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Unfortunately for those of us on the go a lot, we can't bring out speakers with us all the time ;)
For those of you who have listened to a lot of headphones, which set do you feel most closely resemble the Ascend sound? Neutral, detail, with plenty of air at the top end. It could be in any budget as well.
I'm a frequent Head-Fi member and as far as neutrality is concerned you're going to get a thousand different answers. It's really hard to get a headphone to be as neutral as a speaker with the one driver you have to work with. There are a couple of hybrid designs, but not many. With that said, many people feel that the upper end STAX electrostatic models are the pinnacle of clarity and accuracy in a headphone.
Personally, I own an Audeze LCD-2 and Oppo PM-3. I use the LCD-2 at home with my Schiit Bifrost Multibit and Asgard 2 amp and it's incredibly addictive. I would say that the impact and slam of the LCD-2 is incredibly speaker-like, which is what Audeze is going for. They want to nail that and imaging like a stereo system does and they indeed do that. I still feel like the midbass punch is a little less than the towers and the treble is certainly much more recessed. I use my PM-3 primarliy with an iBasso DX80 DAP and it also has an awesome and addictive sound signature, but again, slightly recessed treble that does not have the same kind of detail as a RAAL tweeter.
I think if you really want to replicate the midbass slam and utter treble accuracy of the Sierra speakers, you'd have to have something like an Abyss or other top of the line headphone. Only those uber expensive headphones can nail bass and treble at the same time from what I've seen. All of the planar headphones that I love, even the ones I own, are ruler flat until you hit the mids/lower treble around ~1.5 kHz and then their treble response becomes very irregular and peaky. This is fine for music with me, and even makes a lot of poorly mastered metal a lot easier to swallow, and gives a sort of euphonic signature to a lot of things I listen to, but I can't stand it with movies. I want perfect accuracy when I watch movies, and the ONLY rig I've ever found that does that is my Sierra rig.
Headphones are right by your ears and can hit very high output levels and still maintain sound quality without driver breakup and that's one major advantage. I have the HD800S and you can turn these up and they won't distort whereas most home speakers, even 3-way, 4-way towers with multiple drivers will unless you have PA level output.
Also you don't really have to deal with room reflections, and some of the audio in speakers is extremely directional, which means unless you sit directly on axis you won't even hear some of the nuanced stuff on speakers, whereas a lot of the little details are impossible to miss on headphones, particular on high end phones like from Audeze, Sennheiser or Stax. I don't think any monitor or tower speaker can sound remotely close to as detailed as a high end headphone due to room interactions, reflections, and ambient noise, and I've heard some pretty high end stuff.
Obviously headphones don't image like speakers, which is the downside. But the sound quality/clarity per dollar is much higher.
I have several different brands of phones (Sony, Beyerdynamic,Sennheiser and Shure). For me, the ones that come closest to my Sierra 2s are my Beyerdynamic DT770s. Neutral and detailed.
I have some Beyerdynamic T1... They are close. Fantastic headphones and I hear the 2nd version is even better.
I'm a big MrSpeakers fan for headphones. The Ether's are very impressive headphones. I don't know if I would consider them if you are looking for something to take on a subway or for walking around. But if this is for traveling purposes and are packing them for use when you get to your destination, they would work and come with a nice case. They are also easy enough to drive from a DAP or Chord's Mojo.
The open Ethers are decently neutral with a touch of warmth. Just enough to avoid sounding analytical. They also have a crazy wide soundstage. The closed variation (Ether C) are less warm and a little brighter. The soundstage obviously isn't as wide as the open ones, but it is very impressive for a closed headphone.
On the really cheap side of things, I use a pair of Zero Audio Carbo Tenores with Meelec tips (the tips that come with the Tenores are terrible) on my phone. They sound pretty good for a set of IEMs that cost me $45 being driven by a phone.
Maybe the Focal Utopia will be the one...it's supposed to have the tonal balance of the Sennheisher HD650 with the technical abilities of the HD800. Claimed to be the best dynamic headphone in the world--and certainly with that price tag ($4000) it should be.
I'm not sure it can really dethrone the Stax SR009, but then again it doesn't have to, since it's at least somewhat portable without the need of an electrostatic amplifier.
Just want to give this thread a bump. During black Friday I was looking at headphones...during my search for something that fit the ~$300.00 budget I stumbled upon this thread....all I can say is "wow"...these d770 pro (80ohm) sound phenomenal..I didn't really know what to expect since this was my first foray into higher end head set...but they sound fantastic...decent bass but the imaging is sublime...like having my speakers attached to my Mellon...lol