IK Multimedia TONEX

[Jarick]

Which headphones? Many hype bass and treble and I find that extremely irritating when trying to play with most digital solutions. The solution is different headphones or EQ adjustments for headphone use.

So this is a bit off topic and maybe I'll make a separate thread, but I really prefer playing through headphones instead of through speakers. For whatever reason it sounds a lot better to me. I've tried different real speaker cabs, FRFR, several studio monitors, and tons of headphones. Maybe it's because my room sucks (it's an oddly shaped basement room with a huge opening on one side).

Was thinking about different monitoring options again this week and decided to roll the dice on the IK ARC On Ear. It's a headphone amp / interface with EQ correction for common headphones, speaker/room simulation, and some kind of signal cross feed magic that's supposed to make headphones sound and feel a lot more like real speakers. Also looks to have a really nice big volume knob and has about 1 ms of latency.

My hope is this makes my really nice headphones sound more natural and realistic and with less of the peaks/dips that tend to exaggerate issues in distorted direct guitars.

 

[laxu]

Was thinking about different monitoring options again this week and decided to roll the dice on the IK ARC On Ear. It's a headphone amp / interface with EQ correction for common headphones, speaker/room simulation, and some kind of signal cross feed magic that's supposed to make headphones sound and feel a lot more like real speakers. Also looks to have a really nice big volume knob and has about 1 ms of latency.

I've been interested in picking one of these up.

I use the DearVR Mix VST plugin for headphone correction via SoundSource on my Mac, but it would be a lot more convenient to relegate headphone use to a dedicated device that does this.

I've just been hoping it goes on sale for less money.

 

[Jarick]

I've been interested in picking one of these up.

I use the DearVR Mix VST plugin for headphone correction via SoundSource on my Mac, but it would be a lot more convenient to relegate headphone use to a dedicated device that does this.

I've just been hoping it goes on sale for less money.

I've got Sonarworks integrated with my UAD Apollo but when I use it I mix the calibration down. It just sounds a bit off to me.

Also downloaded Realphones to mess with that today, it's interesting. It also has calibration with room simulation but turning everything up sounds really muddy so I keep the mix around 50%. Even then I may prefer it off.

 

[laxu]

I've got Sonarworks integrated with my UAD Apollo but when I use it I mix the calibration down. It just sounds a bit off to me.

Also downloaded Realphones to mess with that today, it's interesting. It also has calibration with room simulation but turning everything up sounds really muddy so I keep the mix around 50%. Even then I may prefer it off.

I used to use Sonarworks but found the software way too buggy. Maybe it's better these days.

Ultimately these are all about the same thing: IR-based headphone correction with or without some sort of room simulation.

The difference with the IK is that it's a super compact dedicated hardware unit that can work with literally anything.

 

[Jarick]

I used to use Sonarworks but found the software way too buggy. Maybe it's better these days.

Ultimately these are all about the same thing: IR-based headphone correction with or without some sort of room simulation.

The difference with the IK is that it's a super compact dedicated hardware unit that can work with literally anything.

Yeah Sonarworks is really buggy. The one benefit with UAD is that you can set your correction curve and then export it to the UAD software, and then it gets applied in the Apollo using their almost no latency processing, so once it's set you never have to have the stupid Sonarworks software open.

But the downside, Sonarworks just sounds weird. It tries to over correct everything and then it misses the mark. So operating at like 50-75% correction is better.

Anyways, the ARC is supposed to have some different phase correction as well, or maybe some different implementation of correction? I dunno. I have the ARC hardware box which worked well but then I got the Precision monitors which have ARC built in and that's pretty slick.

Somehow I have a ton of IK gear despite not necessarily being a fan of the company or software? I guess they make a bunch of really intriguing stuff.