It's not what you think...
I have really really nice headphones already - AKG 701's. They list for around $400. I mean they are some of the best in the world. But my brother was always stealing my other pair (Koss PRO4AAT - also nice) that I would use (I don't like having to carry $250 worth of merchandise around the house too much) for normal everyday listening. So I went to the store and bought him another pair of just cheapo whatever phones that seemed to be decent enough build quality and such that he could use instead and stop stealing all mine.
So I picked up this Creative HQ-1400 set of headphones. $17 with my employee discount. Dirt cheap, right? Here's where it gets interesting.
I get home and think to myself "hey, why don't I just test these things out before giving them away to see what they are like. I mean, they look cool enough..." So I do. Plug 'em in the crappy headphone output of my mom's computer and start listening to a song I had made a while back. Um...okay. Wait a second. They sound good. No, that's not it. They sound REALLY good. I take them off. I put them back on again. "What in the hell...?" I say. I pull up another file. WOW. They are still really good. I mean, they are now better than the Koss PRO4AAT which I originally paid a grand for. Holy sh**. So I tell my bro - "uh, nevermind, you can just keep using those headphones. These are actually, uh better somehow.
So then I get this dumb idea - "you know - these little pieces of crap are so good... I wonder how it would sound in comparison to my akg's". Stupid idea - I know. Why the heck would there even be a contest between them? Naturally. But just for the hell of it, I go ahead and plug the 1/4" extension on the 3.5mm jack and hook them into my dedicated headphone amp. I pull up more files and start listening. I nearly die. HOLY @#$^*. They sound so damn good!! I switch quickly to the $250 set of mine (the akg's). Good crap. The $17 Creatives I just bought have better mother f-ing bass and treble extension... I check some more songs. I start listening to a piece I made that I thought I had mixed perfectly. I now hear (through the Creative's) low-level distortion I had NEVER EVER heard before. "What the *bleep* is going on?! That's not supposed to be like this!!!" I switch back to the akg's. I can't hear it anymore. Oh my gosh. I just bought a 20 dollar pair of phones that resolves more detail than the oh so critical akg 701's (and I've mixed many many pieces on those things). If you think I am joking - I'm not. At all. I am not even sh**ing you right now. Those fricken little phones' sound better than the akg 701's. And not just a "little bit better". I mean they sound more balanced, more clear, more detailed, more involved, more musical... more everything. I could hardly believe it. But I have to except it. I have no flippin' clue how Creative did it. They just did. I'm going to sell the AKG's - I did probably 50 side-by-side comparisons of songs in the past 7 hours with them and Creative's, including mixing a full song on the Creative's. I then listened to the new piece on the AKG's. Judas priest, it actually sounds better than anything I had ever remembered mixing on the AKG's. I don't know whether to feel happy or terribly upset right now. $250 headphones, defeated almost by a landslide by $20 creative phones. Unbe-fricken-lievable. I don't know what the hell to believe anymore...
I listened to some commericial tracks after all the madness I just went through... they sounded better than I ever ever remember them being. I mean. Literally - there was more detail to every single damn song then I ever heard through those $250 AKG 701's that I loved so dearly. And now they go to be sold. I feel like such a fool for thinking I knew anything...
Get them. Just go get them. You'll understand...