Lot of options to consider, thanks for informative responses. 
Yes, I have had ndh-30 for about a year and find them excellent (I also have the hd650, but prefer the ndh-30). Quite subjective, though.
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I just cut everything above 15 khz, its nonsense.
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This.
I have been mixing AND listening to a lot of music on my poor Bose QC15 and surprisingly, my mixes have translated pretty well. To my hears 
Edit: I am not an audiophile in any way and my listening from the right hear is pretty bad due to an old scuba incident.
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Somehow I read this as tuba incident.
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I still swear by my Phonon SMB-02… cold dead hands.
Hahahaha!!!
Not far from the actual fact: “tuba” is the french translation for snorkel
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I’m very interested in these headphones, but I’ve read that there are a few different sounding and poorly calibrated versions of them on the market. Did you test them before you bought it?
Same… feels like we missed out on a memorable band camp story
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No, I have not heard about these issues. I ordered mine from Thomann (30 days return petiod) and found them perfect right away.
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Ndh-30 user here.
Love mine, as they have no treble boost for “audiophiles” and are quite neutral. Pretty good translation, no overcompensation for too much treble or bass. No sonarworks required either.
Most bad reviews come from people who put them on the wrong way. The cable needs to be on the right: Angled drivers.
A cheaper alternative: beyer custom one pro (1st gen).
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TL;DR:
- when mixing in headphones, use the plugin for mixing in headphones – there are several on the market.
- the best headphones are those best supported by your plugin.
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I used it some years ago for a while, but then realized, the their flat curves are not natural and that they push the lower frequencies on open headphones too much. so i dont use sonarworks anymore.
whats usefull is a software like redline monitor or dearvr mix, that compensate the stereo image of headphones to match monitors.
you should use a headphone with a bit of muffled highs, because high frequencies loose more energy when they travel through air from the monitors to you ear.
the highest danger, when you mix with cans is, that your mix sounds too dull and not wide enough, so with these tips you can compensate it.
as headphone models, use open neutral ones. the sennheiser hd 660 is great with dearvr mix, or use the neumann ndh 30 which comes very close to neumann monitors in a calibrated room. the highs of the ndh30 are not as peaky as in other headphones, so your mix wont become as dull. just add the neutral sounding redline monitor plugin for the stereo width.
and it doesnt matter so much, what brand of monitors u use, the room acoustics are much more important.
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You can simply add a custom curve to add or substract some bass etc.
I agree that room acoustics should be upgraded as much as possible in a room before throwing money at new monitors. Brand does matter a lot as well though. There are huge differences between brands and price ranges. One can have a preference for brands or even types of tweeters. 3 way or 2 way also makes a big difference. Waveguides, softdome or not etc etc. But yeah room before monitors for sure.
Actually the most ideal situation would be to have an empty room, but your favorite monitors and then build the acoustics completely based on said monitors and room. But of course this is not something most people can do unfortunately
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Since I started using the VSX, my mixes have been great. I can’t imagine mixing without them anymore. Especially, the room emulations are fantastic for revealing problematic resonances, detailed transient response, and low frequency garbage. But they are not sexy. I want those new HEDDs. But they are 4x the price I paid for the VSX and I don’t believe they will help me improve my mixes.
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Are you using those cans with a headphone amp?
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yes! nothing crazy though, I was using a Fiio Q1 mk1 for the longest time cause it worked and I had it lol, but now I use an audioengine n22 that I bought for cheap off a friend. It’s technically a desktop amp for small speakers but it has a dedicated headphone amp in it and it works well, so now I use it as my dedicated desktop amp and the Fiio as my portable if I need it.
will probably upgrade to a JDS labs Atom whenever I want to upgrade my amp and that will probably be the last headphone amp I’ll ever buy!
I find m50x quite accurate. eq is flat. The earpads are awful though
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One more vote for VSX.
I don’t know and don’t care how close they’re to real studios, but once you get used to it (listen to a LOT professional mixes) your mixes get better.
Frequency response is great. I can hear what is below 50hz and it’s not a mess like mid-tier monitors in an untreated room. Mike Dean expansion is good for that.
And translation of mixes is pretty decent. But you need to some practice and approach to achieve that.
Like, choose 2-4 rooms and get to know them very well. One-two are primary ones and others are just a magnifying glass for specific problems (bass, space, voice, etc).
This fixed set of rooms gives very predictable environment for sound design and mixing. And you can use all others rooms as a final check, of course.
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Neumann now has RIME 1.5 for the NDH-30