[BeerNuts]

Still pretty new to the whole hifi thing but I jumped in already with a Sony zx300 and a set of Andromedas. What I am curious about is if I started to also build out a headphone setup to compliment what I have. Can anyone suggest headphones that would have a equal or greater sound to the andromedas's? I really don't want to downgrade from what I have I just want a different listening experience. I cant go out and demo all of these headsets so I don't know in what range to start.

Music varies from 80's, classic rock, MJ, Dave Mathews, Ska, to Regge so it would need to be well suited for general listening.

 

[seamon]

Audeze has a pretty solid lineup starting from
LCD 3 - Warm midrange God.
LCD 4 - Balanced Neutral warm.
LCD MX4 - Neutral.
LCD 4z - Easier to drive LCD 4 but loses some midrange smoothness.

Focal has another great lineup
Focal Clear - Very Coherent Sound Signature.
Focal Utopia - Detail king let down by small(compared to competitors) soundstage.

Abyss is another beast
Abyss 1266 Phi - Conservative V shaped with the best bass in headphones but slightly hot treble. Midrange is very average. Huge soundstage.

Hifiman has a great lineup too

He1000SE
Arya
Susvara - Dead neutral but extremely hard to drive and lacks texture/might sound a little boring. Highly resolving and very open sound.

Anything below these and Andromeda is better

 

[BeerNuts]

Audeze has a pretty solid lineup starting from
LCD 3 - Warm midrange God.
LCD 4 - Balanced Neutral warm.
LCD MX4 - Neutral.
LCD 4z - Easier to drive LCD 4 but loses some midrange smoothness.

Focal has another great lineup
Focal Clear - Very Coherent Sound Signature.
Focal Utopia - Detail king let down by small(compared to competitors) soundstage.

Abyss is another beast
Abyss 1266 Phi - Conservative V shaped with the best bass in headphones but slightly hot treble. Midrange is very average. Huge soundstage.

Hifiman has a great lineup too

He1000SE
Arya
Susvara - Dead neutral but extremely hard to drive and lacks texture/might sound a little boring. Highly resolving and very open sound.

Anything below these and Andromeda is better

Awesome thanks! I had pretty much forgot about this post since it had died. I was looking at some Focal's at some point but just ended up buying the CA Solaris with the cash. I spend quite a bit of time living out of a suitcase so IEM are always a good bet. It just hard when you jump into a new hobby and buy stuff to know where you fit in the hobby. I had people recommend things like HD650's in other sites where I asked the same question. Not as anything better than the Andros but as a "you should start here" "great value more money" kinda thing. I didn't get them because I knew surely my $900 IEM must be better than a $200 headphone. I was looking for a better or same level as the Andros for sure. I has also considered the Sony MDR-Z7M2 and Sennheiser hd 800 as possible options as well but didn't find out much about how they would compare. No use spending money to go backwards.