After working with audio and video editors for nearly 30 years, the one thing I've discovered about headphones – they are extremely personal. So much of the wearer's head and ear shape, comfort level with weight, music tastes, hearing range, headphone amp, etc., etc., etc., go into what's the 'best' set of headphones, I think it is an impossible task to choose a set of headphones without personally trying them and listening to your favorite audio evaluation tracks.
I have a large head and can tolerate fairly heavy headphones for long periods. What might be the best headphones for me, many others might find cumbersome and too heavy. Likewise, when editors would have me try out their headphones, they often did not really fit my head that well or cover my ears properly. So much of a great set of headphones for a particular listener is as much fit and comfort as it is sound – if you can't stand wearing them very long, it does not matter how well they reproduce music.
"Another potential problem is that, as much as I enjoy using MM-500, the comfort is known to be hit-or-miss for many people due to the fact that it has a significantly tight clamp force. As someone who truly believes comfort is an under-represented metric in our community discourse, I feel it’s crucial to mention this."
I'm wearing my HiFi Man headphones now, VERY comfortable cushions. I've owned some Magneplanar Tympani 4a,and 3.7 model speakers and I love the planar design of these phones. Listen to how clean the piano sounds and how good the bass line is on this disc, then imagine it sounding incredible on your new headphones. Start at 6:30
