Just one word of advice OP. With all respect to Denons, don't buy closed if you want to have them on your head for long sessions.
They get a lot more stuffy than open headphones.
I've personally never had an issue with it and I listen primarily to closed headphones (and the open headphones I've used for long periods were every bit as problematic in that area for me), and taking short breaks is a good idea for your ears any way.
Sorry, didn't mean to be so...not sure what word I'm trying to use, but it is something to consider, but its something that I've never had an issue with (and I've had very long listening sessions with lots of closed headphones including the Denons). Environment and the person I think are bigger factors than the headphones as far as it being an issue. It is true some headphones are worse than others, but I think the Denons were some of the better ones in that respect myself. The only ones I've ever had a real issue with were the HD280s (really closed, poor earpad materials and clamping force made them uncomfortable after about an hour).
I love my Audio Technica AD700's. Combined with my xfi prelude and some tweaking of the equalizer I love their sound. A lot of people complained that their bass is somewhat lacking, but I find it to be adequate. They can be had for 80 bucks also, so if you don't like the sound they don't set you back a ton.
They are extremely comfortable by the way.
The AD700s are ok, but I don't think they're terribly great at the two genres he listed, personally. The A700 or A900s would be better, and I feel the D2000s would be better than both of them.
while i agree that the ad700 do a fine job representing bass relative to the rest of the spectrum, i really don't think they provide the kind of bass that the OP is looking for, especially for hip hop...but they are quite comfortable.
OP, as stated really the only way to know for sure what you want is to try to listen to a bunch of different headphones...which is the tricky part...oh also don't really pay heed to the open/closed thing, when considering high end headphones it doesn't really matter too much; look at the whole package that a set of headphones offers, and not just a certain aspect. if i'm not mistaken, headroom (
www.headphone.com) has something like a 2 week or 30 day satisfaction guarantee, so if you eventually decide you don't like the sound of your headphones, you can send them back...then again you'll pay more for headphones there than you would on amazon or through the fs/ft forum at head-fi.
Yeah, that's the problem, the bass will never really be anything more than adequate, and plenty of times will leave you wanting (its not even just the quantity, the AD700 bass lacks much real texture compared to higher end headphones). The A700s would be better, but while they have more quantity, the quality is still short of better headphones.
Yeah, Headroom is good (although they might not remain so, they've had some changes in upper management, but until there's something to really be cause for concern from them they deserve to be considered).
Amazon is also a decent place, but the problem is, Amazon itself doesn't always offer great pricing, and so you need to be sure if you're actually buying it from them or one of the other places. Plenty of the stores that have a good presence on Amazon (Beach Camera, J&R, can't remember the others) also sometimes have good deals, although I don't know about their return policies. Some people are lucky and have Guitar Centers or Musican's Friend stores near them that carry some pretty good headphones. Seems their trial (demo pairs in the stores themselves) and return policies are pretty hit and miss (some people they opened new boxes for them to try out in the store, and then others were told they couldn't even return the headphones at all), so be sure to ask about their policies beforehand.
