What Headphones Reveal...

Ez people,

So I just went to start a new track using a particular break, which actually sounded pretty decent straight from the original rex file on my monitors (Mackie HR824s), but as soon as I listened in my headphones (HD25s) I could suddenly hear so much more detail - basically a lot of things that were actually wrong with the break which I just could not notice on my monitors at all.

This seems to happen quite a lot, and I find it a little bit alarming that my headphones are revealing so many problems that I'm just not picking up on on my monitors, almost to the point where I'm thinking I should spend most of my time producing in my headphones, for fear of missing all these problems otherwise!

This seems bonkers though that I've got this lovely pair of monitors, yet I'm even considering using predominantly my HD25s!

Anyone else ever had this problem??

Recently ive been making on my cans, mixing on my monitors and just checking on a p.a system. Learn your headphones and you will get good mixes on both systems. If you think of it. On your headphones, the speaker is cm away from the ear, you hear more details, but subs are harder to mix. Is your room treated? That will have an effect if stuff sounds different.

The HD25's are djing headphones, so are probably colouring your mix and making you think that theres detail in places that is not there with your monitors. I'd suggest buying or borrowing some proper production headphones to check if that is the case.

Either that, or your monitors are too big for your room and/or you don't have any acoustic treatment so you aren't getting the true sound from your Mackies.

I also like mixing with my Logitech G35 much more, because the sound goes directly into the ear without unwanted reverb and so on, the acoustics in my room are not good at all. I don't have a subwoofer for my monitors yet as well, so everything below 100Hz sounds very inaccurate.
Usally I do re-listen on my monitors though, because I found out that mostly when a track sounds good on monitors it will sound even better on other systems. Headphones are very good to hear the details in the very low and very high end better imo.

mugatu said:

Recently ive been making on my cans, mixing on my monitors and just checking on a p.a system. Learn your headphones and you will get good mixes on both systems. If you think of it. On your headphones, the speaker is cm away from the ear, you hear more details, but subs are harder to mix. Is your room treated? That will have an effect if stuff sounds different.

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That's the thing I think that I notice the most in cans, suddenly all these little deails reveal themselves that I would miss otherwise.

Maybe I should spend more time listening in my headphones when mixing, just to check if there's any details I'm missing.

My room's not treated, but I don't think it's bad acoustically, it just shocks me how much detail is revealed when I listen in headphones that for some reason I'm not grasping on my monitors, but as I say, maybe I just need to be checking in my headphones more for when I really want to pick up those details.

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mr meh said:

The HD25's are djing headphones, so are probably colouring your mix and making you think that theres detail in places that is not there with your monitors. I'd suggest buying or borrowing some proper production headphones to check if that is the case.

Either that, or your monitors are too big for your room and/or you don't have any acoustic treatment so you aren't getting the true sound from your Mackies.

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I see your point, but it's not that the headphones are really colouring the sound too much, it's just they seem to reveal a lot of detail that I'm not picking up on my monitors.

I have considered investing in some production headphones in the past, maybe in light of this it's time to take the plunge!

Any recommendations?

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SuBKA said:

I also like mixing with my Logitech G35 much more, because the sound goes directly into the ear without unwanted reverb and so on, the acoustics in my room are not good at all. I don't have a subwoofer for my monitors yet as well, so everything below 100Hz sounds very inaccurate.
Usally I do re-listen on my monitors though, because I found out that mostly when a track sounds good on monitors it will sound even better on other systems. Headphones are very good to hear the details in the very low and very high end better imo.

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Cheers man, kind of confirms what I thought that perhaps it's pretty advisable to check low end / high end detail in headphones.

thedjnifty said:

Any recommendations?

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Depends on how much you want to spend really, Audio Technica ATH-m50's and Beyerdynamic DT's are the most popular production headphones in the £100 range.

But if you are doing most of your producing on headphones, then its probably worth spending more.

mr meh said:

The HD25's are djing headphones, so are probably colouring your mix and making you think that theres detail in places that is not there with your monitors. I'd suggest buying or borrowing some proper production headphones to check if that is the case.

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Thats not strictly true, they may seem to be used mainly for DJs as thats what we do, but they are used in all aspects of sounds monitoring situations. They used to use them almost religiously on movie sets etc.

OP; im in exactly the same boat as you atm, much prefer nerding out on headphones atm as like you say, you can hear every detail. I always check studio mixes on headphones for extra details.

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Also your room not being treated won't help picking up the extra detail as it will most likely be distorted due to reflections etc.

mr meh said:

Depends on how much you want to spend really, Audio Technica ATH-m50's and Beyerdynamic DT's are the most popular production headphones in the £100 range.

But if you are doing most of your producing on headphones, then its probably worth spending more.

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Cool man cheers for the info, will have a think!

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RUSSLA said:

Sorry that's just not true at all, they may seem to be used mainly for DJs as thats what we do, but they are used in all aspects of sounds monitoring situations. They used to use them almost religiously on movie sets etc.

OP; im in exactly the same boat as you atm, much prefer nerding out on headphones atm as like you say, you can hear every detail. I always check studio mixes on headphones for extra details.

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Also your room not being treated won't help picking up the extra detail as it will most likely be distorted due to reflections etc.

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Yeah I mean obviously the HD25s aren't great for production, but they're certainly not that bad and fine for bringing out things like little clicks etc. if you're gonna check them for more detail, just not for really precise equing etc. I think.

Glad to know I'm not the only one man! Think from now on I'm just gonna regularly check in headphones to make sure I'm not missing anything.

RUSSLA said:

Sorry that's just not true at all, they may seem to be used mainly for DJs as thats what we do, but they are used in all aspects of sounds monitoring situations. They used to use them almost religiously on movie sets etc.

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And sport commentators!

I'm not a fan of HD25's for EQing. They aren't responsive in that respect. I used a pair of AKG's once (can't remember which model) and they were great for getting a balanced mix.