Best neutral headphones for audio engineers that translate well?

[spankjam]

What are the best neutral headphones for an audio engineer in your opinion that translate well to other systems? Particularly a clear and correct 1 to 10 kHz range is important while also retaining a musical signature that makes them enjoyable to generally listen to.

 

[Curvature]

Please get yourself in-ear microphones and adjust whatever headphones you get.

The process is not very simple because you will have to calibrate the capsules using a known reference, and EQing will not be as simple as following a target curve.

There are no inherently neutral headphones because of the way they couple to our heads. I'd say there are plenty good models that can be adjusted to a reasonable degree.

 

[spankjam]

Please get yourself in-ear microphones and adjust whatever headphones you get.

The process is not very simple because you will have to calibrate the capsules using a known reference, and EQing will not be as simple as following a target curve.

There are no inherently neutral headphones because of the way they couple to our heads. I'd say there are plenty good models that can be adjusted to a reasonable degree.

I'm coming more from a post production background, mixing on Amphions and Acs.

Just need something that translates well.

Not a fan of sonar works on either speakers or headphones, it kills the transient response for me, I'd rather get used to a certain playback device's sound and work with that.

 

[Curvature]

I'm coming more from a post production background, mixing on Amphions and Acs.

Just need something that translates well.

Not a fan of sonar works on either speakers or headphones, it kills the transient response for me, I'd rather get used to a certain playback device's sound and work with that.

I believe your perspective is mistaken, but do what you will.

Others can recommend specific models.

 

[Dunring]

Do you want something flat as a pancake or Harman tuning that's fun to listen to?

 

[DVDdoug]

I've posted these excerpts from Recording Magazine a couple of times:

This is from Readers Tapes where readers send-in their recordings for evaluation:

As those of you who have followed this column for any length of time can attest, headphone mixing is one of the big no-no's around these parts. In our humble opinion, headphone mixes do not translate well in the real world, period, end of story. Other than checking for balance issues and the occasional hunting down of little details, they are tools best left for the tracking process.

And this is from a mixing engineer:

Can I mix on headphones?

No. But in all seriousness, headphones can be a secret weapon and it really doesn’t matter what they sound like…

Over time, after constantly listening back to my work from different studios on those headphones I really started to learn them. They became sort of a compass. Wherever I went… It became a pattern for me to reference these headphones to see if what I was hearing was “right”…

I learned them, I knew them, I trusted them. It didn’t matter whether or not I loved them…

So, can you mix on headphones? Probably. I just think you really need to put some time into learning them first…

 

[spankjam]

Do you want something flat as a pancake or Harman tuning that's fun to listen to?

Kind of in the middle, between fun to listen to and pancake which doesn't exist anyways. Something you can reference critically with but also musical.

I believe your perspective is mistaken, but do what you will.

Others can recommend specific models.

Could you elaborate?

 

[oleg87]

This whole concept of “translating” is strange to me. I don’t understand why we are acting like headphones are not a primary way people listen to music in 2023.

 

[spankjam]

I've posted these excerpts from Recording Magazine a couple of times:

This is from Readers Tapes where readers send-in their recordings for evaluation:


And this is from a mixing engineer:

I personally feel the same way but I did manage to pull some stuff with my HD650s during emergencies because I got to know them but working with them on anything modern that requires to tune into the low end or 10k range and higher is impossible sadly.

I also believe it is impossible (at least for me) to consistently excel when crafting sonic landscapes and solely rely on speakers however, I managed to get used to the HD650s to do a few jobs with them and a friend of mine, who's moving a lot recently, solely mixes on them for his projects and his stuff comes out 90% good so I'd like to find something that would work for me.

I think that if you dial down the volume on headphones, you can actually get a good feel for the stereo image, similar to speakers. I think most people don't manage to do that because they listen too loudly, just as nearfields are being abused with high volumes in studios by the majority.

 

[spankjam]

This whole concept of “translating” is strange to me. I don’t understand why we are acting like headphones are not a primary way people listen to music in 2023.

Translate means that you enjoy whatever you crafted on that particular playback device and it will work on most others as well.

Exactly, I also believe the majority listens to headphones nowadays more than speakers besides a very small demographic.

 

[holdingpants01]

to me the harman curve works very well, but more important (as the curve can and should be modified on most headphones anyway) is the crossfeed, that's the key to panning and low end on headphones https://goodhertz.com/canopener-studio/

 

[Curvature]

Could you elaborate?

In a room and with speakers, you can feel confident that you are listening to the speakers themselves above 1kHz. Below that is the combined action of the room and speakers, where EQ is needed. But all headphones have somewhat unpredictable response due to leakage (up to around 300Hz) and ear/canal shape (above 1kHz). So you are never truly listening to just headphones themselves. The result is complicated and needs personal measurement and EQ across the whole range to work well.

As far as I understand Sonarworks their EQ scheme is incorrect and imposes too much correction to the target. The right way to EQ is to do it broadly and avoid small corrections, particularly beyond 1kHz. It will have no negative effects on sound. There are plenty of good automated solutions for speakers (Dirac, Trinnov, Neumann's MA-1, Genelec's GLM), but none for headphones, where manual adjustment is necessary.

Headphones themselves should be free of resonances, but this is hard to identify especially in the HF because of the above problems, which manifest when using head/ear simulator measurement rigs as well. Generally I would look at Dan Clark and Sennheiser headphones, and perhaps Audeze and Neumann. Independent measurements by Amir, oratory1990 and others help identify general trends and resonances in particular.

I prefer mixing on speakers and checking the result, especially for bass (where most rooms have problems), on headphones. I'm trying to transition to using headphones (Sennheiser HD800S) and checking the result on speakers from having to move around so much.