What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

[Plyphon]

Aye, thanks for replies.

So tracks I made on the K702's sound good on my earbuds I use at work, so thats 2 out of 3 places it sounds alright.

The only reason it bugs me is that 'professional' tracks sound fine on all 3...

[Aureliano]

Checking in to say that I started using a Head Box S headphone amp. I'm swapping my Sony MDR-7506's in and out of my Mackie mixer headphone out and the amp and I'm surprised at the difference. I expected it to be just a slight improvement.

The Head Box S is making everything sound wider; the Mackie HP out sounds boxy in comparison. The sound is also a bit warmer/richer through the amp. It kind of feels like there is more space for all the sounds, as if there's a higher resolution to the audio, revealing more subtle details that are absent when listening through the Mackie HP out.

Thanks for the recommendation.

[Mr.Dino]

i like mixing with the AIAIAI TMA but you got to be used to it, they have some powerful drivers and a lot of punch

[thebearmanbear]

i like mixing with the AIAIAI TMA but you got to be used to it, they have some powerful drivers and a lot of punch

Somebody recommended these to me a few months ago and gotta say,opinions do differ.didn't find them punchy at all,but i did find them extremely compressed and far too dry sounding which i suspect is from waaay too much damping(looking at the impulses sort of confirms this for me too) .imaging wasn't too bad but it was too narrow (you could pan with them successfully but,listening to correlation between reverb channels etc would be almost impossible to decypher)almost no top end,but using em with an amp (i have the headbox too,but i prefer my LakePeople RS02)did open em
up a bit.cause they are so compressed they are sort of good to judge broad tonal adjustments cause the dynamics don't really get in the way (sort of like the AKG K701,02,12,etc)but then trying to judge something like compression on them or limiting would be quite a task.long story short i sent em back to Amazon.this was the TMA-1 i dunno if they knocked off the damping in the TMA-2 or not
.probably would of kept em around for checking EQ and stuff,but i already have a "grotbox"and a couple of low end headphones with questionable frequency balance,but still good to guage eq and levelling and such.


Gotta say though headphones in general are really frustrating.you either have cans that can image really well e.g K702 and can do broad tonal adjustments,but suck at the micro details or judging dynamics,then you have cans that are supremely good for checking low end,eq,levels,but suck at imaging and have fake micro details e.g Audeze LCD2 and 3 (not heard the 4 or X)you really do need a few options to cover your basis.

I settled on a per of Beyerdynamic T90's (despise the rest of the Sellout range)they have decent impulse response,quick bass and stellar imaging plus you can find em 2nd hand for just under 200 quid.Sennheiser 650's great frequency response,decent imaging,bit clamped or compressed sound which makes em good for EQ and stuff.again about 200ish 2nd hand.Shure 840's great for micro detail stuff and was recommended by a german mastering engineer on some forum.don't normally go off of other peoples recommendations but these are decent and you can find em for about £100ish if you shop around

Also have a pair of the Etymotic ERSR or XR (i forget)never use em cause i bought some Shure SE535's for about the same price and i also find the imaging to be too claustrophobic on the Ety's (there's such a thing as a driver being too identical..).only really good for tonal adjustments,checking transients,minutiae,other really anal,finnicky stuff.IEM drivers tend to sound even more compressed than some full size dynamic drivers in my experience,though using em with an amp can open them up a bit.just a slight warning with that though,if you use em with an amp that is too powerful all you will serve to do is bring up the noise floor. considering that most IEM's are very low impedance for use with portable devices,Iphones and such.


Just my observations.take em with as much salt as you please

[Belka]

Got the 840 too, great on mixdowns and finding problems (too much sub, too much limiter, unpleasant noise or crackles, pumping), pretty clear. Only problem is the phase correlation e.g. translation of the Kick compared to my Speakers when it comes to punch, "placement" ... the "frontface and cut through" stuff, wide stereo singals have to much power but i think thats a typical Headphone problem due to the lack of crosstalk, but i prefere Speakers anway.
Just want to name some new affordable Planar Phones, the Monolith M1060, M560 & M565.

Monolith

what is Planar

fyi

[Lost to the Void]

Aiaiai are not flat. Bass heavy as shit.

[Lost to the Void]

Talking about imaging on headphones. .... audiophoolery.
ALL imaging is fucked on headphones.

[Lost to the Void]

(there's such a thing as a driver being too identical..)

No there isn't.
Quite the opposite.
Flat response is about consistency.
Drivers that match absolutely, remove themselves from the equation.
This is why when buying mastering monitors you want a factory matched pair.
You want to remove all variables as much as possible.
Unmatched drivers fuck with imaging, fuck with transient accuracy in the stereo field, time response, making phase more of a problem.
You sound like a typical audiophile. Compression in 701's????
Micro transients...

Please.

[Mr.Dino]

Aiaiai are not flat. Bass heavy as shit.

Thats what i'm talking about.. maybe it doesnt have the sound fidelity, but if you learn to work with the bass heavy as shit it becomes good.. Actually, the knowledge about how it sounds your reference can be applied to any sound system for a good mix, hehe, just saying that its nice to have some punch on the headphones.

[Lost to the Void]

not really, inaccurate monitors are inaccurate.
Getting used to that inaccuracy won`t mean you make accurate mixes.
If the transients are not represented correctly then even if you are used to that, it doesn`t help you make an accurate judgement of transients. How could it......
You can get used to a frequency bias to an extent, but you are always essentially second guessing or compensating for that frequency bias.
"Oh I know these monitors are bass heavy, so I produce with less bass"
With that comes problems that will effect the rest of the mix.

Or to put it another way. MORE accuracy in terms of audio representation is always better than LESS accuracy.
That`s not to say you can`t do a passable mix with inaccurate monitors or a bad room.

[Mr.Dino]

not really, inaccurate monitors are inaccurate.
Getting used to that inaccuracy won`t mean you make accurate mixes.
If the transients are not represented correctly then even if you are used to that, it doesn`t help you make an accurate judgement of transients. How could it......
You can get used to a frequency bias to an extent, but you are always essentially second guessing or compensating for that frequency bias.
"Oh I know these monitors are bass heavy, so I produce with less bass"
With that comes problems that will effect the rest of the mix.

Or to put it another way. MORE accuracy in terms of audio representation is always better than LESS accuracy.
That`s not to say you can`t do a passable mix with inaccurate monitors or a bad room.

You're always accurate with the words. You're right .Actually, tma its my only resource, the fact that i like it doesnt make it good.



Thanks for the tip!

[Mr.Dino]

What about JVC HARX900?

Thats an old headphone that i have. I try to read this graphics to know if he is more accurate than TMA but i dont really understand shit.

https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en ... -rx900.php

I know that none of these are ideal for this but is what i've got
Which one of this two is better for mixing?

[Barfunkel]

I've had the K701's for a year now, probably the best production related purchase ever.

However, you can't take them to the train, can't DJ with them and since they don't hype the bass and they are pretty accurate and reveal mistakes well, you can't really "vibe" with them. By that I mean that tracks that make you hop and bounce about in a nightclub make you go "Hmm, there's some mud in the lower mid region, how horrible".

I have "vibe" headphones of course already, the problem is that their sound is very different than the K701's, so when you come home and have been listening to music with the vibe-a-homes for an hour, it's often difficult to switch to the K701's, you need an adjustment period and several reference tracks to get back in the AKG mood.

So the question is, what portable, DJ-able, a bit vibey headphones would make a good matching pair for the K701's? Like, somewhat similar sound, just a bit more bassy and vibey. I know it doesn't work that way really, just wondering about which phones would be the closest thing to what I want?

[dubdub]

I've had the K701's for a year now, probably the best production related purchase ever.

However, you can't take them to the train, can't DJ with them and since they don't hype the bass and they are pretty accurate and reveal mistakes well, you can't really "vibe" with them. By that I mean that tracks that make you hop and bounce about in a nightclub make you go "Hmm, there's some mud in the lower mid region, how horrible".

I have "vibe" headphones of course already, the problem is that their sound is very different than the K701's, so when you come home and have been listening to music with the vibe-a-homes for an hour, it's often difficult to switch to the K701's, you need an adjustment period and several reference tracks to get back in the AKG mood.

So the question is, what portable, DJ-able, a bit vibey headphones would make a good matching pair for the K701's? Like, somewhat similar sound, just a bit more bassy and vibey. I know it doesn't work that way really, just wondering about which phones would be the closest thing to what I want?

I have a pair of Sennheiser HD650s which are more vibe-y than the 701s but still are acceptably accurate for studio use. They aren't super portable though.

[collide]

My AKG 240 MII died and got replace with a AKG 702.

Awesome just awesome.

[Críoch]

Akg 702s are around the 130€ mark on Thomann & on sale with Gear4music @ 109€ right now.

Picked up a pair last week.

Great price.

[karol]

Replaced 702 with hd 650 like them better...702 were to bulky to work with,got headaches from them

[zarkas]

Wow that was an extremely helpfull thread.
Is there any other suggestion on AKG series except the 701/702? ie are the K 182 as flat?

[Lost to the Void]

The 182 is a good budget headphone.
It doesn't perform as well as the 701/702 in terms of flatness. It's also closed back, so the bass is a bit heavy. I've never heard anyone using them in production, be t apparently they are a good budget DJ headphone. At that price it's worth saving up the extra sheckles for a bit longer to get something better.

The 701/702 are, in my opinion, the best production over ear headphones in the £100-£300 price range. After that price range there are other better cans where the value for money to performance becomes much tighter.

[The_G]

I bought the 702s on Lost to the Void’s recommendation and could not be happier. You do have to adjust a bit for the wideness of the stereo image but otherwise I find them extremely accurate and reliable.

So, so much better than my AT M50s (which are handy for travel but inferior and misleading for studio work).