[cardan]

Hello all! 
 
As the title says, I recently purchased a new asus xonar DG soundcard and it should be arriving tomorrow. Hoping the jump from onboard audio on an extremely crappy motherboard to this card will be amazing to my ears. 
 
I currently own a pair of JVC HA-RX700's and was wondering if it would be worth it to upgrade to say maybe the Audio Technica ath ad700's? I mainly use my computer for gaming, but I also use ableton live, reason and fl studio to produce music in my spare time. 
The sound i'm getting out of the JVC's is fine to me. I mostly listen to oldstyle hiphop, dubstep, classic rock, and ambient music. But I've read that the AT's have an amazing soundstage and are fast making them good for gaming, The soundstage would make for a better listening experience to me overall as well. but I don't want to invest in headphones around that pricepoint that'll be lacking in the genre's i listen to. What's your guys' main opinion of the difference between these two cans. Which would suit me better?

 

[Mad Max]

If your JVC's are fine, then stick with them.
 
I'd recommend the Fostex T50RP instead, then mod it.
If you can save up more but don' t want to deal with DIY, AD900.  Neither AD700 or 900 can compete at all with a modded T50RP's soundstage; they are also not as balanced and revealing of what's in the music as the Fostex.
 
The best would be ATH-A2000X or W1000X. 

These others can't compete with them in any category except T50rp in terms of soundstage refinement.

 

[cardan]

So you're saying the T50RP's have a much better sound stage than the ad700's?
 
I thought open-air headphones would always have a better soundstage than closed headphones.
Hmm. 

 

[Mad Max]

That depends.
 
T50 has a mild disadvantage in width, but AD700 sounds fuzzy and muddy compared to T50.  Not quite as surround as T50 nor as deep.  Compared to other mid-fi headphones, AD700/900 is pretty darn good.
One of the mods necessary to unleash T50's soundstage makes it semi-open anyway.
 
A2000X and W1000X are higher-end with better drivers and housing, etc.  Quite a bit of a jump in price, though.