Working for a company that makes hi-end in-ear headphones and monitors, I have to be careful not to be too commercial.

As for passive isolation, there are no over-the-ear or on-the-ear headphones that can offer the isolation that an in-canal headphone can.

This is simply a matter of facts of physics. The canal has to be sealed for high (20+ dB) attenuation.

For home recordists, the isolation is actually something to consider - great isolation from room noise/sound will help you to place microphones more accurately - hearing what the microphone hears.

You will find that the lower end of quality in-ear monitors/headphones using balanced armature drivers, falls into line with your Beyerdynamic models - even less on price.

The goodcans site is interesting, but it seems like they are limiting their brand choice to a few brands. www.Headfi.org seems to list more manufacturers (well over 100) including those from the goodcans site. They also allow detailed user reviews.

If you visit the site, prepare to be mesmerized for awhile with all of gear reviews and so forth.

My favorite over-the-ear; or circumaural to be more precise, for listening purposes, are Sennheiser HD800 headphones. These are glorious, but offer almost zero passive attenuation/isolation. And the list on them is around $1000 if I'm not mistaken.

-Scott

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