Suggestions for closed headphones?

[hirsch]

Denon AH-D2000. Nice punchy headphone that doesn't have the wood earpieces of its more expensive brothers. Imaging is not as good as some other brands, but it's a fun headphone to listen to. All of the inexpensive (read <$1000) closed dynamic headphones I've heard are flawed in some way, but the Denons' flaws are less intrusive to me. If the Sony CD3000 were still in production, it would provide the Denons with serious competition. Probably the closest competition right now is Audio-Technica but I have yet to hear an Audio-Technica headphone, up to and including the L3000, that didn't have an odd midrange suckout.

[digger945]

If I could keep only on can that I own it would be the Denon 2k.

I've yet to find the correct setup to make AT5k's enjoyable.

[catscratch]

Hmmm. I have 271S at work amped with a Gilmore Dynalo. While not bad amped, something better would be nice as long as it wasn't too pricey. The ATH ESW9 sounds interesting, so I did a google on it and ran across this:

Audio Technica ATH ESW9 wood headphones earphones

At that price, that has to be a scam I would think? Or are these guys legit? Paypal only (so not alot of buyer protection).

Very likely Chinese fakes. Fake A-T's are something of a rage these days and any time you have an unknown vendor selling A-T's well below the asking price you can pretty much assume that it's going to be a fake automatically. I would only buy A-T's from known, reliable, legitimate vendors even if I had to pay more.

RE OP: IEMs are the way to go I think, and the SE530 is definitely a good candidate. I was playing around with the idea of getting the UM3x to play with but I may just skip straight ahead to the ES3x. If you have the funds I would very much suggest doing the same - not necessarily the ES3x but a good top-tier custom-molded IEM in general. The UE11 is another candidate and Jude is busy pimping JH IEMs over on that other forum right now but they may be worth a look as well.

IEMs are doing very well and even my old ES2 was very good as a closed headphone, and the new generation of customs should be an improvement.

[jimmyjames8]

2005 DT770's are the only full size closed back cans I own right now. The are fairly neutral sounding and provide maybe 10db isolation. They are keepers but I will definitely check out the Denon 2K. Headroom quit carrying the Dt770 for some reason (?)