely better things out there.

I have a pair of HD-380s, which are considered as a kind of Sennheiser equivalent to M-50s but with tighter bass and stronger mids. HD-598s are a great choice if you're ok with open headphones, but honestly as long as you buy something from a brand oriented towards audiophiles (ie sennheiser, grado, beyerdynamic) you're getting what you pay for.

They're completely fine for listening to music. They only really suck if you compare them to headphones in their pricerange that are build for music and not for an all around use/for gaming.

HD558 + foam mod make for pretty god-like soundstage. As a bonus they're usually discounted on amazon and the like to even below the more than fair 150$ price tag. Of course to achieve this the headphones are extremely open, I consider this a good thing since it makes them super comfortable but that is a preference/need based decision.

I can't speak on the dt800s as I've never owned a pair, but you are comparing a pretty massive price gap with those two.

Well a prudent buyer should be comparing the headphones in the price range against each other, otherwise they are wasting their money. Of course the AD700 are better than the vast majority of headsets and other crappy $30 headphones in every single category. However, if you are going to be buying headphones strictly for listening to music and you really don't care about how well the instruments are positioned in your head, then the AD700 are not the best headphone that you could be buying for your money. OP explicitly mentioned that they really like bass, and the AD700s sacrifice some of the bass response for a better soundstage.

http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-380-Pro-Collapsible-Professional/dp/B001UE6I0G
!votebap

I don't know if I can support these suggestions to spend more on a headphone amp than your headphones. A good amp capable of driving your headphones is important, but that's about it. There is a substantially greater sound improvement to be had from buying better headphones than a better amp.

I would also add, you should look over at head-fi.org and see what they say about headphones and amplification in your price range. There are some decent suggestions in this thread, but they probably know more about audio then a competitive TF2 forum.

everything else listed in this thread + more?

source: theres a music studio on my basement

i personally love the sennheiser PC 363d's and the g4me zeros, depending on if you'd rather open ear 7.1 or noise canceling. the 363d comes with a USB sound card that is bad ass

Anyone that bothered to compare that number of headphones would use a more nuanced comparison than "this shits on everything".

Re-roll?

just got back from some errands, thanks for the posts guys. I'm gonna go through everything and also probably expand my budget a bit since I want something that will at least last me a while so I don't have to eye about buying another pair since I'm in college.