I've been researching headphones to find the best model I can afford. I've encountered 2 problems that make me hesitate. 1) I listen to Classical music over high-quality loudspeakers, and by comparison, headphones don't seem lifelike. 2) It appears that equalization is almost universally recommended for headphones (I'm okay with that). However, I have thousands of CDs, and it's proving difficult to find the means to equalize headphones precisely when using a CD player as the digital source. The DSP hardware to accomplish that is rather scarce and rather expensive. Has a DSP/Equalizer been reviewed that would work in my situation? I'm beginning to wonder if I should invest in headphones at all. Does anyone have suggestions/encouragement to help me move beyond my analysis paralysis? Thanks.
I don't adopt quite the same position as solderdude's post above mine (although I agree with him that headphones will present the soundstage/imaging differently than speakers). I'm more of the mindset that your best bet is to start off with an Oratory EQ from here:
r/oratory1990: Mostly covering topics like headphones, in-ear headphones, acoustics, electroacoustics, acoustic tuning, headphone design …
www.reddit.com
So you'd probably choose a headphone that measures well from that list above, and possibly one that has been measured by Amir here on ASR that measured & reviewed well.
Then you use his user customisation filters to tweak the sound to your liking (if required, because sometimes it can be fine just using his EQ with no changes). An example of the user customisation filters are in the following pic, which just happens to be an EQ for the Sennheiser HD560s (just as an example), the user customisation filters are circled in red, so you're use those to tweak to your taste, bass first, then the other areas:
To apply the EQ you'd probably use the miniDSP Flex that Amir has measured (given that you said you were restricted to using a CD player in your chain rather than something flexible like a PC or phone):
This is a review and detailed measurement of the Minidsp Flex audio signal processor. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $475 for unbalanced and $550 for balanced that I tested. Flex borrows the interface from SHD and puts it in a compact package. Seeing how I really liked that...
www.audiosciencereview.com
There's probably a fair learning curve associated with miniDSP software (you set them up initially using a PC (assuming with miniDSP Flex the same applies) and then they can operate "standalone" in your chain), but once you've got the hang of it then it's fine.
Failing all that (if too complicated & additional cost) then buy a headphone that measures well that has been reviewed by Amir (and also measured by Oratory just so you can see measurements from more than one source), and then just use it at stock without any EQ.
Restricting yourself to using a CD player is reducing your options to apply Parametric EQ, so it's not ideal, so you might be best to also rethink that restriction. It's cheaper & more flexible to be using a PC or phone or something where you can apply Parametric EQ right at the source.