Best Headphone system under $1000???

I can help you. I have owned a ton of headphones. 

The probelm with going over to forums like head-fi is a lot of the people do not have any good two channel experiance for reference and get used to the colored sound of headphone and make questionable recommendations, Imo of course...

Your Vandersteen 2CE Sig will be far more neutral than a musical set of headphones. A lot of the popular headphones now are crazy dark so you might need a more neutral headphone than you think. 

Anyway I would without hesitation recommend the Focal Elex for $700. It is from a company called mass drop that does bulk buys and adds some of their own design changes. It basically sounds the same as the $1500 focal clear but with a hint less sub bass. 

It has the technicalities to hang or better headphones in the $1000-$2000 range. I also own the HD800S $1700, LCD-X $1200), Grado PS500e $600 and I would choose the Elex as my only headphone if I had to. 

The tonal balance of the Elex is that the bass from 30-150 has about a 3 dB boost and the highs are very detailed but a little shelved down. Some would call them neutral in the highs but I would not. The mids have a slight rise at 1-2k so vocals pop out a bit which is nice. They are easy to drive and can run off an iPhone but still scale well with good electronics. 

The Elex have more bass and softer highs than my Thiel 2.4 for reference, and tonally I would say is close to the sonus faber Olympica iii. A little round and a little soft with leading edge impact in the sub base but very very good at the same time everywhere else. 

https://www.massdrop.com/buy/massdrop-x-focal-elex-headphones?mode=shop_open&utm_source=shopping...

Some quick comments below. 

HD800S (used in your price range), weak bass and recessed mids can make these sound thin and bright. Crazy good soundstage. Almost as good as a near field speaker setup. But I would pass based on your comments for musical tates. 

LCD-2C. Very rolled off highs but ruler flat from 20hz-1k. Crazy good sub bass with great leading edge sub bass impact. Pretty soft everywhere else though. Think magnepan softness...  the vocals sounded wonky to me and I could not get passed it. The LCD-X sounds about the same with more balanced highs (still shelved down) and about twice the price. They also have odd mids and I can’t realy recommend them unless you value bass detail/impact above all else. 

Grados, a hard pass for your tates. Very aggressive sound with forward mids and highs. Bass rolls off early. I really like the PS500e (darkest of the grados, still bright) but is easily outclassed on technicalities by these other headphones. 

Sennhieser HD650/HD660s. The long running reference headphone any only $300ish. Mass drop sells a version for $200 I think. They are good but a little boring and lack impact/dynamics. The Elex is turned about the same and much punchier and fleshed our across the entire frequency range. With a VERY good amp you can get dynamics out of the HD650 but not worth the effort. The Elex is already dynamic...

So all in all I would choose the Focal Elex for a good balanced yet warm sound with good sound stage only bettered by the HD800S sound stage. The LcD-2C or X if you value great sub bass and bass definition above other technicalities, HD650 if you want something cheep and already own a good amp.

I owned the HD650 and ran them off of a Benchmark DAC2 HDR which has a pretty high power class A amp in it. The combination was pretty boring and lacked dynamics. The lack of dynamics is the biggest issue for a speaker guy. No headphone gets it right. Just something that comes with the territory. I have not heard the mass drop amp. 

For me me personally I would take the Focals Elex on a mid priced amp over the HD650s (same as the HD6XX I believe). Some people run the hd650s on crazy expensive amps and they say it helps but it is just not for me. The focals get up and go even out of a phone (but need a better amp to pull out all the details and soundstage).

 I just use a chord mojo and phone these days for my headphones. Desk top stuff sounds better I guess but not as much as you would think. Just depends on if you listen to the details or the music...

Do NOT buy the focal Elear. It is terrible! Worst headphone I have ever owned. It has a 25db dip in the upper mids and is super bassy. I hated it when I owned it. Oddly the Focal Elex is just the Elear with pads from the focal clear more or less and it sounds totally different. It is like putting your speakers in a very bad room then moving to a very good room. 

Big_greg

Agreed and good point. I think a lot of classical guys would appreciate the HD650/HD6XX and they are a steel. They were $350 10 years ago and they might even be cheaper now. I wish the same could be said about the speaker market prices...

Lincnabby,

You will like the HD6XX.They may not wow you at first but they are excellent with no major issues that so many other headphones have.

I am always interested to hear the perspective of headphones from someone into speakers.

I started with headphones in college and moved to speakers for about 15 years. I tried to go back to headphones after owning a good speaker system... I almost pulled it off but in the end I miss the impact/slam of the speakers. Most people miss the sound-stage.

I had a good two year stretch where I just used headphones (by choice) 90% of the time but now I am back to speakers most of the time and only use headphones if the kiddo is sitting with me (she often does) in my audio room.

Headphones will show you what is wrong with your speaker system and your speaker system will show you what you are missing with the headphones.

The Elex will be effected by the amps output impedance more than the HD6XX (80 ohms vs 300)

As the output impedance goes up the bass will get louder (also effects damping) and this is probably not what you want with the Elex as it is already a little warm. Typically tube amps have higher output impedances than solid state amps but there are no absolutes.

I have never tried mine on a tube amp and honestly I am not to up and up on my tube amp knowledge.

Here is a detailed article on amp impedance’s effect on headphones.

https://www.innerfidelity.com/content/musings-headphone-amplifier-output-impedance

Headphones just like speakers all sound very different from each other. 

IMO I would tell you headphones are better than speakers for all things other than visceral impact and sound stage. Do I enjoy headphones more? No I value sound stage too and impact too much. 

But some of these new headphones really are special. Keep in mind that a pair of headphones is pretty much a microphone in revirse. One drive, no crossover, controlled environment, crazy efficient, less box/housing noise, etc. 

some headphones are a total mess though (very colored) and I think just now in the last few years with all the portable music craze we are starting to see real improvements in the highend headphone market. I would argue high-end headphones are just now starting to be made. 

For years you bought sennhisers or grados for the most part. Now you have startups pushing limits and big power houses like Focal pushing the state of the art. 

Focal’s first try pretty much equaled or bettered (IMO) what was out in the passed. It will be interesting to see how they push forward over the next few years. 

For those trying out grados for the first time the Grado PS500e is easily their best IMO. It has all the details of the others or more but softens the 2k midrange spike and has a lesser more balanced treble. Makes for a relatively warmer Grado (still bright). Sadly I had to get two pairs to get one with good driver matching. Order from some somewhere you can return them...

I have owned/used the following grados and choose the PS500e.

PS1000e (scooped out mids, they call it soundstage, I call it messed up tonal balance)

PS500e (good, light/fast sounding and punchy like good monitors, a little bright still, I love the close vocals).

GH1 (a lot like the PS500e but more colored mids, you can hear the wood in the bass for better or worse)

GS2000e (uhm no, really bad, just no, ear tweeters, funky soundstage)

RS2e (brighter and less bass than the PS500e, small spike at 2k)

RS1e (I don’t really rember these...)

RS325(pretty bright, probably the brightest Grado I owned, ok other wise)

RS225e (light on bass, more open mids from the models down, a poor mans RS1/2)

RS80e (Best buy, most of the Grado sound for under $100)

RS60e (warmer of the grados. Tuned like the PS500e but less open and detailed acrossed the whole frequency range.