Hello,
I tried MSR7B, Sony H900n, and Sennheiser HD599(All three borrowed from friends), could not find AKG K712 for demo. The Audio technica MSR7B are good hi-res headphones, but i find them not to my taste. I liked the sony H900n's sound more pleasant in the high's, more warm overall and with good mid bass and good lower bass extension. Sennheiser HD 599 have a good somewhat laid back, warm and detailed sound.
Tried various genre's of music. I think i like headphones with truly beautiful warm sound, clear, but without the brittleness; but with a lot of detail, but are there any such headphones in the mid budget range?
You might be very, very surprised at changing the chain - source, above all.
I am listening to the digital recordings of the analogue signal (FM tube tuner, clear broadcast, uncompressed station, non-commercial, 44,1khz 16 bit PCM recording on good digital hard disk recorder). Sound is the routed from the source to the - believe it or not - QS series Mini Disc deck (Sony) that has AD-DA option (pressing the REC-button while no disc in the deck).
Using the headphone out of the deck, which seems to be of a surprisingly good quality, and very good match for the ATH-MSR7 (non b - original model). I have used this only for the monitoring in the beginning, but discovered that the combo is of the exceptional sound quality, by the sheer accident.
I understand what you have experienced, but your experience does not reveal the true nature of this headphone. It does not lack warmth given the right source.
I have heard a headphone or two, more expensive than ATH-MSR7, of both solid state and tube headphone amps. This headphone, ATH-MSR7 rewards the quality source and shows then what it is capable of. But it needs to be matched with both source and suitable amplification, and it does not require much (unlike AKG K7-- series), since it has rather low power requirements compared to some flagship headphones of the past.
Forget some brittle sounding digital files and sources, well, some or many of them, since it is not the same quality as the analogue material, even recorded lossless digitally, since the latter can in some cases approach high-res files.
ATH-MSR7 rewards the quality source and suitable amplification.
I cannot stress enough how impressed I am with the sound coming out of this simple and seemingly basic chain, but I suspect that the source, this tuner, is of very high quality, as well as the broadcast.
If you route this kind of source quality to the amplification of the suiting nature and quality to the ATH-MSR7 (and it can be a question of matching), you will be rewarded with the exceptional sound quality, that the other headphones you have mentioned cannot approach, imo.
