WugLyfe posted:

I wouldn't worry so much about having "untrained" ears. That said, you probably don't want to spend that much to begin with.

The 558s are great headphones, but if you want more options, the audio technica ath-ad700x are about that price, along with the beyerdynamic custom one pro (has four swappable sounds), beyerdynamic DT 990 pros are about that price, V-moda crossfade LP 2 (tough to damage), BRAINWAVZ HM5 if you err towards utility over aesthetics....

There are a lot of options.

As per the "tonal balance" thing, it's a term used for people to equate to frequency response: the overall emphasis of each frequency output by the headphones for a given power (or volume). So really, all that asks is whether you like bassy headphones, headphones that don't emphasize any notes over others, etc. Most consumer headphones shoot what's called an equal loudness contour (ISO standard 226:2003) which tries to mimic what must people perceive as all sounds having equal loudness. However, that means bass is boosted, as well as sibilant sounds like cymbals.