[Unex]

Hi, head-fi`s. At first sorry for my "engrish".  
I`m long time reader but still can`t find the right headphones for my favorite genres.
Now I have modified CAL and I miss them at female vocals and guitars in the midrange.
Sound source is Esscence ST.   Type is closed. Budget is around 300$.
 
Here is examples of music that i'm often listen.
 

 

 

 
Sometimes i'm listen some old rock like Van Halen, folk/pop rock like The Corrs, Alanis Morissette.
Thanks for yours advises!

 

[Unex]

UP !

 

[PurpleAngel]

Currently my Audio Technica ATH-A900X closed headphones ($220) are my preferred music headphone.
Plugged into my Essence STX.

 

[Trunks159]

The songs sound good on the Ma900 I'm wearing now.
I can't watch that video with a straight face though

.

 

[fateicon]

I listen to this stuff. Unfortunately the albums are so compressed, pro-tooled, bright, overblown, etc, that all you can do is minimize the damage the album producers and engineers did. I think my Yamaha pro 400 works pretty well for this kinda stuff. It is capable of taking all that bass energy and making the drums standout without muddying stuff up. Allows for subwoofer type bass when the song is recorded with it. Good soundstage for orchestras and does instrument separation well. Even with all the phones I've bought and tried, I can't think of one that makes modern metal sound good. I'd recommend you bring a portable player to stores or headphone meets and try some. If you don't own one, you could get a Sansa Clip pretty cheap. That's got verified measurements that show terrific performance.
 
looks like your soundcard has an output impedance just over 10
 
http://www.stereophile.com/content/asus-xonar-essence-ststx-soundcards-measurements
 
I recommend you read some of the links in this search
 
https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=headphone+output+impedance&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
 
I can tell you that for a lot of old metal, the Yamaha is outstanding. Original cd pressings(not remasters) of stuff like And Justice For All, Storm of the Light's Bane, The New Order, Burzum, Blessed are the Sick, Somewhere in Time, Killers, Keeper of the 7 Keys, Stormrider, Burnt Offerings, Cruelty and the beast, Seventh Son, Defenders of the Faith, Souls of Black, and even Emperor/Anthems sound good here. Stuff largely done before the pro tools era. The Yamaha makes the kick drums sound more like real kick drums, even on albums like Practice what you preach that has a clicky kick. It won't be too forgiving of harsh recordings though. It may be less revealing playing them off of a higher impedance source or amp. Sansa clip is 1 ohm so it's very transparent. 
 
Van Halen 1984 is awesome on the Yamaha, just played it the other day. Jagged Little Pill worked pretty well too. I've written about a lot of my other phones in various threads too like K550, Amperior, Momentum, RS1, K701, UE6000, and SR60. I think metal needs a phone that is clear but also provides headbanging bass. Closed phones smooth out the sound too, so there is a lot less static and things like that. One day I need to hear an M-100 as I heard it has a lot of bass and soundstage. 

 

[Unex]

  I listen to this stuff. Unfortunately the albums are so compressed, pro-tooled, bright, overblown, etc, that all you can do is minimize the damage the album producers and engineers did. I think my Yamaha pro 400 works pretty well for this kinda stuff. It is capable of taking all that bass energy and making the drums standout without muddying stuff up. Allows for subwoofer type bass when the song is recorded with it. Good soundstage for orchestras and does instrument separation well. Even with all the phones I've bought and tried, I can't think of one that makes modern metal sound good. I'd recommend you bring a portable player to stores or headphone meets and try some. If you don't own one, you could get a Sansa Clip pretty cheap. That's got verified measurements that show terrific performance.
.... 

How about bright Audio-Technica ATH-A900X, or neutral Beyerdynamic DT 250 ? Yamaha is hard to find in our local stores.

 

[fateicon]

I tried some Audio technica stuff. There was one with real small cups that I hated with my tablet. Forget the model number. I think the A900x is the one I tried at best buy a few times. It was pretty good. I wasn;t able to plug it directly into my Sansa clip and I have no idea what kind of amping their wall demo uses. Thing is just to make sure you aren't buying a phone that is "light and bright" for metal. Sennheiser Momentum is really good, just not too exciting. The Yamaha gets way louder off my Sansa clip than any other phone. I just tried my wife's Momentum again last night. Very nice tonality and the highs are tame enough that you won't get fatigue. But they also aren't dull either. The Logitech UE6000 is sorta like that too. How about ordering off amazon or ebay? If you look at camelcamelcamel.com you can track and item's price history. I noticed the Yamaha 400 and 500 had gone for as low as $160 and $180 respectively, so I just waited for one to get cheap again. The 400 went down to $159 new and $150 used, so I got it then. Last week it was $300 new and $234 used. I heard the v-moda m-100 has a lot of bass and soundstage. It's something I want to hear. It's tough for me to say that you should buy a K550, Momentum, or UE6000 when I feel they offer no advantages over the Yamaha. Sennheiser Amperior is quite good, just gets a little fatiguing. Never heard a DT250. You could try the Senn HD280 if you don't wanna gamble a lot. If you don't mind open, I thought the AKG K240 worked real well with Metal.

 

[cel4145]

How about bright Audio-Technica ATH-A900X

I would not describe the A900X as "bright" except in comparison to dark headphones. I think they have just a touch of treble emphasis. But closer to neutral than generally considered bright headphones like the AKG 701s and Beyerdynamic DT880s.

Overall, the A900X are very resolving. Nice sub bass extension with a tiny bit of bass emphasis.

 

[Trunks159]

  How about bright Audio-Technica ATH-A900X, or neutral Beyerdynamic DT 250 ? Yamaha is hard to find in our local stores.

What headphones are available at your local stores?

 

[Unex]

  What headphones are available at your local stores?

AKG 550, Audio-Technica ATH-A900X, Beyerdynamic DT 250, Beyerdynamic DT 770pro 32/80/250, Shure 840/940, Sennheiser Momentum - something like this for closed headphones.

 

[Trunks159]

IMO, the a900x, momentum, and K550 are the best sounding of the bunch, but the Momentum is overpriced.  The A900x wouldn't fit me well, even though the K550 fits fine.  The DT770 80 has a huge soundstage, and has good detail retrieval, and it sounds clear, but the bass is loose and the midrange sounds sucked out.  The K550 is very bright, but it sounds really good (fatiguing though).
 
I'd recommend buying from Amazon, but if you can't, I'd say the K550 suits you best.

 

[Unex]

  IMO, the a900x, momentum, and K550 are the best sounding of the bunch, but the Momentum is overpriced.  The A900x wouldn't fit me well, even though the K550 fits fine.  The DT770 80 has a huge soundstage, and has good detail retrieval, and it sounds clear, but the bass is loose and the midrange sounds sucked out.  The K550 is very bright, but it sounds really good (fatiguing though).
 
I'd recommend buying from Amazon, but if you can't, I'd say the K550 suits you best.

I heard AKG 550 sounds wider, but less intimate than ATH 990x. Is this true?

 

[Trunks159]

Not necessarily wider, just airier (since its brighter)

 

[cel4145]

I heard AKG 550 sounds wider, but less intimate than ATH 990x. Is this true?

"Intimate" denotes more of an emotional response than an audio quality response, so it will really depends more on the listener than particular audio traits of the headphone. The K500 does have a bigger soundstage, which I find to make them more immersive than the A900X when listening to some music that benefits from the bigger soundstage. But that, too, depends on how you react to soundstage.

 

[cel4145]

Not necessarily wider, just airier (since its brighter)

Have you owned the AKG K550s and A900X? The reason I ask that there are a lot of people offering advice on the K550s after demoing them for fifteen minutes at BestBuy or something like that. The K550s require some experimentation to achieve good fit (as has been documented on the owners thread). They will tend to sound very treble heavy (mid light and/or bass light) without achieving that.

In some ways, the A900X has a more refined treble response sound to them than the K550, even though the K550s are a bit brighter over all. The difference in soundstage seems to have to do more with the design of the drivers, pads, and enclosure than the frequency response.