Best headphones for ~$300?

[AndroidVageta]

Hi all, was just wondering if anyone here has some recommendation for a new pair of headphones.

Ive looked at the Denon AHD2000 and the Beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO/880/990 as well as others but can't make up my mind.

Ive owned several pairs of headphones and cant find ones that suit me perfectly...Ive owned Shures (SE210), Bose (all of them), Dr Dre Beats, Sony, etc...some sound decent, but all the ones Ive tried are just wayyy too one sided...like, the Shures have awesome highs but crappy mids and lows...the Bose have good lows and mids but shoddy highs, Sonys have good lows and highs but almost no mid range, etc...

I mainly game and listen to music. My music is the alt rock realm...Chevelle, Limp Bizkit, Ben Folds, some classical, etc...

Im running a Creative X-Fi Platinum for audio and a set of Altec Lansing ADA890 for the headphone port (acts as amplifier right?).

Spending limit is ~$300 or so... thanks guys!

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

I'm not a big headphone guy, but I have heard good things about the Denon and Beyerdynamic sets.

If you don't get much help here, you will certainly find a lot of information at headfi. Have you gone there yet? If you haven't, make sure to set yourself a spending limit before you head over... or be prepared to suffer the consequences.

 

[cheesehead]

I really like my Beyerdynamic DT880s, though an amp of some sort is strongly recommended for use with most soundcards - high-impedance headphones like the 880s take a lot of voltage.

If you're feeling flush, the purchase of a good outboard soundcard with its' own power supply (like the now-discontinued M-Audio Audiophile Firewire) is a worthwhile addition - most of them have enough juice to power studio headphones, and there's a big increase in sound quality.

 

[Viper GTS]

Also look at AKG's K702. I have the K701, they're great. The only difference between them is the color & the K702's have a detachable cable. I found a new pair of K701's on ebay for far cheaper than K702's were going for but K702's should be doable in your budget (or close to it).

As cheesehead mentioned you're going to want to look for a better source to get the most out of headphones in this price range. This doesn't necessarily mean a dedicated DAC & amp but if you're serious it will.

http://www.headphone.com/headphone-amps/headroom-total-bithead.php

That would be a decent place to start.

I run a Keces DA-131 DAC + a Shanling PH100 amp, both are great and reasonably priced. DACs & amps can get stupid expensive in a hurry but you don't need to spend a huge amount to be a massive improvement over what you're using now.

Viper GTS

 

[cheesehead]

If you're technically inclined, bodging together a Cmoy is actually pretty easy using parts from RadioShack (though I'd recommend swapping the two 9v batteries for a RadioShack 12-volt center tapped power transformer and a bridge rectifier, and using some better op-amps than RadioShack will sell you.) Alternately, I'm working on a low-budget easy-to-assemble amp design that can be assembled for a little over $40 if you're not a student, and quite a lot less if you're an academic or have a corporate e-mail address and can persuade National Semiconductor to give you free chips.

Also, if you can find one, almost all S/PDIF or optical-input DACs can be connected to PC soundcards via the appropriate adapter. Since said DACs have been around for a very long time, there are quite a lot of them for sale on eBay for not that much money.