I'm not really sure right now. I'm bouncing between well know brands and lesser known brands.
I've learned a few things here on head-fi. The most important lesson is that what sounds good is a really personal opinion. See the comment below about the DT770 for example.
Another is that for each option from a major brand there's at least 6 people recommending something really exotic. And they may well be right but personally I prefer the reassurance that a local dealer offers me. I can test something and I have the law backing me if something goes wrong with the product I've bought.
Last lesson is that it's extremely easy to spend a huge amount of money on goodies and unlike many others here I simply do not have that much to spend.
When i selected my beyers I took my portable player with me loaded with a representative selection of my favorite music. I started out in a few audio shops but quickly moved to musical instruments shops since I found almost all consumer products not to my taste. For classical especially but also for jazz it turned out to be easier to find something that I liked in the monitor section of the music shop.
I think I spend 2 hours in the shop trying to make up my mind between several options. AKG had some really nice headphones but all of those turned out to be too small for my head. I liked the audio qualities of the shure and the build but found it too uncomfortable for long wear.
The beyers I settled on are sometimes bashed for being bass heavy. To my ears the bass is certainly there (lovely in a wagnerian opera) and on a track with really low bass it takes a tiny flick on the equalizer to make my fillings rattle but it's never too much, distorted or too heavy.
What it comes down to is that it's ultimately a personal choice and for that reason I use headfi to make a short list but selecting something from that short list requires personal testing.
