Hi guys.
I am selling my current Sennheiser HD448 headphones and looking to upgrade to something a little more high end. I use my headphones daily to listen to music, as my house is quite small and my parents don't like me listening to music very loud through my denon mini hi-fi. My set up is based around my laptop with my music collection in 320kbps MP3 or FLAC. I have a FiiO E10 DAC on the way to replace my fairly crappy creative external sound card I am currently using.
Basically I have a budget of up to £200 at the very maximum but under £150 would be ideal, and want to make a large enough jump up from the HD448's so that I am not looking at upgrading any time soon. I was initially tempted by the AKG 701/702's due to their excellent looks and the fact that on amazon.co.uk they are both for sale for £199.99 despite their £400+ rrp. I have read pretty much all their is about the headphones mentioned over the past 2 days and I seem more confused now than when I started. I'm not really a hi-fi audiophile nut, but I do care about the quality of my music. My main listening tastes are modern indie/folk music and a lot of accoustic/guitar singer songwriter stuff, for example Mumford and Sons, Fleet Foxes, Laura Marling, Noah and the Whale, Ben Howard, Florence and the Machine ......to name a few.
After reading up on the K701/702's I was put off by the fact that they may just be TOO MUCH headphone for a casual listener like me, and that they will just be too analytical for my listening habits, perhaps more suited to proffesional studio mixing. Since deciding this I've read countless 'Best headphones...' and headphone comparisons online and the AKG K721 MKII's have stood out as being more suited to my tastes, the fact that they are available for £111 delivered is a bonus! But i'm worried these might not quite be a big enough step up from the 448's, although they do retail for much more than this....
The Sennheiser HD598's have also caught my eye (again initially due to their unique looks haha). From reading the reviews these seem like they will be a good upgrade but at closer to £170 are these going to be that much better than the K721 MK II's?
I'm after any thoughts at all on my situation that can help my confusion as I just seem to be endlessly reading reviews and forums and getting nowhere at all!
Thanks for any kind help I may recieve in helping me decide. My 448's are on ebay so I need to decide soon so that i've got something to replace them with once they are gone!
Jonny.
