I'll add my thumbs up to the endorsements above for the Clear. I sold mine earlier this summer but only because I've moved on to a higher tier of headphones. It does pretty much everything you ask for here, except for the big soundstage. It's too narrow. This was my major gripe with the Clear and would have been a dealbreaker were it not for the clever way Focal did imaging, layering, and separation: there's very specific imaging that makes the sonic image precise and a bit smaller than you get with other headphones, and this means that that there's not only pin-point accuracy to the placement of sounds and instruments but also very good separation and air and space around them, too. In no way is the Clear congested, and I say that as someone who's overly sensitive and fussy about congestion.
The Clear also has very good, if not excellent bass; there's enough mid-bass punch to be satisfying; the sub-bass extends low enough to offer some hefty rumble, and the timbre of acoustic bass instruments is well rendered. The Clear also has the advantage of offering an even and nicely balanced frequency response, with nice, solid mids. The only gripe, really, is a slight amount of steeliness, almost a kind of crystalline hardness, to the treble, but this is source/amp dependent, to a certain extent, and goes away with nice tube amps. I actually prefer the tuning of the Clear over the Utopia, although the latter wins on pretty much every other criterion. I should note that I've not yet heard the Utopia out of my DNA Stratus, which is supposed to improve the soundstage and the treble presentation.
One last thing about the Clear: it has some of the most impressive macrodynamic strength of any headphone; it's not far off the class-leading headphones for this, and it also has great slam. This is amp dependent, though.
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It's outside the $2k range but I'd encourage you to consider the Rosson Audio RAD-0. You can get b-stock ones for around $2k.
The founder and CEO used to design headphones and work for Audeze, and the RAD-0 shares some of the DNA of high-end Audeze headphones. I've only heard one at CanJam, although I got to hear it for a good 30-45 minutes without many noisy people around me, and I was very impressed. I have the LCD-4 and the RAD-0 is only a smidge behind the LCD-4 when it comes to technicalities, but it is tuned better, by which I mean that it's not as dark and is also more coherent - the big problem with the LCD-4 is its transition through the treble, which is a bit disjointed. The RAD-0 is free of this issue. I know a bunch of guys who have the RAD-0 and love theirs. I'm going to be listening to one of theirs later this week on a personal loaner and I'm super excited to hear it in my own system.
If you're prepared to fork out a bit more cash, the customization options for the RAD-0 are awesome, not just in terms of color scheme (and the choice of chrome/silver and black chassis but also different color grilles), but also in terms of tuning: you can opt for standard, dark, or bright. You can see some of the cool ones
here, and another cool option is the opportunity to purchase a recreated design of the RAD-0 for yourself, so if you see something you like, you can get it, too.
The downside of the RAD-0 is that it's hard to audition; there's the option of buying and returning but the 15% fee for doing so makes this option a bit too pricey, especially for you
@Scuba Devils, with shipping. I wish they had demo units for audition purposes, even if that involved a 5% fee, which is more manageable.
On the other hand, the RAD-0 is said to be relatively easy to drive and to work well out of DAPs, see
here.
