you might be interested in this comparison by a recording engineer of a number of popular closed back headphones:
I've done three 2-day live gigs in the past 8 days with ATH-M50 headphones.
My favorite strategy is to position the mic so that what I hear in the
phones most closely matches what I hear live. This simply makes things easy.
Of course this strategy is mission impossible if anything in the signal path
is too colored.
I've tried the following phones:
Sennheiser HD-580 - open ear phones, sounded great but there too much
leakage from the live performance to be sure that it wasn't the leakage that
was responsible for the great sound in the phones.
Sennheiser HD 280 - very isolated but way too colored, particularly in the
upper mid and high end. Uncomfortable.
Sony MDR 7506 - mediocre sealing but also way too colored, hyped in both the
top and the bottom.
Audio Technica ATH-A700 - isolation a little better than the Sonys, but
still not all that great. Much less coloration than any of the above except
the HD-580s. Bulky and fragile for moving around and using on-site. Very
comfortable.
Audio Technica AT-M50 - better isolation than all but the HD 280s. Seem to
be more durably built than the ATH-A700. More compact. Best sonic match
given that there is indeed enough isolation to make a critical judgment.
Notice there was no AKG in this list. From what I am starting to gather, most people seem to prefer the sound of the AT, but the AKGs are more comfortable/cooler and have a handy feature for recording in that when you take them off, a microswitch operates to turn the sound off (so it doesn't bleed into the microphone).
Some engineers like the Sony 7506 for editing, because all the flaws are exaggerated by the hyped top end. They are compared to the Genelec monitors which also produce a "smiley face" tonality - so-named because if you duplicate the sound with a graphic equalizer, you will make a smiley face with the sliders. The lows and the highs are boosted in a way which catches your attention for a while, then becomes tiring to listen to compared to a more natural tonal presentation.
It seems there are two fundamental schools of design in both speakers and headphones - those seeking to duplicate reality (tonally) and those attempting to second guess the consumer by giving them what they think they will like.
In the former camp are (off the top of my head) AKG 240, 271, 501, 701, K1000, Etymotic Research ER4s, Audio Technica ATH M-50 and A 700. In the smiley camp are most other headphones, especially including Sonys. Grados to me are hyped on the bottom and pretty natural on top, plus you can really crank them without them getting nasty.
As far as monitor speakers, FWIW, the hyped camp include Genelec, Mackie, Behringer and most JBLs. The natural camp includes SP Technology (although they are hardly known yet in pro circles), Harbeth (the original midrange-o-centric speaker), KRK and some Yamahas, especially the old NS 1000 series. Fostex headphones and speakers are just mildly hyped, top and bottom.
Sorry if this is too much information, it is something I have been keeping my eye (ear?) on for nearly 40 years.
