Any single opinion about the sound of a particular set of phones, must be taken with a grain of salt IMO. They might fit differently and sound different with other amplification. To try to make sense of conflicting opinions, read in all kinds of reviews both clueless and knowledgeable, spec graphs can help understand what's really happening. The Headroom graphs can be superimposed to directly compare. An interesting comparison (for me) was the KRK8400, ATM50 and Shure 840. Take a look. Click on the graph itself then scroll down and select the others. I suggest selecting no more than 3 at a time. Keep in mind that perceived flat freq resp in phones is not exactly flat. Most of them have a peak at 10K and a broad peak around 100Hz. The square wave comparison between these 3 is also interesting. The KRK has a much nicer sq wave at 50Hz. The others look better at 500Hz.
http://www.headphone.com/headphones/krk-systems-kns-8400.php#tabs
