It's been a mixed bag in a lot of ways. I finally had to retire the set I've been using since about 2001. I've always thought they were great 'phones. 16Hz to 20,000Hz, negligible distortion, very comfortable over-the-ear phones. One of the plastic tabs that holds the left earphone onto its pivoting frame got busted off, so now it's very difficult keeping that phone in place. Honestly I guess I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did, being rather fragile and all.
So I did some research and I found myself attracted to a set very similar to one I bought new back in 1971 -- the Koss Pro4AA phones. The set I bought in 1971 were the Pro4As, basically the same thing. I can still recall being stunned by the fidelity of those phones first time I put them on, and it was deja vu all over again when I put on these Pro4AAs. 10Hz to 25000Hz frequency response. Essentially zero THD. Over the ear, same as the Pro4As. Heck, they look virtually identical to the Pro4As. Come to think of it, I still have those old Pro4As in storage somewhere. That's the "good."
So anyway, I donned the phones and proceeded to listen to several tracks I'd just mastered and burned onto a CD -- and was immediately troubled. The mix just didn't sound nearly as good as it did with my old favorites. But that's because, among other things, I'm hearing things now that I didn't know even existed when I was mastering the CDs with my old phones.
So that's the "bad." Now it's looking like I'm gonna have to go back over every single tune and listen to each one with these new Koss phones, see if I think I can hear room for improvement. And I suspect I'm gonna hear that necessity with just about every tune I recorded. Three CDs worth of material. Jeesh.
For the most part, with the Koss phones, everything just sounds too hot, and I'll admit, I was pushing the limits when I recorded the tracks. But now I'm thinking I probably pushed a bit too hard. I'm hoping I might just be able to dial the levels down slightly this will be all that I'll need to do, but I know right now that, with a few of them at least, the mix is gonna need rebalancing.
So I'm curious. Has this ever happened to you? You get new better phones and suddenly everything's different?
A decent pair of headphones (and also a decent set of monitors) are absolutely essential in order to get a good mix.
When I decided to get serious about mixing a few years ago I bought a set of Sennheiser HD 598SE open back phones, not the top of the line Sennheiser phones but right up there.
The difference compared to my old Sony phones was night and day, I could hear lots of things the Sony phones were missing and ended up remixing a few songs I had previously done with the Sony phones.
Basically I use a combination of the phones and my studio monitors (KRK Rockit 5) to mix, switching back and forth between them.
Not sure how they compare to the Koss phones you bought, I'm not familiar with them.
Traditionally, mixing with headphones is generally frowned on for various reasons including hearing damage, spacial issues, and distortion (depending what type of headphone you use)
Fortunately, headphones have come a long way and there are some great techniques/headphones available on the market now.
While I admit the music I record is mainly for myself and to share with my friends and just for the fun of it, headphones oftentimes are really the only option when your day-job, home chores and honey-do lists, family commitments, etc, limit you to doing this kind of work at 3:00am, because that is the only time you have to do it and your wife is in the next room fast asleep and any other noise will wake the sleeping dogs. Just sayin'.
John
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That's what I like about the Sonarworks software I put on the master bus of my DAW. I have a flat response, my Sony MDR headphone response, and the natural sound that comes out of my JBL speakers. I toggle between all 3 during mixing to see where it sits. Saves a lot of time going between the environments. Simply select the A, B, C switch so-to-speak.
Can't argue with the results you get, Bud! Your mixes always sound great.
I would never mix using only phones, and always do the final tweaks using the monitors.
But I find the phones great at quickly detecting problem areas.
More than one way to get the job done I guess, whatever works
Thanks Dave. I think a significant variable is that I’ve been recording and mixing off and on in the same room in our house - for 31 years. With cans I would likely miss the “color” the room offers. And for all those years I’ve used only relatively small flat response monitors.
Okay, well, I was hoping to get just the sort of feedback you guys have provided.
I mostly listen to my 'phones when I'm trying to balance a mix. I have a nice set of Alesis Reference Monitors that provide a very clean sound. But their woofers are only 6" so they don't provide much bass response. Which I suppose can be a good thing because a listener is not always going to have a set of speakers or earbuds or whatever that provide a lot of bass response either. Nonetheless, I find that I have to listen to the mix with phones just to make sure the bass in my tunes is properly adjusted and balanced. I find they also help with other aspects as well. Especially some background parts -- making sure I've got them balanced correctly. Even with the Alesis Reference Monitors, sometimes these background parts can get lost in the mix.
I have a couple of other nice sets of speakers that do have larger woofers, but I haven't hooked them up to my system -- yet. Need to get around to that soon. Having them available will probably help a lot for a more normal room sound.
Joe, thanks for the link to that article. It goes into the sort of detail that I've kinda wondered about but really didn't know anything about. It explains a lot. Unfortunately that article is so old that a lot of the links mentioned in it are broken -- or they take you to pages where the software being discussed is no longer listed as available.
Interesting -- I found the Crossfeed EQ utility he referenced and downloaded it, then tried it out on one of my tunes. None of the controls work, besides play and stop that is. I can play the tune, but none of the adjustment buttons and sliders make a difference to the sound's output to my headphones (or speakers) at all. Curious.
I'm going through the same thing. My daughter's puppy ate through the cable of old faithful ATH M40s I keep at home .. they were getting due for retirement anyway. Got a pair of the newer ATH M40X to see how I liked them. I'll probably replace the cable on the ruined ones, but it was a perfect excuse to buy a new set! And I played it perfectly; when the wife told me what he did I said "Well there goes $100", walked in and looked at them, then ordered new ones. She didn't say a word.
At home I liked the new M40X a lot. A little more bottom than the old ones but not too much (I think the M50s have too much). Then I went and did some recording at Barry's and suddenly it was too much. Same soundcard and headphone amp! I think maybe it's how Barry has the mixer set on the input side that could be doing it. Anyway, I feel ya, new phones take a bit of getting used to.
I still have my second ATH M40s at Barry's, so I guess I'll try to get a little more time out of them and keep the new ones at home. The old ones will need new pads pretty soon though.
Make your sound your own! .. I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
I'm gonna try to repair the busted plastic stud on my old faithfuls. I think I can drill a hole in the plasic arm right where the stud sheared off and thread in a small screw to act as a stud. That should work. I probably won't be putting them back into service, though. At least, not for anything critical. Maybe for listening to Netflix, stuff like that.
Talk about an obscure set of old phones, though. They're Aiwa X815 "Stereo Dynamic Headphones." I bought 'em at Sams on a spur of the moment sort of thing. This would have been about 17 years ago. I was needing some better phones at the time and these had decent specs. I still recall the numbers: 20Hz to 20,000Hz, but I don't recall the THD, although I do recall it was vanishingly small. I think I paid about $30 for them. Heh.
They've been a good, reliable set of phones, and they are very comfortable to wear. I can wear them literally all day long. Which is more than I can say about my new Koss Pro4AAs. They start getting uncomfortable after wearing them for a few hours. I still remember vividly that, with my old set of Pro4As, my ears would hurt a lot after wearing them for a few hours. Even though the ear pads, or whatever they're called, are well cushioned, the phones push on the ears quite a bit.
Listening to my mixes, and adjusting them, with the Pro4AAs has been enlightening. I think they're helping me get rid of the muddiness and some imbalances I've found in some of my mixes, thanks to these phones. And when playing the new mixes through my Alesis Reference Monitors, I think they sound a little better as well.
I will actually check mixes sometimes on 3 different sets of headphones, and several different in-earphones.
I have two really inexpensive sets of cans; one from Samson that came with a USB mic in a package; and another cheap set from KOSS that are a bit bass-heavy. I have been using the KOSS for tracking as the isolation is pretty good with them.
As for in-earphones, I have several sets of custom fit and universal fit earphones from Westone, my former employer.
Mixes sound different on every single set of these. If I mix so that the offensive stuff disappears out of every one of them, I end up with a really weak mix. I do like to check how stuff that I've intentionally panned whether whole tracks or some effects, to see if the panning comes across in each. As the quality of phones goes up, I notice that the panning quality goes up as well - the whole stereo space seems to widen as there is more and more accuracy in the upper end.
I get that many folks including some pros mix with phones. I’m not being dismissive of that.
What I don’t get is this. With my monitors I’m hearing, for example, a left pan in both ears while with phones I only hear it in the left ear. From my perspective this alone “colors” the sound differently, i.e., a different soundstage than what I would hear through speakers.
I guess with the earbud crowd it makes no difference. That’s the way they hear about everything...at least until their high frequency range is obliterated
What I don’t get is this. With my monitors I’m hearing, for example, a left pan in both ears while with phones I only hear it in the left ear. From my perspective this alone “colors” the sound differently, i.e., a different soundstage than what I would hear through speakers.
Bud
Bud, the phones I use are open back design. That’s the type mentioned in the article that Joe posted the link to as well.
With them being open back you do actually hear the left pan in the right ear, etc. Not the same as you would with monitors mind you, but much more than you would with closed back phones (or ear buds).
So open back phones are the best for mixing, no good for recording through a microphone however, because you would get the bleed from the phones into the mic.
Bud, no personal attacks are allowed on this forum.
Cooltouch, I loved Koss headphones back then. Great feel and sound.
I don't think your old headphones went bad if that's what you are hinting at. You just have to get used to the results and mix accordingly with any set of headphones. I have Grado, SONY, and Beyerdynamic headphones next to me right now, each being very different. I also have two sets of monitors, one of which is more pleasant to listen to but the other emphasizes the highs with a ribbon tweeter. I have a subwoofer I switch on and off. I also use the MONO button on my monitors to ensure nothing disappears from phase cancellation.
When I get a mix that I think is good on all of that, I go outside to the car. I also check with a boom box and a transistor radio over my FM transmitter. If it passes all that, I put it on my iPhone and listen through the speaker, earphones and earpods. Then if that is OK maybe the mix is done today. Tomorrow I'll come back to it.
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Matt, you're being a whole lot more thorough than I've even thought of being. It reminds me of a comment I heard years ago, namely that your typical Pop song was mixed for the 6x9 dash speaker found in your average American sedans of the 60s and 70s.
All this discussion has caused me to remember another set of phones I have that doesn't get used much, mostly because it's a hassle getting them on and off. It's a set of MEE in-ear monitors I bought off eBay a few years ago. Cheap compared to what a lot of IEMs sell for -- like the ones made by Shure, for example. But you know what? They don't sound half bad. I dug them out and put 'em on and I'm listening to some of my tunes at Soundcloud right now. They have a nice sort of "space" feel about them. The lows are nothing to brag about, but they're not bad. Highs are crisp and mids aren't muddy. They sound noticeably better than my Samsung earbuds, which sound better than my Apple earbuds.
I bought these IEMs back when I was thinking seriously about putting together a solo act where I'd have the temerity to actually try and sing a song or two. Well, things got in the way, including a rather exhaustive move to a new house, and a few health issues, and the plans got set aside -- at least for the time being.
At any rate, it's somewhat enlightening listening to my tunes with these IEMs. The mixes don't sound as hot as they do with the Koss phones. Ulp -- hold that -- one tune just started up with a bass track that's too hot for these phones. So I guess, in addition to the Kosses, they'll also be a decent way to determine which of my mixes will need adjustment. Oh well.
You know there's a saying in the book publishing industry that a book isn't finished being revised until it's reached the printer. I'm thinking that music pretty much shares this trait.
What I don’t get is this. With my monitors I’m hearing, for example, a left pan in both ears while with phones I only hear it in the left ear. From my perspective this alone “colors” the sound differently, i.e., a different soundstage than what I would hear through speakers.
Bud
Bud, the phones I use are open back design. That’s the type mentioned in the article that Joe posted the link to as well.
With them being open back you do actually hear the left pan in the right ear, etc. Not the same as you would with monitors mind you, but much more than you would with closed back phones (or ear buds).
So open back phones are the best for mixing, no good for recording through a microphone however, because you would get the bleed from the phones into the mic.
Open back vs closed back phones should make absolutely no difference on Pan perception or cross talk unless there is something wrong with the headphones or they don’t have similar frequency response specs. With open back phones you do get a sense of the room you are listening in from the lack of isolating aspect of open back phones. But the room sensation is from sound sources not originating at the phones themselves.
I get that many folks including some pros mix with phones. I’m not being dismissive of that.
What I don’t get is this. With my monitors I’m hearing, for example, a left pan in both ears while with phones I only hear it in the left ear. From my perspective this alone “colors” the sound differently, i.e., a different soundstage than what I would hear through speakers.
I guess with the earbud crowd it makes no difference. That’s the way they hear about everything...at least until their high frequency range is obliterated
Bud
Bud if ‘the earbud crowd’ represents a vast swath of the music consumption population and in particular of that’s your market, that’s why you also mix for headphone playback as one of the listening modes, just as you do for mono playback which has also become popular one again with the lions share of Bluetooth speakers acting like point sources even if there are stereo speakers in the little box most of them are in. Get a few feet away and you effectively have a mono signal arriving at the ears. Not true if you have two of these devices going in stereo mode, which Apple finally offered in the latest iOS update.
What I don’t get is this. With my monitors I’m hearing, for example, a left pan in both ears while with phones I only hear it in the left ear. From my perspective this alone “colors” the sound differently, i.e., a different soundstage than what I would hear through speakers.
Bud
Bud, the phones I use are open back design. That’s the type mentioned in the article that Joe posted the link to as well.
With them being open back you do actually hear the left pan in the right ear, etc. Not the same as you would with monitors mind you, but much more than you would with closed back phones (or ear buds).
So open back phones are the best for mixing, no good for recording through a microphone however, because you would get the bleed from the phones into the mic.
Open back vs closed back phones should make absolutely no difference on Pan perception or cross talk unless there is something wrong with the headphones or they don’t have similar frequency response specs. With open back phones you do get a sense of the room you are listening in from the lack of isolating aspect of open back phones. But the room sensation is from sound sources not originating at the phones themselves.
Sorry, you are mistaken. That is the entire point of the open back design.
Provide just one citation on the purpose of open back headphones allowing ear to ear bleed. Every credible reference on the difference of open vs closed back designs supports my position.
I prefer open backed earphones for mixing. For 15 years I used some of the finest electrostatic open back designs from Stax and Sennheiser as a sound quality engineer for General Motors.
After that, I worked as an engineer for Westone for 5 years. Westone invented in ear monitor earphones and had responsibility to run our earphones and headphones testing stations.
Your claim that the point of open back door in is to allow one to hear like stereo speaker playback, where bleed occurs that is audible in the opposite ear is the first I have ever heard such a claim.
You get room noise with open back. You get some bleed out of the back, but never enough to be heard in the opposite ear. Low frequency response sounds different. But it's not to be able to hear opposite ear output.
It is not my claim, I read it in the SOS article from the link Joe provided a few posts ago.
About half way down that article there is a greyed out section called “Choosing headphones for mixing”.
Read paragraph four where he talks about open back phones providing cross feed between the ears.
I see that there and SOS is typically a credible source. Doesn’t bear out with the physics of acoustics and the distance between the ears. I will see if Mr. Walker is still living and if he still makes that claim. HD650 are some of the best open back phones I’ve heard with dynamic drivers. I’ve wanted a set for years after I auditioned some at Grace Design (actually theirs were HD800’s I believe).
Edit: actually farther down in the article Martin addresses what is needed to simulate speaker playback with the discussions on cross feed software and circuitry.
The point of open back phones is not intentional cross feed of channels to emulate speaker playback.
Generally, I mix in the reverse order of cheap to good.
I start with the really cheap speakers first when I am doing the first mix.
I have a pair of very inexpensive Insignia flat panel speakers I got from Best Buy. I think they were $9.99.
Putting them close together I can simulate mono (sort of) and definitely simulate a 1965 Chrysler Bel-Air dashboard radio speaker.
I have found that if I mix on these FIRST then the song is going to sound pretty flippin’ great on just about everything, with a few minor tweaks.
It is kind of amazing to me how much time it saves. If you get it sounding good on those, when you put it on the good speakers, or the car, or the headphones or anything, you go "Oh yeah."
A few minor tweaks, but we are talking minutes not hours.
David Snyder Songwriter/Renaissance Man Studio + Fingers
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