I think my HD 800 sounds great, moreso with the Black Dragon cable, though I'm interested in switching back to the stock to try that, too!
On another note, I just recently read this
very interesting article from Tyll Hertsens which discusses about how at a certain volume we humans have an acoustic reflex that gets in the way of hearing recorded music clearly. I've recently experimented with listening at 70dB and everything definitely sounds much clearer now, especially with the HD 800 I'm using now. I no longer feel any hearing stress when listening, which is quite a discovery!
It also seems that when we turn up the HD 800, our acoustic reflex kicks in thereby adding more bass to the sound though at the expense of some detail coming from the headphone. This is another factor that can make our rigs and recordings sound different.
I think low-volume listening volumes that don't trigger our acoustic reflex are defintely worth experimenting with. I found it to take a little bit of getting used to at first (but that sounds puny!), but like how we can get used to the signature of a headphone and let the music speak, I have found that HD 800 reveals it's prowess even more at slightly lower levels. When our ears are relaxed, we don't strain to hear anything and we reduce our chances for hearing loss. It's a win-win.
On the other hand, I find that other headphones, such as the LCD-2 work best at higher volumes when the acoustic reflex is activated. The LCD-2 sound muddy to my ears at low volumes and when I turn up, it seems to get clearer but at the expense of adding stress to my hearing, which I can do without.
