Headphones

[Cooperman]

What is everyone's prefered set of headphones for studio work?

I use Sony MDR 7506's which I find are great when recording guitars and bass, and for checking the stereo image on mixes, but they tend to leak too much noise for recording vocals. Just wondering what everyone else uses.

 

[egan.]

MDR-V600 and Sen 256HD. I Prefer the 600's and haven't any real issues w/ bleed but that's me. If I recall I think that there was an article in Electronic Musician or EQ a year or 2 back where they rated like 10 headphones on sound quality and bleed....I'll try to find in in my stacks and report back what they said.

 

[egan.]

Ok it was the may '99 issue of recording (jesus, do I every throw shit away?). The highest rated phones for isolation were the AT ATH-M40fs, Sen HD 25, HD 250 and HD 265. That said, there were no sonys in the phones rated and I have had better luck with my sony phones for isolation b/c of their snugger fit. Also, I tried some sen hd25's and they sounded pretty shitty IMO. Hope this helps.

 

[Cooperman]

I have Guitar World magazines from 1993!

Thanks for the info. I briefly tried a friend's AKG 240 once but didn't like the sound at all compared to the 7506 which I find to be very loud and clear. I also had a listen through some old 70's style looking Beyer headphones (can't remember the model) at a studio I recorded at and they sounded quite good and were well enclosed.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Hey men,

I have two Sennheiser. A HD495, sounds really really good but leaks a lot since it is not a closed headphone, good for mixing, but not too long as it tends to tire the ears (internaly and externaly ) and a HD212Pro, sounds not as good (a little dull in my opinion, I have to boost the highs a bit when listening to it) but has almost no leak at all, it's really impressive ! Really great for recording vocals for exemple. You can even tweak the mic position right in front of a guitar amp playing loud and still hear your mic's sound pretty good (have to put it up of course...). Plus, these headphones were not very expensive... Besides that, I know nothing

 

[Kevin Kitchel]

There are those XTREEME ISOLATION headphones that they sell in TapeOp, which are just the big earmuffs with some pretty good headphone elements mounted in them. I don't think they would be hard to make at all. I would just worry about making them comfortable.

 

[egan.]

A friend of mine had these phones that were basically ear protection for heavy machinery with headphones built in, but they sounded like shit.

 

[Kevin Kitchel]

I'm sure you could get some diaphrams that were pretty good, and throw em in there. If they end up sucking, just give em to the drummer!

Seriously though, I've seen articles about making them yourself, and "tuning" them, but its never been something that really interested me, because the cost difference is probably small.