Assistance with Sennheiser v. Grado and others

[Prancibald]

I have been looking around at headphones and IEMs in the $80-150ish range for a while for future upgrades, and I had come across a multitude of headphones that look to be nearly equivalent. I know many of the users here have a larger host of knowledge than I do regarding these subjects, so I decided to come to you.

For IEMs, I've always been a fan of Shure, and I'm quite content with my SE110s at the moment. However, when these inevitably wear out or I feel like upgrading, I'm torn between a few potential candidates. The SE310s have come down in price a considerable amount, and these seem to be excellent phones, but I've been hearing exceptional reviews of Phonak's new addition to the playing field (their PFEs). Isolation and clarity/balance are the main criterion for this, as they usually are.

For full sized phones, I've seen great things from Sennheiser, Sony, Grado, and other comparable companies. Sennheiser's 280s, 555s, and 595s seem to be their best in this range, and all seem to be quite potent. Grado has also been highly recommended with their SR80s given their price to performance ratio. I've heard very mixed reviews of Ultrasone, so I'm more wary of their products, but I'd be willing to consider nonetheless. In this field, I'd prefer to keep the price on the friendlier side of the $150 mark, but if a small jump is worth it, I would also consider it. Sound quality is the biggest player in this field, and isolation would be rather nice but not imperative.

Oh, and I listen to a variety of genres, and most of my library is in 192-320 kbps mp3, with a little bit of FLAC as well.

Thank you to any who can help me figure out the best options in this range.