Nickjn, thank you for offering to help!
I had not settled on a model. I just raised the possibility of the hifiman in my post because I knew it needed a hi quality headphone amp; if it was up to driving a hifiman, it should be up to driving most anything else.
That being said, I was thinking about the audeze LCD2. From what I had read, it sounds like it stacks up to much more expensive phones, and with their new LCD3 coming out, one might find a few on the used market. As this is my first venture into headphones, perhaps something cheaper might be a wiser choice, though (I just wanted to get something of good quality to sit back and enjoy and not worry about upgrading)
I live in KY and the only dealer for any well known brand (grado, beyerdynamic, sennheiser, audeze)I can find locally is a Best Buy that apparently sells sennheiser. Therefore, extensive auditioning won't be a possibility.
