the HD650s sound perfectly pleasant out of regular ol' receiver headphone jacks.

I'll just register my (ongoing) skepticism and shut up, then.

See if these things "scale like a bastard", then the reverse is also true, neh? Chacranajxy -- what 'scaling' means is that the better upstream components -- amp, source, music, cables, etc. -- you put in front of the headphone, the better it sounds. I don't know if the HD650 scales like a bastard, but I've heard it does.

they do scale like a bastard, but they sound okay out of lesser gear, too, which is, after all, what most people will be using them with.

Agreed, I was using them out of my iPod yesterday in a moment of total laziness and they were fine. Not the headphones I know and love, but fine. It's not like the frequency response magically changed into a completely different headphone or something.

Maybe I'm the only one who really does like the D-5k. As always, I put the caveat that I only listen to classical music, but in mastering my own recording (anyone here own a record company?) I found them to be surprisingly accurate as headphones go.

Magnatune? CDBaby?

The times have changed, dude. You don't need a record company, you don't even technically need a distribution deal -- you just need distribution.