Ye who have ears, let them hear. I was looking for headphones about a year ago and posed the same question. Two names came up consistently Grado and Sennheiser. I first needed something for my main system which did not offer headphone out, so I bought the head amp&phone dynamic duo, Sennheiser HD600's & Musical Fidelity's X-can. I was blown away by the Sennheiser's. I didn't know that much hi fidelity could come from a headphone. Then i needed another pair to replace my AKG 240's I use on my bedroom receiver at night. Well I always wondered if I missed something by not listening to the Grado. So I took my AKG's to a store that sold Grado and done a comparison. I almost laughed out loud, what was everyone raving about Grado for? I didn't like them as well as the AKG and they don't even come close to sounding as good as my Sennheiser HD580's I ended up buying and the Grado's I listened to cost more money than the 580's. Each pair of Grado as I went up in price listening to them had bass that was bloated and very much over baring on the rest of the sound which lacked much detail. Especially for the price they were charging. And then there is the cheezy look and discomfort of Grado. They look like the old headphones we had at our school library.

The Sennheiser's have a wide frequency response and will allow you to be able to hear every detail your system has to offer. You will be immediately impressed. They have nice comfortable padding that fit over your whole ear. They can be a little tight fitting until broke in and they are open back design, so they will leak sound out into the room bad. Not a good choice for my bedroom listening but I can't give them up.

www.amusicdirect.com has 10% off on website purchases until the 31st but you have to get the code off of their news letters or call the 800# and hope a sales person will be nice enough to give it to you. Plus they are blowing out the HD600's at $200. a pair which retail was $295. and you can get a pair of B-stock 580's for $129.00. You can still subtract 10% from that. Also I heard the same crap about not working with portables very well. I found that not to be true. I have a little am/fm walkman about the size of a small fold up cell phone and it drove my 580's better than the small walkman headphones. This impression could also be from the 580's having much more frequency response. They did seem to play louder though. But i figure why in the world would you buy a large over the ear headphone for any portable anyway. MD also sell Grado, you may want to try both rather than take my account of it, send one back. They have 30 day return policy. I'm confident you will keep the Sennheiser