More of a speaker guy and I'm having trouble finding headpones I can appreciate.

I have had a little more than a few headphones in my life. I've had AKG Q701's and K712's, Sony MDRZ7's and my current HD650's. From what I can remember, I liked the AKG's because of their clarity in the high ranges, but hated their bass (probably because I ran them with an original Mayflower Objective amp/dac). When I had the Sony's, I remember loving the build quality, liking the overall sound because it was different, but not being able to listen for very long because the punchy signature put too much pressure against my ears and caused pain. Also its highs where painful in general. I modded them and the bass punch vanished and the highs recessed. I sold those a year ago. Now I have HD650's and while they are great, they really don't impress me and I never find myself actually wanting to listen to them. Currently I am running a Modi multibit and a Massdrop cavali.

I got my first actual speaker setup about half a year ago and I definitely haven't experienced this kind of enjoyment through a headphone yet. I have Kef Q100's and a SMSL AD18.

I really am searching for a headphone that I can appreciate just like my speaker setup. Whether that's possible or not I don't know. Im thinking of DT1990's or something planar. Sorry for the somewhat jambled post but my phone is about to die. I will be happy to answer any questions in the comments.

 

Please don't start new threads like this - ask this kind of question in the General Advice thread. You also haven't told us what specifically you don't like about your headphone chain and what you do like about your speaker chain. Once you understand what you do and don't like, try to find the answer in the many threads on specific headphones. Your headphone chain is about as good as it gets in mid-fi for an all around system. You will have to be very specific with yourself as to what you are looking for.

 

Tough crowd of one. Perhaps Nathan is saying he prefers the typical Brit sound of bloated mid-bass, recessed mids and grainy treble? The KEF Q series does a wonderful job of keeping that tradition alive and well. Can't think of any headphones that I could recommend to match that frequency balance, perhaps others can?

 

Headphones cant replace speakers. Speakers will always bring qualities that headphones cant

 

I would not be so harsh on the Kef Q100, nor the HD- 650. I have had lots of stand mounts in my HT setup and the Q100 currently and they do just fine. Nothing like the typical dated impression of British Bookshelves. I've owned a number of them and the Q100 for example is rather nice. Still has a bit of a midbass bump but the mids and upper mids are more transparent than lots of bookshelf or stand mount speakers circa 1970-1990, and highs are non-grainy.

On to the headphone question. I think you can get more out of the HD-650 than you might think. Amp selection is very important, moreso IMHO than dac. And it does not hurt to do a very modest EQ, if what you have is rather transparent.

 

Have you tried electrostatic, namely the Stax L700 or other new lambdas? I find them very enjoyable and comfortable in long listening sessions, but they aren't exactly speaker like (much faster and detailed but without the same slam and soundstage). The lambdas aren't very demanding in terms of amplification and there is a wide range of prices for headphone/amplifier combinations (SRS3100, SRS5100, L700 + 353X or 006tS).

 

I've never heard anyone describe the KEF Q series as that. Are you talking about the floor standers or the bookshelf? I think the q series floor standers leave much to be desired because there's other better options in that price bracket but I've never thought q100 or q150 had bloated mid-bass and recessed meds and grainy treble. Did you have them setup correctly on stands? Sounds like a room problem not a fault of the speakers.

 

I second the above. Q100s do have a bit of mid-bass bump, but so do a lot of bookshelf speakers in that price range (and quite a bit above it). But the Uni-Q driver is excellent at imaging and tonality. (It seems the people who find it glarey are used to soft-dome tweeters.)

As far as the OP’s question, something like the NAD HP50s, with their “Room Feel” design to hit the Harman curve, might be worth checking out.

 

One headphone you might want to check out is the Philips Fidelio X2 or X2 HDR. They are tonally quite close to my Monitor Audio Silver 10.