I've been looking at headphones for a few days, on Amazon, the Koss website and today trying about 40 pairs in London with in-shop demo equipment and also my phone. I'm just about a layman when it comes to hi-fi, albeit with some sincerely held views that might make some here a wee bit cross. I know what I like and I have a half articulate way of attempting to describe it even if the spec sheets have thrown me a bit.

What I'm after is a set of full size headphones that sound as good and balanced as my supposedly humble Koss Porta Pros, which are physically a bit flimsy. They themselves have an rrp of nearly £50 though they can be had for under half that. I have a few uses for the headphones I'm after though it may be I'd find a set which really impress me for some things but not others.

I'm learning piano, with a Casio digital piano. It sounds pretty good with the Porta Pros, but I'm thinking a bit more volume is what I want there. I know what a headphone amp is but the idea does seem a bit of a palaver, to me. No offence!

I use a Sony CD Walkman still for any new album that has really got my attention. Mostly I stick to 320k mp3 files on my Linux-based desktop computer and phone despite an ideological preference for ogg. Being in earliest middle age the music I like is uncluttered and mostly acoustic - there's no distortion or heavy bass involved, though I do like the balanced, er, mature amount of bass the Porta Pros provide. I had a pair of Yamahas that were £40 in about 1996 which I quite liked which at my fussiest I found a bit harsh somehow - is it impossible for headphones to sound as clean as good speakers no matter what you spend? A few days ago I returned some Sennheiser HD215s which I was pretty disappointed by after reading the reviews. They had a too midrange-heavy sound and were too quiet, especially with the piano. I've heard of this 'burning in' business, but I didn't fancy being optimistic about the Sennheisers when the Koss 'phones sounded much better from the off despite being a third of the price.

I am fussy and I have got taste I think. Today for example I ran through all these Skull Candy and other rapper-endorsed headphones and they just seemed crassly bassy with no thought about clarity. There was a set endorsed by Mr 'Tiny Tempa' which seemed better, possibly about £90. Many sets I tried were far too quiet. Finally I found some Bose headphones in Currys, trying about five different models. These seemed a lot better, though I had a preference for the ones costing £120 as the £299 noise-cancelling ones would not go loud enough - though I don't want it so much for CDs, volume without distortion is important for the piano.

The Porta Pros are 15hz-20khz, 60 ohm, 100db as far as I remember but I expect that's scant enough detail to be useless, I'm guessing intelligent construction is important.

The Koss MV-1s are what I was looking at on Amazon but I'm not sure I know enough about the specs and how to understand spec sheets - maybe they'd be significantly better than but quieter than the Porta Pros, and after having returned the well-reviewed Sennheisers I'm mistrustful of Amozon-based enthusiasm. I've emailed the UK Koss distributor to ask what are the full size equivalents of the Porta Pros, audio-wise. From what I've understood though these are some DJ100s that are negatively reviewed, so at a guess the spec's the same but the construction doesn't allow for the same clarity or something.

I saw also some £25 Phillips 'TV' headphones, may have had 2500 in the model name, and these seem to have, on paper, the same spec almost as the Porta Pros, but are 32 ohm instead of 60. Probably wrongly I'd filed away in my head the idea that higher ohms meant less volume possible but maybe I've overlooked another factor or it's conveniently absent from packaging spec details. I'm sure I owned these about 8 years ago and found them clear and full but too quiet.

I hadn't before thought much about how much external noise I want gone, but it was one thing I had liked about the Sennheisers, it made the music more intimate-feeling, and at the right volume that would be great for the piano too.

Sorry about any errors, waffling or bobbins, but I am seriously interested and hopefully I can get some views and guidance here. Thanks.