Thanks for the suggestions! I do think the Sony MDR-1A would really be close to ideal for me if it had a better soundstage. That’s the biggest reason I returned it. The soundstage just sounded tiny and inside my head compared to the HyperX Cloud Stinger, which has a very nice and open soundstage to my ears. I found this especially when listening to tracks like Peter Gabriel’s Into The Sun, which has a lot of subtle details going on in the stereo field, though the YouTube video loses a lot of that with the lossy compression.
The V-Moda M-100 (with the XL pads) also has a more open soundstage to my ears than the MDR-1A (though not nearly as good as the HyperX Cloud Stinger), and also has a little more presence in the vocal range than the Sonys, which I thought was not bad. In addition to increasing the sound stage, the XL pads I think also diminish a little bit of the bass emphasis. To me the amount of bass that the MDR-1A has is very similar to the V-Moda M-100. The rtings.com measurements seem to indicate in the “Std. Err.” for the bass of the M-100 is only 3dB above their target, whereas the MDR-1A is 2dB above, so that is only 1dB of difference, and thats with the standard ear pads, so with the XL pads, that probably brings them pretty close to the same, which my ears tend to agree with. I do wish the bass was weighted a little more toward the low-bass though, rather than the high-bass, which would bring it a little closer to an equal-loudness contour.
I don’t think the M-100 bass sounds comical at all. From what I’ve heard, a lot of people think it’s ideal for modern music, including the reviewer of Inner Fidelity, who says “For just about anyone I know under the age of 35, these will be on the top of my recommendation list.” It’s also still on his wall of fame, with that very same quote as the first line, which sounds like quite high accolades to me, not to mention a number of other sites who seem to seem to honor it as the best balance between a bass and flat audiophile headphone.
The reason that I don’t like the THD of the MDR-1A is not just because of the total, it’s because the majority of it is focused on the treble, to which I found the treble slightly fatiguing after a while. The rtings.com article said “the peak in distortion around 5KHz, would make the Treble on these headphones sound slightly harsh and brittle.” To tell you the truth, I’m not sure if it was that, or the fact that the 10kHz peak is rather high, which made them seem a bit fatiguing. This is just a minor gripe though, and I might have kept the MDR-1A if they had a wider soundstage.
As far as other headphones I’ve tried, I have compared the Audio Technica ATH-M50X directly with the V-Moda M-100, while I was in Guitar Center, and though that the M50X had too much treble and not enough bass, and prefered the V-Moda headphones over everything they had on their demo rack.
I have a couple old pairs Sony MDR-7506 laying around which now have broken cables and worn out ear pads, which sound OK, but not great, and could use some more bass, and I’m tired of them wearing out. I bought some replacement ear pads for them, but i’m not sure they sound the same. I have some old ATH-M40fs which I’ve used so much they are falling apart, but don’t like them well enough to get the same ones again. Previous to my starting on this new headphone quest, I have been using for the past few years the Sennheiser HD 380 Pros (with the ear pads now wearing out), which are nice, but again lacking bass (especially when plugged into underpowered amps), and they are also a bit mid heavy.
I tried the Bose QC 35 II, which you mentioned, but returned it because the noise canceling pressure on my ears felt terrible, and I actually found that their “noise canceling” ADDED a fair amount of high frequency noise, and though you can turn the noise cancelling off, it defaults to on every time you turn on the headphones. Also, these add latency, which is bad for real time monitoring. I did really like the bass curve on these though, and might get them if they didn’t have the latency and added noise.
I have on order the MDR-100 AAP, which I’m looking forward to trying because they look like they have a good amount of bass but also have as high of sound stage ratings on rtings.com as the HyperX Cloud Stingers do. I noticed though, you said you liked them more than the M50X at one time, but then later changed your mind?
I also just ordered the HyperX Cloud Alphas to give them a try, since some people say they have a good soundstage (including you, right?), though I haven’t seen a rating on rtings.com yet. I’m hoping these have enough bass for me.
And now I just read that you liked the Pioneer DJ HRM-6 pretty well, which you say has more bass than the M50x? Which do you think has stronger bass, out of the MDR-100 AAP, the Cloud Alphas, or the Pioneer DJ HRM-6?
That about sums up my headphone quest so far. I do have a pair speakers which I mix on sometimes, which are the Alesis M1 Active Mk2 monitors, with a Sony 10" subwoofer. I can’t use these all the time though, so I sometimes use headphones. I think headphones having a better soundstage could make mixing on headphones better, and less prone to errors that someone might make when mixing on them otherwise.
Thanks for all your suggestions!