SOUND OFF: Headphones

[JeffBarnett]

What, in your opinion, are the best headphones on the market today?

1. What brands do you like?
2. What do you hate?
3. What cans make your head throb, causing you to throw them through that brand new 22" Cinema display and run screaming from the room?

I'll chime in first - I 've done a lot of classical live recording - usually sitting in the back of a concert hall mixing live to 2-track, praying that nobody knocks over that pair of U87's on a 30-foot stand in the front of the room. Sony MDR7509's are great for listening in that kind of situation. AKG 270's are nice, too though, because they shut themselves off when I take them off and don't disturb the audience members in the seats in front of me.

I want to hear your two cents worth!

[Nika]

Jeff,

I'm with you on both of those choices. I really like mixing on K240's. I like K270's for tracking, and I have a pair of MDR7509's in my portable classical recording rig. It sounds like we're on the same page.

I'm thinking about getting some electrostatics next, but they can get pricey. Anyone have experience with electrostatic headphones?

Thanx!
Nika.

[Kenny Bergle]

My first pair of 'electrostatic headphones', believe it or not, were a Numark set in 1969! I bet many of us were not aware they had such a lineage. They we clear, bright, accurate (ok, I was 13 at the time!!! accurate is relative!) and comparatively louder and more comfortable than the most popular headphones of the day, which where Koss 4A (dist. exclusively by Radio Shack at the time, I believe!). Most importantly for this 13-year-old, they were cheap! About $25 as I remember (ah, the days when new technology was cheap just because it was new and unrated!). They really turned me on to audio as a spectator sport. Little did I know that the spectator part would soon be replaced with an active role in the Audio Industry!

I will never forget listening to the radio with them in my room and hearing, for the first time, the infamous tape bleed where you heard a ghost image of the first few seconds of the song before it actually started. The tune was "Heartbreaker" by a very famous group of the '60's that escapes me just now. I thought I had just heard a "mistake" by the radio station - KILT AM610 (Yes, AM!) for those familiar with the Space City. I was transformed into a what I thought was a secret circle of listeners. It was funny to me when I found out how that sound really was made (and indeed it was unintentional but the recording engineers were responsible, not the broadcasters). Fact is, lots of the tunes in the 60's and 70's had this ghostly false start. (The remedy we found out is to store all your analog tape masters 'tails out' - but that's another forum!).

Anyway, these days I REALLY enjoy the Beyer Dynamic line of headphones. Specifically, the DT770Pros are awesome, I think. They are not electrostatic, but are very accurate, very comfortable, and quite musical. They also are completely modular so one could replace any and/or all of the components when necessary. I have about 3 or 4 pair of them around the studio and house. They provide the best isolation I have found, with the exception of the DT100s by Beyer. The problem with the DT100s is that they are heavy and kind of hurt after about the 2nd hour of wearing them. (In fairness, the reason the DT100s isolate so well is that they clamp onto your head pretty tightly and have a lot of mass.)

Also a reason I like them (not a rational one!) is that there is a famous picture (famous for fans of Western Nigerian music) of King Sunny Ade in the studio wearing a huge grin and a pair of DT100s! That picture was used on the promo poster for King Sunny Ade's tours throughout the 80's...

You may ask yourself - how did Numark make electrostatic headphones without an extra power supply, et al? I don't know! I think somewhere I still have the silly things! And I bet, if I found them and tore them apart, we might see one of the reasons that the "Truth in Advertising" law came into being. I think that these were not electrostatic in the sense that we speak of today. They were probably passive with a ultra-lightweight and thin diaphram utilizing the forerunner of N-Dym magnets...

I also used these Numark headphones to discover that transducers are bi-directional. I used them as mics MANY times. They had a better freq. response than my UnsiphereB! Again, another forum!

[rhardman]

I have been using AKG K-240s for years and have nothing bad to say about them...great tool for doing "micro-surgery" on a mix. The only bad thing is ear fatigue and that happens with the best phones.