Monitoring Headphones - your suggestions please

[TheAncientOne]

Being a bit out of touch with favourites, and 'States of the art', I'm looking for hints as to good cans to audition for the time, (soon I hope), when I get back to doing some serious personal audio work. I tend to do a lot of preliminary work using phones, to avoid upsetting the neighbours.

I have a preference for European phones, because I can keep them running and get spares, (I've got a pair of DT100's that are on their 2rd set of earpads - and are still good - but not really any kind of reference by modern standards). In the past. to me, the gods of headphone design were called AKG, Beyer Dynamic and Sennheiser.

I'm thinking of closed back types in case I do any live work again.

Anyone reccommend their favourites?

Thanks

Mike

[stryd_one]

Sennheiser HD25 (not HD25SP)

Anything else is a weak substitute :) I say that after listening for 30 minutes with different sources to EVERY sennheiser, sony, AKG and beyer model available.

That salesman hated me until I parted with the $500 hehehe

[MTE]

I work with AKG K271-Studio and I love it !!!

:)

[TheAncientOne]

Noted. Thanks. A short list is building here.

I've been there with the salesman too: took in my own CD player and discs, including one of stuff built from CSound. I ended up negotiating a bit of extra discount in return for the CSound disc - it had a rendering of Kim Cascone's "BlueCube" on it, which sounded awesome. Sadly the Dynaudio's we bought weren't for me, they were PPM2's, and at the time they seemed the most accurate, ruthlessly honest small speakers I'd ever heard. Same deal with the guy's face too. He'd been trampled by two bullproof audio engineers, made to plug and unplug a whole array of smaller units, and haggled with in a style that can only be done when you haven't actually got anything like the list price. His final tentative 'how do you want to pay for these?', turned into a huge grin when the engineer from Crescent said 'Pictures of the queen mate', and produced a wodge of £20's.

Mike

[b-funk]

hey,

stryd is right if you need a very powerful and lightweight headphone for djing. there is NO better choice than sennheiser hd25, really.

but when it comes to audio editing and mixdown and stuff, i prefer the akg like mte. the sennheiser is not intended for reference monitoring, but the k271 is. it´s very linear and a good choice when you can´t or for some reason don´t want to use monitor speakers. and it´s quite cheap. only minus: when you wear it for a long time, it´s not that convenient, at least for my headshape  ;D

another bonus is that it turns itself off when you lay it down.

just my two cents...

greetings,

tobias.

[audioworld]

as I am much more an audio engineer then a ASM/C programmer I like this thread..--)))

I worked with various "cans" over the last 22 years as a balancing engineer, and came to the conclusion that headphones (much more than speakers) are very personal.

some of my professional colleagues really like headphones which I could not stand for a minute and vice versa.

despite having all kinds of AKG´s (240DF="Diffusfeldenzerrt" ist der Beste), Sennheisers (the HD25 is to harsh and thin for my taste), Beyers etc... in our inventory, I really like the SONY MDR7506 the most. powerfull, nice bass, not too much high end, great.

I do not know if you can still purchase those, but a similar model should be available. Those also fold down nicely if you have to pack them.

[DavidBanner]

The Sony MDR 7506 are great cans - as long as you don't have to travel with them,

the foldaway hindge breaks ALL the time.

I've had the same set of HD25's for 10 years and they have been all over the world me - they also can be made to fit in a small space and the best thing is every single part is replaceable and the spares easy to get hold of.

They are loud and have a nice Bass kick for locating kick drums in very load clubs, and very very comfortable - esp with the hinged can, so you can move one can off your ear for monitoring

[stryd_one]

stryd is right if you need a very powerful and lightweight headphone for djing.

Lightweight? I doubt it hah... Maybe you're thinking of the SP model which have the unsplit headband and miss the steel reinforced cabling and have a B grade driver...

the sennheiser is not intended for reference monitoring

I think Sennheiser (and I) would beg to differ there, and the frequency response graphs say it all. Scope this page for a nice way to compare: Build A Graph

Here's one I prepared earlier (Link has brackets so you'll have to copy and paste)

http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=0&graphID[]=189&graphID[]=27&graphID[]=195

Edit: Check the distortion graphs. The winner is clear:

http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=1&graphID[]=189&graphID[]=27&graphID[]=195

, but the k271 is. it´s very linear

See above ;) The top end is OK but the bass rolls off pretty badly, which is a recipe for muddy mixes.

Oh, and sony stuff all tend to come with a 'smiley EQ' response as they aren't studio gear, they're designed to "sound nice" in a Hifi kinda way :( I hate sony gear as a generalisation, the only good thing they do is their amp circuitry in their walkman/discman, which is the exact same thing that it was in the original walkman before they got popular... Oh and the high end bits like their desks and FX

[Sasha]

Hey Stryd, that HeadRoom or headphone.com (as URL says) is really good website. Comparison graph is really helpful, especially because you can compare up to 4 headphones. Thanks for the link!  ;)

[stryd_one]

Yeh it's cool huh! I was actually googling for images of the response graphs to embed in my post, and stumbled over it by accident... It's a beauty!

Now we need one for monitors hehehehe

[TheAncientOne]

Nice site Stryd! Though I have one reservation: I think there may be some kind of measurement system artefact in the distortion graphs - with the exception of the HD25's, most of the cans tested seem to have a horrendous 100dB distortion 'spike' are around 380Hz, followed by a string of harmonics. I'm wondering if there is a resonance in the artificial ear they use for the tests. Wierdly, Sennheiser quote the HD25 as "<0.3%", whereas they are smoother than the same companies phones quoted as "<0.1%". Tricky things transducer distortion measurements.

Control room speakers is another whole can of serpents, (worms just aren't enought to describer the problems!). I rmember once bing in a small room, dominated by a huge pair of Genelecs. I could hear things different by moving my chair backwards and forwards behind the console. The engineer, (and as I found out the studio designer), did a full diva routine when I pointed this out. In the interests of getting the session finished, I left it. A week later a I got a mildly apologetic phone call, (and from this guy that was pretty awesome), due to the relative heights, there was a noticeable treble diffraction over the consoles meter bridge. They'd done some serious work and by moving the cabs and a few other things, had killed the problem. I still think they were way too big for the room myself.

Haas anyone noticed how the HiFi people seem to go totally opposite to audio engineers? In an LEDE room, designers will go to great lengths to decouple the speakers from the building structure. HiFi people spike theirs to the floor. they say more rigid, LEDE people talk about structure transmitted bass giving 'early early sound' and blurring the bass transients. I tend to be more on the side of people who measure than that of people who will pay £10/metre for speaker wire.

Later this year I'm doing a 'back to basics' music system. E J Jordan single drivers http://www.ejjordan.co.uk/drivers/jx92.html pushed by Linsley Hood Class A's, http://www.tcaas.btinternet.co.uk/index-1.htm (and that was an early school project that I just about got right - all good bar a slight mains hum). If you don't need massive power, then I recommend the late JLH's design to everyone, a very satisfying amp for a low price.

(I'll now start rolling up my ball of string and meander back to the subject...).

Mike

[stryd_one]

(I'll now start rolling up my ball of string and meander back to the subject...).

Hehehe

Nice site Stryd! Though I have one reservation: I think there may be some kind of measurement system artefact in the distortion graphs

Yet totally, well spotted.... It's funny, I was actually about to say something about how the graphs should be taken with a grain of salt, and that there's no substitute for bringing along a player with some music you know well, then I realised you'd kinda already beaten me to the second bit and knew you'd mention the first shortly  :)

[stryd_one]

oops missed a spot...

Haas anyone noticed how the HiFi people seem to go totally opposite to audio engineers?

Yeh totally... I think it comes down to the fact that accurate sound is quite often not pleasant... Yaknow, like if you can get it to sound good in the studio, it'll sound good anywhere... Of course Hifi/audiophile dudes rarely want to admit that they are trying to sweeten things up... Engineers have no choice but to go raw as they can...

My favourite is the $2000 power cable... FFS hey...

[DavidBanner]

best speaker cable that I've found is a DIY job using a special kind of CAT5 and do a 3 way DIY twisted-treble.

best speakers for translation (IMHO) - Barefoot mm27's droool, droool, droool

will make a lot of stuff you listen to sound truely rubbish!

[TheAncientOne]

OK. I hold my hand up - I went and looked, then looked at the price. Now, having had a nice cup of coffee with a shot of brandy I can say yes - way cool, and they should be at that price!

On a serious note, they do look very interesting, but I'm in the UK, which is perhaps why I hadn't heard of them.

On the 'stretch the budget till it squeaks' line, I could perhaps afford a pair of Dynaudio BM6A's, though for now, it's going to be some cheapish nearfields that will reflect typical target systems, and some decent cans for the monitoring/QA.

When there isn't a law or rule of physics to suit a situation, I used to have 'Smiths Rule', (there were lots of them), friends changed this to 'Profs Rule', and one, invented long ago was: Headphones to speakers is about a 10:1 cost ratio: a £100 pair of cans will sound as good as a £1000 pair of speakers. Like all rules, it tends to break down at the limits. Somewhere, no doubt, are a pair of handcrafted audiophile headphones, with pure unobtainium diaphragms, oxygen free monomolecular silver cables, assembled in pure. still air conditions by virginal Japanese maidens, only available to customers who have crawled to the dealers on their hands and knees and costing more than a pair of Genelec 1036A's....... but if you want these, then I can sell you a very good bridge to listen  on, and Stryd might just be able to find you a tiny quantity of esoteric ear lubricant distilled from rare Australian snakes.

The CAT 5 cable idea seems to be catching on for small units - I've heard one or two references, before. I personally like the idea of having the amps near or built in to the speakers, getting rid of the cable as much as possible.

On a minor audiophile kick, I've been looking at a few of the on-line headphone amp designs. All look cheap enough to build, so I might have a little fun auditioning some of them.

Mike

.

[stryd_one]

Screwed if I can find a retailer here.. How much are they? The stands are $575 - WTF! That's stupid.

[TheAncientOne]

I think the Oz distributer is:http://www.awave.com.au/product_info.php?products_id=2353&osCsid=f16a69fef059e30abfecb7accdabed44

though how to audition them is another problem.

Mike

[stryd_one]

5 grand holy crap! :o

Wow they would want to be good... I think I'll stick with my events :)

Thanks for the linkage tho dude

[DavidBanner]

yeah, the MM27s aren't exactly a "impulse buy" item unless you are the Sultan of Brunei.

The main thing the MM27s have got going for them is amazing translation, which is what you need if you are serious about your mixes.

But they are pretty reasonable given the parts: Bryston amps, 2 x 10" sub per box so no need for a sub (and bye bye phase issues).  Especially when you compare them with something like the PMC AML1, which are gorgeous.

I've been looking at a new set of monitors for ages and looked and demoed pretty much everything around from Genelec, PMC, Dynaudio, Quested, Earthworks, B&W, Adam and nothing else in their price range touches 'em.

I'm really not a fan of the Genelec sound.