Today I listened to the Beethoven 9th with Abbado and Berlin Philharmonic on DG circa 2002. My copy is the 96k download from HDTracks. I played the entire thing with a nice $250 USD headphone, which I thought sounded pretty good except during climaxes of orchestra and chorus, which sounded congested and had a hardness like everything was merging into a single unpleasant tone. Not that bad in reality - just an impression. Then I switched to the 4th movement only beginning with the vocals, using the Sennheiser IE800. It was enough to make a person cry. The soundstage wasn't exactly wider, but there was a depth that was missing with the full size headphone. And that was just the beginning.
The mass climaxes of orchestra and chorus were delineated clearly with the IE800, and voices and instruments sounded real and suspended somewhere in front of me. I haven't heard one of these symphonies live, so I can't judge the recording on how well it was mic'd, but it sounded utterly fantastic. The bassoons had real weight, the triangles' harmonics seemed to stretch out to infinity, the brass had color and bite, and everything had a palpable reality like I last heard on a direct-to-disk LP played through electrostatic headphones, only better. Highly, highly recommended. I also replayed the last movement with 4 other headphones ranging from $300 to $500 USD. None of those came close.
