[brok]

Planning a gift for my wife, she is currently using some $10 cheapo over-the-ear for her MP3 player. We also have Sennheiser HD 497 at home (not loud enough with this player) and I'm using Westone IME so I know the sound of slightly better headphones. 
 
The thing is my wife does not care about sound quality much, won't wear IMEs (dislikes the whole idea), the amplifier is out as well (won't use one, too many cables ), but her MP3 player isn't strong enough to driver "proper" headphones. Also sometimes surroundings can get noisy as we life under Heathrow landing path and we do open windows from time to time , especially in summer :/
 
So I'm looking right now at AKG 272, audio technica A700 and Sony NC500D and AKG 490NC (250GBP is max I want to go). Not insisting at noise cancellation, only including them because some of them apparently sound well enough when NC is on. Recommendations ?

 

[brok]

Also looking at Beyerdynamics DT 660 and T 50p. Apparently noise isolation of closed design of these headphones is good enough, and I trust they are loud and the sound is better than decent.
 
Will post any other candidates I'm considering, perhaps someone will want to contribute with trusted review links or better models (and still not too expensive).
 
Again: the idea is loud and good quality sound from an MP3 player (FLAC occasionally, 128kbps or 320kbps MP3 classical or even just audiobooks plenty of the time), without amplifier, with good isolation from city noises (which are really bad in my area). Active noise cancellation is acceptable too, but I'm not buying Bose.

 

[brok]

After reading many reviews I decided to buy audio technica ATH-ES55 . The price (under 100GBP) is good, they are closed and apparently suitable for use without amplifier on ordinary MP3 player, and from what I've read SQ is possibly best (for closed headphones) at this price point. Also just in case I've thrown in FiiO E5 since at this price it won't do any harm, but might just help to drive them a bit
 
Will post later how ES55 performs.