Hopefully someone can explain the difference to me between closed and open studio headphones- i.e. headphones that you'd connect to your receiver as opposed to say an ipod.
I just bought and raved in another post, Ultrasone HFI 700 Home Theater Surround Sound Headphones. The sound on these were incredible, like I was hearing 5.1 sound through speakers but they weren't comfortable at all on my ears due I think to the rubber padding & basically felt like they were suffocating my ears. These were closed headphones & they blocked out external noise. Anyway, I called up Ultrasone & asked them if they had more comfortable headphones with just as good or better sound. The guy I spoke to suggested their HFI 2200 ULE phone which was listed at $299. I managed to get this new on Ebay for $250 including shipping & meanwhile sold my 700 model at a $30 loss. Anyway, the 2200 is an open headphone and is very comfortable, perhaps due to its velvet earpadding but I think the 700 sounded a little better. Given the choice, very good comfort is preferable to better sound & lousy comfort. Anyway, will all closed headphones tend to feel uncomfortable or if I was able to get the same velvet padding with it would the discomfort level go away?