[brechtyx]

Hi all, I've been reading the forums for a while and a few months ago invested in my first real headphone (besides a very old Grado SR60)- the Oppo PM3, along with the ifi mini idsd. I'm loving it for about 70% of the music I listen to-- basically everything besides chamber music and fairly heavy rock (mostly artsy post punk stuff). So I'm thinking of acquiring another set or two to use with these genres for which the PM3 presentation doesn't work for me. Probably don't want to go much higher than $800 total for two more sets ultimately.
 
I'd be curious for advice-- the obvious choice for chamber music seems to be either a Seinheser 600 series or one of the AKG 701 etc. family, and I'm tending towards the latter because what I'm messing from the Oppos on this kind of music is airiness and detail.
 
And the obvious choice for rock is, I guess, one of the higher-end Grados? My specific issue with how the PM3s sound with this sort of stuff is, 1) could use a more dynamic slam and 2) Guitars don't sound distorted in quite the intense way I'm looking for. To make matters more complicated, a lot of the rock I listen too is older and/or recorded in someone's crappy garage. I'm not necessarily looking for a 'forgiving' headphone because sometimes I've found that what audiophiles call forgiving, I perceive as overly smooth and muted-  I'm used to (and like) some amount of dissonance. I'm also wondering if, for my rock listening, I'm just never going to be as happy with headphones than with my speaker set-up, in which case this might be a quixotic quest.
 
For what it's worth, in my main system I have, and am very happy with, Ascend Sierra Tower speakers with NRT tweeters. If I could find headphones that had a similar sound signature for rock, I'd be quite pleased. And if I could find headphones that could give me more treble air and detail than my main speakers for chamber music, I would be quite pleased. (Part of this issue might be room acoustics-- I'm just always feeling like I'm missing a little bit when I listen to, say, Schubert string quartets on my main system).
 
Many thanks for all opinions!

 

[Liu Junyuan]

  Hi all, I've been reading the forums for a while and a few months ago invested in my first real headphone (besides a very old Grado SR60)- the Oppo PM3, along with the ifi mini idsd. I'm loving it for about 70% of the music I listen to-- basically everything besides chamber music and fairly heavy rock (mostly artsy post punk stuff). So I'm thinking of acquiring another set or two to use with these genres for which the PM3 presentation doesn't work for me. Probably don't want to go much higher than $800 total for two more sets ultimately.
 
I'd be curious for advice-- the obvious choice for chamber music seems to be either a Seinheser 600 series or one of the AKG 701 etc. family, and I'm tending towards the latter because what I'm messing from the Oppos on this kind of music is airiness and detail.
 
And the obvious choice for rock is, I guess, one of the higher-end Grados? My specific issue with how the PM3s sound with this sort of stuff is, 1) could use a more dynamic slam and 2) Guitars don't sound distorted in quite the intense way I'm looking for. To make matters more complicated, a lot of the rock I listen too is older and/or recorded in someone's crappy garage. I'm not necessarily looking for a 'forgiving' headphone because sometimes I've found that what audiophiles call forgiving, I perceive as overly smooth and muted-  I'm used to (and like) some amount of dissonance. I'm also wondering if, for my rock listening, I'm just never going to be as happy with headphones than with my speaker set-up, in which case this might be a quixotic quest.
 
For what it's worth, in my main system I have, and am very happy with, Ascend Sierra Tower speakers with NRT tweeters. If I could find headphones that had a similar sound signature for rock, I'd be quite pleased. And if I could find headphones that could give me more treble air and detail than my main speakers for chamber music, I would be quite pleased. (Part of this issue might be room acoustics-- I'm just always feeling like I'm missing a little bit when I listen to, say, Schubert string quartets on my main system).
 
Many thanks for all opinions!

Definitely the HD6xx series. You might also look into the HE-560.