Alright, now that I've killed all the paragraphs that I assume were scaring you guys away, I can give you a much easier restatement of my problem.
My first priority will be a good soundstage for gaming, but I also want the headphones for music, primarily rock.
I would prefer to have the isolation of closed headphones but I don't care that much about others hearing my sound, and the ambient noise in my room, even with the aircon, is not so significant that I would sacrifice significant improvements in other areas just for the sake of having closed cans.
As for budget let's say I'm willing to spend up to $250 AUD as long as it's worth it. Unfortunately that amount doesn't go very far over here; the Audio Technica ATH-AD700, for example, would set me back $225 AUD.
If it really is true that to get a good soundstage in closed headphones I will need to pay significantly more, then I would rather look at open models instead. I had previously thought that the Sennheiser HD215 would still have reasonably good soundstage, as would the Audio Technica A series.
With that in mind, it seems that my best choices would probably be the Beyerdynamic DTX series or Audio Technica AD series.
The Audio Technica ATH-AD700 is a highly recommended model, so it seems to me that it would really be worth the expense over other, cheaper alternatives. Or am I missing something here?
Snufkin over on Headphonic Australia tells me that to get a good soundstage in a closed headphone I would really have to pay for something like the Ultrasone HFI-500DJ1. This is my thread over there:-
http://headphones.com.au/forums/view...hp?p=3556#3556
Now, my questions then are
1) In open headphones my options seem to be the Beyer DTX and Audio Technica AD series. How do the Audio Technica ATH-AD700 compare to my cheaper alternatives here?
2) How do the Ultrasones compare to the options I have by way of open headphones?
