I've been a DJ, producer and some sort of audiophile for quite some years. fellow DJ's, producers and myself always fall back to the professional Sennheiser line.
Each and every time we need or advise a headphone: Sennheiser HD-25-1 II (1.5 meter cable) or the Sennheiser HD-25-C II (3 meter cable)
Original selling price: 299.95, now available for ±200.
http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD...ZOXG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329471843&sr=8-1
Why we fall back to these headphones:
- They're really light (easy to cary with you and on your head)
- You can replace individual parts (cable, speaker, etc...)
- They're really strong
- They've got fantastic passive noise canceling which is always better then fancy active noise canceling with only a little passive noise canceling. So you can listen to your headphones without hearing people around you and without them hearing you
- They're rated at 70ohm so they can be used on normal devices (there's also a more expensive 600ohm version for headphone amps)
- They sound amazing in the low, mids and highs without doing the "Look it says Dr. Dre so we put way to much bass in these cans" idea. They give a really pure and crystal clear rendition of your recording. Want more bass? simply download/rip a higher quality version of your track. These headphones really let you hear the difference between 128kbps - 192kbps, but also between 192kbps and 256kbps and between 256kbps and 1411 AIFF or lossless codecs.
Basically these are the headphones you go for if your serious about sound but do not own (or plan on owning) an additional headphones amplifier.
P.S. The 600ohm versions are widely regarded as the best headphones for field recordings ranging from recording music performances to audio for television/movies.
P.P.S I've been the proud owner of a HD-25 for 6 years and would never, ever buy anything else.
P.P.P.S Never buy rubbish from brands like Monster (Dr. Dre) or Bose.
With monster you pay an enormous amount for the Dr. Dre badge with the so called Dr. Dre technology which is basically a wrongly equalized product.
Bose uses philips parts (A great company from my country. While it makes great products, audio is no longer their no.1 priority) which are okay and then lets you pay an enormous amount for active noise canceling which is useless in almost all situations (and never works properly in the right situations) and then adds another premium for the Bose badge.