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Isolation
The noise canceling circuit on these cans works only moderately well, delivering isolation that might be more typical of a good passive sealed headphone. I would not recommend these as an air or train travel headphone, as they really won't cut down on external noise well enough for that purpose. It does have the nice feature of being able to operate without turning on the noise canceling, which is great if you run out of battery, but the sound of the cans suffer when operating without power.

Sound Quality
With the noise canceling on, these headphones are…

It's not often one gets to set-up $37,000+ worth of the world's best headphone gear on the dining room table. I should do a little comparative listening test and report my findings, methinks.

Wasn't easy to write with all the good music going on in my head, though.

Splitting Hairs
I need to preface this article with the observation that these are all great headphones. In this article, I'm testing these cans in a comparative manner. If you're not careful you might walk away thinking there's more difference between…

HiFiMAN HE-6 ($1199)
Description - These are full size, open, planar magnetic headphones at the top of the HiFiMAN line.

Pink Noise - Very even through bass and mids; slightly uneven and overall slightly accentuated treble with a moderate low to mid-treble peak (think: "shhh").

Bass Texture/Extension - Very good in both texture and extension with slight bloom to sound.

Bass Slam - Planar magnetic cans typically have the best bass as a class of all headphone types. I found the HE-6 to do quite well in bass slam, but the slight bloom and strong treble to…

HiFiMAN HE-500 ($899)
Description - These are full size, open, planar magnetic headphones one step down from top of the HiFiMAN line.

Pink Noise - Slightly lacking in bass extension, with mild warmth due to slightly reduced treble. Treble, however, has mildly pronounced narrow peak in mid-treble ("sss").

Bass Texture/Extension - Extraordinary texture and very good extension. Very, very articulate, maybe slightly dry sounding bass ... what ever that means.

Bass Slam - With a very articulate and tight bass, these babies slammed hard. Very nice.

Midrange…

Description - Sennheiser's flagship dynamic headphone is a full-size open design, and uses a ring radiator driver to deliver a more planar wavefront to the ear.

Pink Noise - Very even sounding, but lacks a bit of heft in lowest two octaves, and has mild mid-treble emphasis (between "sss" to "ssh").

Bass Texture - Good texture and extension. Slightly "one note" sounding relative to the planar magnetic cans.

Bass Slam - Dynamics are good on these, but the slightly one-note sound and lack of bass extension has these falling a bit short…

Audez'e LCD-2 Late Rev. 1 (old driver, new pads)
Description - This is a full-size, open, planar magnetic headphone. Now flavor of the year among headphone enthusiasts, it's often thought of as a contender for world's best headphone.

Pink Noise - Very even from lowest octaves to low-treble; slightly warm tilt moving higher in frequency with a slight mid-treble peak ("sss").

Bass Texture - Very, very good texture, and extraordinarily good extension ... maybe the best I've ever heard. Slight bloom.

Bass Slam - The LCD-2 has the strongest and best extending bass…

Stax SR-007 Late Mk. 1 (~$2600)
Description - This is a full size, open, electrostatic headphone. I'll quote one of the Stax Mafia here:

SR-007 Mk1 late version - the version tested here and the most common of the Mk1's, S/N either 7xxxx or SZ1-xxxx

SR-007A/SR-007Mk2 - S/N SZ2-xxxx, Stax change the earpads, how they sit and introduce a port to the earcups. Sound is a mixed bag depending on fit but can be fixed to sound pretty much like the Mk1.

SR-…

Stax SR-009
Description - Released by Stax recently (mid-2011), this is a full-size open electrostatic headphone, which incorporates a numerous changes from previous models including a new driver.

Pink Noise - Extraordinarily even! Only slight and broad emphasis at upper-mid/low-treble ("chu").

Bass Texture - Other than being a little less hefty than I'd like (just a little), the extension was very, very good, and the texture was simply breathtaking. Felt like I heard the spit on the lips of the tuba player. Spectacularly clear.

Bass Slam - Holy moly! These…

I was a little surprised the LCD-2 didn't fair better against the competition. It just seemed a bit bloomy and lacking in realism, what with the speed of some of the other headphones on the table. Still, it's luxuriant, liquid warmth made me very, very happy.

I love/hate the Sennheiser HD 800. They do so much right with their extraordinary coherence…

Some modified Grado cans have shown up in the lab. I don't know what my problem was getting to them in a timely manner, maybe it's my dislike in general for Grado cans, maybe it was the trouble I was having getting my corporate shipping set up, but I've finally managed to get around to listening and writing this post.

Oh, well, here we go ...

Modified Grado SR60 by Kneel Jung
Kneel's Notes - My SR60 is just pieced together like a puzzle. I never got around to putting some screws in for the gimbals. The cups are…