Thanks to everyone for making the meet a great success! Thanks to David and his parents for hosting, thanks to everyone else for the headphones, amps, cables, CD's, and pics.
My impressions of the phones themselves:
Shure e2's and e3's: mines, and sadly the only phones I brought.
Ety's: more microphonic but also more comfortable than I'd imagined. I used them for like 1 minute only, so I can't comment on the Shure vs Ety sound. Since my e5's are on the way, I figure I have enough canalphones
Beyer dt770: They look more comfortable then they feel, since the headband was pretty tight. For some reason I coudn't listen very well in these, which was disappointing as I am a huge basshead and was pretty eager to demo these.
Senn 595: pretty comfortable, sounded pretty good out of a (meta?) amp. Not as astonishing as the 650's with a nice cable, nice source, nice amp, and nice CD, but then again, what is?
a500: I must buy them soon. Super comfortable, not as huge as I imagined, and the bass was nice and deep to my ears. When I go to Japan next summer I'll upgrade to the a900's.
Grado's: It's true that these are fast, punchy, and bright! The famous hp-2's sounded great, but the headband was so streched the cups didn't even touch my ears, a la akg k 100
A few other notes . . .
To me, if the phone isn't comfortable, it doesn't matter how it sounds. I guess its because I don't have a good source or own an amp . . . yet.
Was it refault's fault (heh) that everyone thought these were the hp-1's? Also, I thought that you pronounced it Grate-oh's, not Grattles. They sure didn't look like $200 and $650 headphones. I wouldn't mind buying the sr-60's as a gift for my rock and roller friend, then borrowing them . . .
So now, as a result of this great meet, I ended up deciding to buy a full-size can, selling most of the portables I have, and getting that Gladiator cd too.
More random thoughts sure to follow!