Thanks for all of the replies. I decided to go ahead and get the HD-650's, J&R had them for a great price.
First song I put on was Kid A (ipod), and then I listened to Dave Matthews and Tim Reynold live at radio city music hall, blu-ray, PCM 2-channel, optical connection to my Onkyo receiver, headphones plugged into receiver. They were a bit bright, but sounded very nice and I only got a song in because I was busy, but I would put them on throughout the day and listen to a song here and there (on the ipod now). Then I was listening to Hail Hail off the pearl jam album Vs. (ipod) and the brightness suddenly disappeared just like that. I swear it was like they broke in just like that, at least to my ears. So last night I listened to blonde on blonde, Mirror Ball, and a few other songs (ipod).
Acoustic Guitar sounds incredibly realistic, I play guitar and know exactly what it should sound like, and on albums like blonde on blonde, and the fleet foxes album, it was spot on, as well as the dave matthews tim reynolds blu-ray disc, but it was a bit bright at that point because I think they were breaking in. On one pearl jam track, I could hear the slight buzz of the amp before the song started, and it was not one of those loud buzzes like you hear when Jonny plugs in his guitar on the first song on that one radio head album (the name escapes me), it was subtle, but there. Vocals are very interesting, best way i can describe it is I get the feeling that I am actually hearing air and not individual notes. On Mirrorball, Maclachlan's inflections were clearly heard, and they were inflections I had never noticed before, it really made me appreciate her more as a vocalist, I can't imagine anyone sounding like her and getting those little nuances right, i could hear her inhale as well. Everything is very dynamic and the bass is good, but not that good, I'm listening through an ipod mind you. I can't wait to hear it through a good amp. Another thing I noticed is that the location of instruments on my old phones was hazy, for example, low notes would be in slightly different positions than high notes perhaps due to them accentuating certain frequencies, but on these phones, everything is very focused. The sound stage is very wide. On Lucky by radiohead, it was as if I was sitting right in front of Tom yorke and the band was playing around me almost in a circle, with the guitar practically behind me and drums off to the left on a circle drawn around me, and Yorke almost singing right into my face a foot or so away with the bass clearly off to the right. That was one of the few songs I noticed that seemed to put me in with the band because of it's unique sound stage caused by all the processed guitars, which was kinda cool.
But in general, they are very detailed, but laid back, not bright, very dynamic and musical and that is exactly what I wanted.
I'm going to build a soho II when the kits come out, and some DIY cables as well, so we shall see how that improves them.
