[BetaWolf]

I have tried a AKG K702 and Sennheiser HD600, both plugged into a Nuforce Icon HDP. Pretty extreme improvement over what i was used to, but I've decided after a long time that it's really not my style. I don't appreciate the soundstage and detail the way you audiophiles do, so I'm looking to downsize. Here are is what I'm looking for:
 
Balanced mids and bass, with mildly recessed treble. Accurate mids, and good punchiness to the bass. Good separation between mids and bass, but not too much detail. I don't want something that's going to expose flaws of 16-bit audio. Good sound isolation, and maybe "decent" soundstage. Something that will give me "intimate" audio, sounding like it's inside my head instead of in the room. All in all, a set with good consumer-level sound.
 
I'm looking between the Sennheiser HD 380 Pro, AKG K271 MKII, Shure SRH440, JVC HA-RX900, and even the Monoprice 8323. Any opinions on these, as well as any other ideas, is appreciated!

 

[k4rstar]

  I have tried a AKG K702 and Sennheiser HD600, both plugged into a Nuforce Icon HDP. Pretty extreme improvement over what i was used to, but I've decided after a long time that it's really not my style. I don't appreciate the soundstage and detail the way you audiophiles do, so I'm looking to downsize. Here are is what I'm looking for:
 
Balanced mids and bass, with mildly recessed treble. Accurate mids, and good punchiness to the bass. Good separation between mids and bass, but not too much detail. I don't want something that's going to expose flaws of 16-bit audio. Good sound isolation, and maybe "decent" soundstage. Something that will give me "intimate" audio, sounding like it's inside my head instead of in the room. All in all, a set with good consumer-level sound.
 
I'm looking between the Sennheiser HD 380 Pro, AKG K271 MKII, Shure SRH440, JVC HA-RX900, and even the Monoprice 8323. Any opinions on these, as well as any other ideas, is appreciated!

MrSpeakers Mad Dogs has pretty much everything you described in your second paragraph, but is quite a bit over $150 and requires some additional power.

 

[Raketen]

I'm not too familiar with it, but M50 or m50x seems up your alley. Maybe something like the Urbanite and older vModas, both in range and come in on ear and over ear flavors.

 

[cgfong7000]

I agree with Raketen, the m50x sounds right for you. I actually have them now and the Soundstage is small. Also, the music is sounds great with streaming music or FLAC(but the music will sound better with better files). They are relatively low impedance so you can run them with anything. The sounds are balanced over the whole range except for the bass, which has a very slight boost. Overall they are a good value

 

[jakkul]

I have the SRH440 and have listened to the Sennheisers 380 a bit. The SRH440 provide good mids, treble and clarity for the price, the 380 have much more bass and are not as good in other regions in my opinion.
 
Considering what you wrote the SRH440 might be right - these are balanced, some people will say otherwise. You can get very low bass in them - it happened to mine after connecting to audinst hud mx1.

 

[BetaWolf]

Okay, it is between the SRH-440 and ATH-M50x right now. I might consider the SRH-840 if some extra cash comes my way. I'd like to weigh in some more opinions before making the purchase. How would the Creative Aurvana Live! factor in?

 

[BetaWolf]

Last time I bump this. Any more advice is appreciated.

 

[MtnMan307]

I haven't listened to the SRH-440, but I don't know if you can beat the M50x for $150 for what you want.  
 
What kind of music do you listen to?  I'm currently listening to Tool's incredible Lateralus album and I don't want to take off my M50's. 
 
Overthinking, overanalyzing, separate the body from the mind...