I would vote for the HD650/6XX. I know many people would pick the HD600, but I’ve actually never heard a pair. I went from the HD598 to the 6XX. I have since picked up the 58X and 660s. (this week in fact). I plan on picking up a pair of 600s soon though.
I also prefer the HD650. The mids at 3500 khz are way too elevated on the HD 600 and create shoutiness. On a tube though, HD 600 are great.
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First I have to say that I am actually quite sensitive when it comes to high frequency ranges in musical reproduction.
Therefore, one thing is really beyond me, here it is often said that GRADO tunes its headphones too brightly (which definitely does not apply to every model).
Likewise, there would be a lack of bass volume, hmmm, and the build quality would be old-fashioned.
On the other hand, a Beyerdynamic DT1990pro is advertised as a suitable HiFi headphone so that you can listen to it for a long time without any problems.
The Beyer is a really good studio headphone for mixing and mastering, but in my eyes not even suitable to listen to music comfortably and for a longer time.
In my opinion it is clearly too bright and flat in tonality and the bass does not move into the deepest cellar.
The heights bother me in the long run with the Beyer, while with one or the other GRADO they find the limit to create very good details and a sense of space without killing your nerves.
The comfort of GRADO’s is actually much better in the long run.
I would personally only use the DT1990 for work, because it is clearly superior to the GRADO,
for the pure enjoyment of music I would always prefer the American.
Which does not mean that there are no better headphones on the market.
PS .: If you turn down the peaks in the highs, and you Turn up the bass a bit, via EQ’ing at the Beyer’s, the whole tonal tuning actually only sounds unnatural to me.
My personal nominations for the perfect headphones of the decade would be an in-ear, namely the Campfire Audio Andromeda S.
This piece of silver jewel is perfectly tonally tuned imo, has all tonal limits absolutely under control and thus easily keeps up with even the highest quality over-ears.
The Andromeda Gold is also very good, but tonally colored (U-Shaped) a little.
Would anyone ever nominate the CFA Cascades? I am really curious about those.
Picking just one, the LCD-2 simply due to the impact it had on the industry. The current iteration, LCD-2 Fazor is a pretty damned refined product.
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From that decade i’ve had the beyerdynamics 990, 770, the Hifiman 4xx and the Senheiser 58x. Out of the four my favorite headphones are definetly the Senheiser 58x, not particularly a big fan of how they present detail (although i got used to it and like it now) but love how warm the headphones are and how the vocals are presented to you in such a straight forward fashion. The biggest deciding factor is the sweet vocal timbre that it gives off in comparison to the other headphones.
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Good point, those we total game changers tot he point people like switching between fazors and non fazor models.