Help w/ full-size headphones!

Tell us what use you'll have for em and we'll tell you what is YOUR top ten !!!

What kind of music... need to be portable or not ... is leaking a problem etc.....

Sennheiser HD650 open circumaural: Great all-around headphone with somewhat rolled off highs.

Denon AH-D2000 closed circumaural: Big bass but a little un-controlled, and a little sharp in the highs. Markl mod is very popular and not too expensive and is said add control to the bass and bring the mids forward.

AKG K701/K702 open circumaural: Very ballanced and refined sounding with rolled off bass below 80hz. Needs a long break in period and is great for acoustic instrument music like folk and classical. Not ideal for bass heavy music.

Grado Prestige Series open supraaural: This line is very consistent across the range and diminishing returns is high imo. The SR60 and SR80 are great and give much of what the higher priced phones give for much less. Very forward upper midrange, I find fatiguing over long sessions. Some find the bowl pads uncomfortable, but pads are easily swapped for Grado comfies or Sennheiser HD414(cheaper but bright yellow).

Hope this helps

AD900 for comfort, great mids and forward sounding treble for that fun factor. It's Open Air, and Circumaureal. Price is good and looks awesome. Construction is solid and excellent, I have sat on them, dropped them and well been lame about them past almost 3 years and they look incredible and sound just as awesome.

I agree with everything listed so far, and would like to add the Headphile Darth Beyers and the Ultrasone HiFi and ProLine series to the list.

What are you going to use them for? The list depends heavily upon whether you plan to go portable or listen at home, your music and what other equipment you have or plan to buy.

It might be tempting to try to find consensus by having members create lists, but that is also an excellent way for the crowd to talk you into something that may not be a good fit. Think of the selection process as more like picking out your clothes.

Would you buy clothes based on people giving lists of "best" manufacturers? No matter how good they are, you'll want to try them out first.

Instead of trying to start with the "right" headphone, go buy a used one that appeals to you. Read up a little on it and don't obsess over minutiae. Buying used guarantees that you won't lose any money - you can almost always resell for what you paid. Then use that headphone as your Head-Fi Rorschach test. Take notes of what you like and what you don't. After a few months, post your impressions here and ask for recommendations on what would work for you. Those recommendations will be dead on. But you need to start somewhere so you can nail down your likes first.

A couple of headphones I really like are the Sennheiser HD-600 and the Grado SR-60. They're worlds apart, but each has a strong following. Depending on how you react to them, you will know exactly where your tastes lie. You can afford both with your budget. So why not buy a pair of each? Both resell fast if you don't like them, though you probably will. But they're two of the best guideposts out there - if you put a few months on both you'll know where to go next.

Make no mistake, you will go somewhereelseafter your first pair, too. Maybe you'll convince yourself that you have the "best" at first. But you will get curious about others and then buy them. It happens to everyone here, so I think it's best to buy a couple of classics to begin with.

x3 on asking more specific questions. We don't hate threads asking for help or recommendations...most of us really enjoy that. But we do expect good questions, so we can give good answers. Some reading around should teach newcomers how to ask good questions. That, and the buyers guide.

And, yep yep:

Denon D2000, AKG K701, HD650, AD900 as above are the major players, and the descriptions above seem consistent with my experience (where I have experience) and my reading at Head-Fi. Now to await the Beyer, Ultrasone, and Sony fans to chime in.

One of the best for portability (light and durable but not foldable) and sound are the Sennheiser HD25-1 MkII. Also the cord is modular, so you can upgrade or change the steel to copper which gives slightly wider soundstage and warmer sound - $200.00.

For jaw dropping bass and forward sound, add the Ultrasone HFI-780 to your list. They don't need an amp to sound great, but scale well when paired with one. Build-quality is solid and they look great, IMO. You can find them for less than $200, which is a bonus.