Recommendations for 'phones with large soundstage?

The K701s aren't that huge.  Here's some scale.

 

30 pages of google image search don't have the picture I was looking for though.  A side-by-side of the K701s and the HD800s so you can see what a big headphone looks like.

 

There's not a whole lot better than the 701 if you want everything to have a nice wide soundstage.  You might want to look in to some of the open back Audio Technicas.  Therey're supposed to have great soundstaging as well.  I dn't think they are any smaller though.  maybe just a little bit.

AD900, doesn't even need an amp like the K70x does :) Except it's pretty big.

Look pretty much identical to me.

 

 

That's probably withing the margin of error for this kind of thing.

 

I don't know that they are the same for sure though.

Seriously, the only can you should be considering is the K701 (or K702 depending on your color taste and if the detachable cable is important to you).

 

For good soundstage you really do need a big headphone, there aren't many small headphones with good soundstage. The best soundstage I have heard out of a small headphone is, listen for it, the Bose Triport OE. I am going to get shot for saying this but the Triport OE has the best soundstage I have heard in a small headphone that can fit in your pocket. But honestly it's not even on the level of the AD700 when it comes to soundstage.

 

You can also look at some IEMs which have decent soundstage, but none of them are going to even begin to compare to the K701.

 

You can also try the Beyers, which generally have great soundstage. I have the DT440 and the DT770, all of which have good soundstage. The Beyer house sound typically has recessed mids and this keeps the music from being "in your face" like a Grado and give the sound some depth. I also had tried the Senn HD580 which has the greatest depth out of any headphone I heard, it really threw the sound distant and in the far back, but unfortunately it had a very narrow soundstage (I call its soundstage a "tunnel"). 

 

Thats true, the Sennheiser HD-595's have a great soundstage...but they are big. 

Have you looked at any of the criticism of the K-701/2? I owned a pair for well over a year and never did take a liking to them. They simply do not get vocals right. For lack of a better term, they're plasticky with the human voice. They always sounded "off" to me and I never loved them. Sure, the soundstage, comfort, build quality, etc. are all good enough, but whenever someone was singing they just sounded wrong.

The K-701/2 is popular because it is the top-end headphone of a major manufacturer and has a low price. So a lot of new members buy them and - often - love them because they are actually better than anything else they've ever heard.

However, some of us went to the K-701/2 having owned a bunch of other AKG headphones. I owned the K-501 for some time and still have the K-1000 and K-340. The K-701/2 simply does not measure up to AKG's best from the past. The others all have a very natural, realistic sound. The K-701/2 does not. To these ears, anyhow.

If you want a great soundstage, spend some time hunting down the K-501. The K-601 is also pretty good and sounds natural, but is not as good as a K-501. And the K-1000 is still the best thing AKG ever did. If you want soundstage, those are the headphones to have. The HD-800 does awfully well, but nothing touches the K-1000.

If you're open to speakers, you can sometimes find a used Magnepan MMG for $400 or so. They'll run off a $20-$50 vintage two channel receiver. Until you've listened to a dipole, you have no idea how good soundstage can be outside of a concert hall.

no other headphones cept sennheiser hd800 can compare with the akg k701 in soundstage. especially with tubes

 

ive had the sr325i. it had highs that shot up to the sky. ridiculously painful if you are not going deaf. also the bass spikes up in random places. imo Grados are the most unnatural sounding headphones.

 

the akgs are my favorite headphones when i want to relax and when bass irritates me. acoustic music and female vocals are amazingly natural sounding. 

 

I think the k701s sound artificial, especially the soundstage.

 

Well, for more than 400, the best soundstage I've heard from a pair of headphones would be the k1000s. They're a spectacular all round headphone. 
 

tubes help alot for me for k701s but i cant hear the artificial qualities you claim. i usually listen to acoustic music on them. what type of music would you say exposes the artificial sound? 

If you want a good soundstage, Ultrasone's headphones have a pretty good soundstage for a closed set of phones. I'm working on a writeup right now about it.

i agree with this. the pro series have very good soundstage.  it can sound kind of metallic for acoustic songs but they are amazing for electronic music.

I never got the HFI-780's soundstage..

I just listened to the 780 myself a while ago. I didn't hear much soundstage to be honest. The Pro 900 is another matter, it had these weird "reverb" effect that made it sound like it had more soundstage than the 780, like it was in a large metallic room.

 

But HFI 780 was definitely quite closed in. It doesn't even begin to compare to the DT770 Premium, another closed headphone.