I have always been a sucker for good Hifi headphones going back like 20 years ago with some great Audio technica headphones witch was my first real hifi headset.
Last 2 years i had been using some big heavy studio headphones, witch where good, but sometimes i got tired off the weight and "sweatyness", often they would start to itch around the ears and under the headband and it was a strain on the neck too. It was like an relief taking them off after some rounds off 4on4.

So i started looking into the market for in-ear-monitoring headphones, and head-direct's RE0 was getting very good reviews all over. I was still on the fence on these since they costed like 200 usd, but when they cut the prize to 100usd this sumer i jumped on and ordered it, was only 10$ shipping wordwide, and it only took a week with shipping from china to norway.

And omg the sound! Much better than any off my previus cans, these are truly great! QW with these are just amazing. First game i tested was a dm4 duel, and it feels like one have the head inside the map! And the isolation is great, my older cans had about 18db, but these has much more. It was eary listining for my opponents move with hearing no sound whatsoever from my apartment. My noisy gforce 7600 with run the fan on 100% while playing qw was always audilble if there was no noise in qw with my old set, but now its like "bottomless" silence just totaly silent.
And they are so comofortable, i have them with the wire over-the-ear (to eliminate "microphonics" with the cable clip on the shirt back off my neck. One quickly forget about wearing them, they weight nothing and no feeling off wearing a hot cap indoors, no itching etc.
They are on christmassale for 79usd now making them a steel for that price!!! Some people prefrer these over the top off the line Sennheiser HD 650 that cost like 8 times as much.

http://www.head-direct.com/product_detail.php?p=38

RE0 post on head-fi.org with lots off pictures
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f103/review-head-direct-re0-new-contender-best-iem-383355/

from
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f103/re0-rivals-er-4s-beats-e500-er-4p-405947/
My updated ranking of the cans I listened/reviewed

I divide some of the cans I listened into the 3 classes - Hi-Fi, Mid-Fi and Low-Fi. I divide each class further with 3 levels and marked the headphones I reviewed with bold:

H1 HD650, W5000, SR-404, ER-4S*
--- RE0 is here
H2 Denon D2000, AKG 701, W1000, E500
H3 DT880, ER-4P*
M1 DT990, AD1000, K501, Ergo 2, UM2, OK1
M2 DT770, SR225, HD595, AD900, K271, MDR-F1, E4c, PK1
M3 AD700, HD555, HD280, DT660, SR80, ER-6i
--- CM700 is here
L1 iGrado, A900, HD485, K181, E3c, UE 5 EB, OK2
L2 PortaPro, PX100, DT231, K81, D-Jays
L3 KSC-75, SportaPro, PXC 250, K27i, UE 3, E2c, CX300, modded Marshmallow
--- PK2 is here

I'm using Ultrasone PRO 900 atm. They have really nice soundstage for gaming and bass is incredible. They have even more bass than 770pro! Crazy

From that list I have:

KSC-75
PX100
DT770
DT990
A900
HD485
K81



A900 shouldn't be in L1 imo. It has bigger soundstage than 770 and features more balanced sound. I prefer 770 because I'm a basshead but really A900 is a better can. A900 can't be low-fi. What the hell were you thinking? Also 990 is WAAAY too sibilant on my equipment. The highs are ear piercing and because of that I'd put them in M3.

I really wanna try D2000 or some high end Audio Technicas.

This thread reminds me of a few years back when I was a "true golden ear hi-fi dork". Luckily, I got over it and now I'm on headfive + DT990-2005 (sold DT880 because their sound was not enough for me) and it has been enough so far, hopefully I'll never get any bright ideas of "getting better sound"

Most of the time I use my headphones for listening to music. Sure, I use them when playing, but especially QW sounds are so annoying and shitty that I'd rather play the games without sounds if it didn't affect the game. Unfortunately that can't be done, since the sounds are really important in QW.

Other games that have decent sounds and music are fine though. Sometimes good world with good sounds makes the game even better than it would normally be, but unfortunately not all game developers think about this properly.

Your DT990-2005 is even more bright than my DT990pro. I dunno how you can handle the ear piercing highs. I guess I'm very sensitive to sibiliance. What's your source?

X-Fi lineout --> Headfive --> DT990-2005.

Ye, it has more treble than DT880 for example (I haven't tried DT880-2005) but I've gotten used to it. Also, I think the Headfive reduces the effect compared to connecting the headphones directly to the soundcard, which is generally a bad idea with 250ohm headphones. Unless you have Xonar Essence STX of course.

My setup is Auzentech Prelude > Arietta > headphone. Seriously 990pro is unlistenable on this setup. Maybe the Prelude is a very bright source.

Or maybe you just don't like the sound of 990pro.

Heh, Arietta. If I recall correctly, Arietta came after Headfive (there were only 200 H5s manufactured). It seems that even Arietta is end-of-life product, replaced by Swing. I wonder how much has changed since H5 -> Swing, since the amps seem identical outside? Well, maybe not knowing is a good thing and it saves me my money... not that I'd get an amp of "this" level anyway.

Headfive = Arietta = Swing imo I don't think he changed much inside.