[ninjames]

Hey all, my Creative Aurvana Live! headphones finally broke after about six years of use. They were my first pair of "good" headphones and introduced me to Head-Fi. Since then I've gone through so many headphones and IEMs, and have settled on my Hifiman HE-400 as my endgame headphones to use at my desk with my Schiit Magni and Schiit Modi.
 
I'm going to have a little extra spending money and I figured the best thing to do with that would be to blow it all on some headphones. Sometimes I can't use open-backed headphones and I need to use closed-back, so I'm looking for what might be my endgame pair of closed-back headphones. Obviously, with the HE-400 being my endgame for open-back, I'm not looking to spend thousands of dollars here.
 
I would like a pair of closed back, over-ear headphones that meet these criteria ...
 
1. $400 budget, but would much rather be in the $200 range
2. Comfortable, good for long listening sessions
3. Do not need an amp. Benefiting from being amped would be nice, but I plan to use these at my couch.
4. A good compliment to my HE-400.
5. Not too bright. As I get older my ears are getting MORE sensitive to shrillness in the upper ranges.
 
My thinking is that I might pick up a turntable in the near future and use a closed-back pair with it on my couch. So far I've taken a look at the Sennheiser Momentum, Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro 80 ohm, the Oppo PM-3 and some others. I listen to a wide range of music -- a lot of chiptune and electronic music when writing, a lot of folk music, some country, some metal, some rap, etc. There's a ton there. 
 
EDIT: Just looking around, the Blue Lola and AKG K550 are also on my radar. 

 

[tz0531]

The AKG K550 is little thin and bright for some people, so you might want to take that off your list.
 
Consider the NAD Viso HP50 if you can live with how they make you look; they sound great out of a smartphone and don't scale up a lot with amplification, while having a slightly warmer than neutral sound that is extremely natural sounding, making them work well with any genre. I own the HP50 and also the Oppo PM-3, and straight out of a smartphone, I like the sound of the HP50 more, since the PM-3 has slightly anemic bass to me when not amped.