Should I upgrade my headphones?

[newholland]

I had great results using Slate VSX for mixing. However, I don't like them so much for just playing guitar. The rooms emulated in the software sound a bit too ‘hyped’ to me for that. The non-spatial profiles such as ‘Human Linear’ are better, but somehow the upper mids always sound a bit aggressive.

After much deliberation, I have now ordered a pair of Sennheiser HD 650s, which should be delivered today. From everything I've read, they're supposed to sound very neutral and, above all, not too shrill or unnatural in the upper midrange. I'm really looking forward to trying them out later!

With all the headphones I've had so far (except for the rooms emulated in VSX), it was always extremely important to add a little bit of room ambience and/or crossfeed to make the guitar sound natural and pleasant. So that would be my tip to anyone considering buying new headphones. Try a little reverb or crossfeed first; some models also benefit greatly from frequency response correction, e.g. with Sonarworks.

hee! it took me a while to love my hd650s- give em a while to both break in and for your ears to assimilate. at first, being used to beyers i thought they sounded harsh and broken
now they just sound relaxed and lovely. its wild though cause at my desk flipflopping between my hs80s and them- its super close.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Bonus is that they came with Dear Reality Mix SE plugin which offers headphone frequency correction and room simulation in one plugin. Dear Reality seems to have been bought by Sennheiser, and they made all their plugins free. You can get them by signing a form here: https://www.sennheiser.com/en-us/immersive/dear-reality

Unfortunately, all these plugins are adding lots of latency, so they're really only good for some final mixing. As long as you might still track some things, they're useless.

 

[newholland]

Unfortunately, all these plugins are adding lots of latency, so they're really only good for some final mixing. As long as you might still track some things, they're useless.

seriously. lotta processing power to make a headphone 'perfect' when really all that matters is your ears knowing the difference. 'course, that takes training your ears and a lotta human processing power.. but probably more dependable long term, and way less of a techno-bandaid.

i know lots of folks nowadays using cans to mix, but theyre really just a very reliable microscope to keep on hand. id still rely on old fashioned monitors for the lions share of things and save your cpu headroom for other biz.

 

[Sascha Franck]

seriously. lotta processing power to make a headphone 'perfect' when really all that matters is your ears knowing the difference. 'course, that takes training your ears and a lotta human processing power.. but probably more dependable long term, and way less of a techno-bandaid.

I agree here.

i know lots of folks nowadays using cans to mix, but theyre really just a very reliable microscope to keep on hand. id still rely on old fashioned monitors for the lions share of things and save your cpu headroom for other biz.

Well, given that even some pretty professional mixing dudes are doing quite some of their mixes on headphones, I think they're a pretty viable alternative. Even more so in case you don't have a treated room, which should be the case for most mere hobbyists.

 

[newholland]

I agree here.



Well, given that even some pretty professional mixing dudes are doing quite some of their mixes on headphones, I think they're a pretty viable alternativer. Even more so in case you don't have a treated room, which should be the case for most mere hobbyists.

yeah absolutely true. my room is less than optimal, for sure- and not sure too many folks think to optimize, or CAN optimize rooms! its always good to have lots of ways to look at a mix even if theyre imperfect cause god knows, most people dont listen in perfect environments.

 

[Jarick]

I don't see why you can't mix a fair amount on headphones at a pro level. That may be a hold over from old studio days where people were using really inaccurate closed back headphones that were meant for tracking. Now there's a lot of pretty flat headphones to choose from. And it's probably worth checking on other sources occasionally...something like the Slate VSX may be a good second source to run through their plugin even if you don't use it as a primary.

But all that assumes you are mixing for a paycheck or trying to get your music out to a big audience. It's better to start doing something even if it's on a small scale with cheap gear than not do it because you don't have a perfect room or perfect gear.

 

[newholland]

I don't see why you can't mix a fair amount on headphones at a pro level. That may be a hold over from old studio days where people were using really inaccurate closed back headphones that were meant for tracking. Now there's a lot of pretty flat headphones to choose from. And it's probably worth checking on other sources occasionally...something like the Slate VSX may be a good second source to run through their plugin even if you don't use it as a primary.

But all that assumes you are mixing for a paycheck or trying to get your music out to a big audience. It's better to start doing something even if it's on a small scale with cheap gear than not do it because you don't have a perfect room or perfect gear.

i dont think thats really true- and the essence of it stems from getting a stable center image because the overlap of the two speakers sums out louder than two completely separated non interactive speakers.

its less a flatness issue than a response/time domain accuracy issue.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Main issue for headphones for me is to do with HRTF. Headphones sound different for everyone because the shapes of our heads and ears all vary. trying to align to a specific curve isn’t really going to work unless you account for this.

Head-related transfer function - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Tech is getting better these days and I suspect someday it’ll get solved properly, at which point anything could be done quite reliably with headphones.

Wearing headphones for long periods of time gets hot and uncomfortable for me, so I find speakers much more enjoyable in that regard too.

 

[Domct203]

I was just about to order my 3rd pair of ‘budget’ studio headphones when I learned about the Ollo Audio X1, well worth the money and I believe my headphone hunt is over.

I use them mainly with my AxeFXIII and they translate to FOH perfectly, it’s nice to not have to remember to turn off a headphone corrective EQ before a gig now.

 

[László]

i dont think thats really true- and the essence of it stems from getting a stable center image because the overlap of the two speakers sums out louder than two completely separated non interactive speakers.

its less a flatness issue than a response/time domain accuracy issue.

As with anything, it's more a matter of acclimating your ear/brain interface to the differences between what you hear from cans and what you hear from monitors.

The closest example to me is my son, who mixed a couple of tracks that made their way to a gold record with a pair of DT-770s. The mixes sound really good.