studio headphones

Sony MDR 7506

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I wouldn't go with Eggo's, they're hit or miss with their headphones and rarely are 'hit' with flat response in mind.

I'd try the HFI 650 Trackmasters or Senn HD580 from Jan Meier over at Meier Audio:

Meier Audio

I'd suggest building a headphone amp to accompany either of these, if you do, though, as buying one would put you way over your price limit.

Both are known for being very flat. The HFI 650's are sealed while the HD580's are open. I don't see a reason to hold bias between the two, as they both have similar frequency response. I suggest the Trackmasters far over the DVD edition ones, as the DVD's tend to sound dark and slightly less analytical.

 

IME, if you're after quality of sound, go with open back phones, like the HD580s. Closed back phones will give you much better attenuation of outside noise, and will drastically reduce leakage into mics - but IME the better the attenuation, the worse the quality.

I've got a pair of Sennheiser HD280s, which have very good attenuation - when you have them on, you can barely hear a thing, almost like ear defenders. They have very low leakage, so I use them for recording vocals. However, the quality isn't so good, they sound very nasal to me, too midrangey. I wouldn't want to spend too long listening over them.

 

Some do have poor quality and/or boomy bass. The HFI 650's do not suffer from this problem though, as many high quality closed cans don't.

Then again, you're comparing cans that are from two entirely different price ranges. HFI 650's are $185 shipped, the 280's are around $100.

 

AKG K240s. Done.

 

True. But how is the attenuation on the 650s? It seems to me that the greater the attenuation (and it does vary greatly among closed back phones), the worse the sound quality.

The 280s are designed to have very high attenuation, and they do! They're designed for purposes where you want to exclude all outside noise. From my point of view, they're good because as a by product of not letting sound in, they don't let sound out either, so they're good for recording vocals, where there is the potential for leakage.

I'm planning on getting a pair of Sennheiser HD600s (open back phones) for listening/monitoring on. They are very good quality phones, but for tracking vocals, they'd leak like hell into the mic.

 

650's have good isolation. I don't know how many dB of isolation they offer. Probably around the standard: 12dB of isolation.

If you checkout headwize.com, there's quite a few reviews of them on the forums.

 

I agree, AKG 240'S. Very smooth flat response. I've got both the 240M and the 240DF. I really like the DF's.
Jonathan