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

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

Post by Mattias »

I decided between several cans and the 650 worked best for me. Till I changed.

I'd recommend you try between the 650, 600 and the 701. The latter is probably the most bang for the buck since the Sennheisers costs some to drive properly.
A mix between the 600 and 701 would be a lovely can.
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by WOLF! »

That AKG 701 is a no brainer for his current price. Gonna try one for sure.

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

Post by CubiK Mass »

WOLF! wrote:That AKG 701 is a no brainer for his current price. Gonna try one for sure.
Agree they are a no brainer at that price, no matter what you use you need to reference your mix against a few different sources to then learn the headphones you have.

I have some Yamaha HS8 monitors, then 3 sets of headphones plugged into a splitter, AKG 712pro's, some pioneer's I've had years for DJing and a set of Beats, and then playing tracks in my car on a Bose system.

I now start tracks on monitors and then further down the line start to use the AKG's to make subtle mixing adjustments because my room ain't the best and I think I'm getting decent results, you find your own way in the end.

I'd say referencing your mix on a few different sources is the key, not how much you spend on headphones or monitors, that's just my opinion.

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

Post by Lost to the Void »

Referencing on multiple sources is generally a bad idea when mixing

Which do you trust?

What you need is a trusted neutral source, otherwise you will chase your tail from here to eternity.
I mean could you imagine walking in to a mastering studio where they have 4 different sets of monitors?

The whole point of good nearfield monitors is that you can trust them. Same with good headphones.

If you can't trust them and have to keep referencing with other speakers then they are no good.
What is important is to play as much professionally mixed music on your listening systems as you can, so you tune your ears to good production through your setup.

Burn in is a myth, unfortunately its another one of those audiophile word goo things. All that really happens is your ears get used to the new sound.
So your ears are "burning in" and not the gear.
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by CRDM »

Going to order a pair of AKG702 in the next few days to see what they're like, excited to give them a go after hearing what you guys are saying about them, will post here once I get them.

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

Post by CubiK Mass »

Lost to the Void wrote:Referencing on multiple sources is generally a bad idea when mixing

Which do you trust?

What you need is a trusted neutral source, otherwise you will chase your tail from here to eternity.
I mean could you imagine walking in to a mastering studio where they have 4 different sets of monitors?

The whole point of good nearfield monitors is that you can trust them. Same with good headphones.

If you can't trust them and have to keep referencing with other speakers then they are no good.
What is important is to play as much professionally mixed music on your listening systems as you can, so you tune your ears to good production through your setup.

Burn in is a myth, unfortunately its another one of those audiophile word goo things. All that really happens is your ears get used to the new sound.
So your ears are "burning in" and not the gear.
Burn is not a myth to me because I've experienced it, the 712's when first bought left me a bit underwhelmed, I've just forked out nearly £300 notes on a boss pair of headphones and the weren't too dissimilar to the pioneers I'd been using, but after a while they developed without a shadow of doubt into a much more defined source for my tracks.

I now trust them fully, having referenced my mixes against other sources, I'm just speaking from personal experience, and we all have different experiences with our tools of choice.

I know if my mix sounds good on the 712's and the Yamaha monitors then they'll be good in the car and on the other headphones I have, but I had to learn that by referencing several sources.

I've just learnt the best way for me, if you can't have a great sounding monitor set up then buy a good set of headphones, those 712's I have cost me £280, they are now available for around £200, I would say that is the best £200 you can spend on your setup as it stands, there are a few well established artists that use AKG's to mix in as a primary source.

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

Post by Lost to the Void »

Headfi did an objective experiment on burn in. After consulting manufacturers who said "its a myth there is no component that is being "run in"
They took several sets of pro phones, recorded the frequency response out of the box, ran them continuously for the" burn in time" and retested the frequency response.
The graphs were the same before and after.
It is your ears that "burn in"

Same with new monitors, it will take a while for your ears to learn new monitors. It's normally a month or two for your ears to learn new monitors (or learn a new room if you move location with the same monitors).

Burn in is another subjective audiophile pseudoscience. It can go in the same box as specialist audio cables for listening to different types of music on hi-fi's. And doesn't hold up to science when tested.
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

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Think about it this way: Why would any headphone and earphone manufacturer design and ship something that’s not already in its optimal state? People already have enough trouble getting a decent fit with their earphones (something that really does affect the sound quality). Then there’s the mind-boggling variation in performance that comes with the actual music files and equipment you use to listen to your music.

Indeed, all of this variation gets at the real thing people are reacting to when they buy new head- and earphones: mental burn-in. If you’re used to dark-sounding headphones, neutral ones may sound bright at first until you get used to the new sound. That flexible calibration is how many of our senses work. Light seems brighter after darkness, sound rings louder after silence. Chances are, a lot of what people attribute to headphone burn-in is actually just their brains gradually becoming used to this new sound or new setting.
https://www.wired.com/2013/11/tnhyui-earphone-burn-in/

If there was basis in fact for burn in top manufacturers would do it in the factory, but frankly such a situation is ridiculous because if a speaker needed 300 hours of use to "settle" then after 1000 does it become baggy?


Here is a manufacturers (sennheiser) statement on burn in with headphones.

Hello All:
So I hear that headphones need some burn in time, and after this period the sound will settle/improve. Many people claim their headphones improve in quality after burning them in and they DO believe in it. I asked someone at Sennheiser about burn in time and this is what I got:

Hello,
We do not have any specs on a "burn in" time. These sets do not require one, and will be fine to play at any volume out of the box.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Thanks.

Regards,
Scott Houston
Technical Applications
860-434-9190 EXT. 182
shouston@sennheiserusa.com
Sennheiser~ Neumann~ Turbosound~HHB~K+H
Most headphone manufacturers make similar statements, some say there is a loosening of the diaphragm with the first play out of the box, but stabilisation is achieved with that first use.


After personally conducting sooooo many tests on various audiophile myths (high rate mp3`s vs 16-44 vs 24-96 for example) with the music producers guild over many years at many different professional studios, it has become very obvious that a lot of audiophoolery comes from things like expectation bias and confirmation bias. Most of it breaks down when double blind ABX tests are conducted, and even when differences are detected they are so small that it takes a trained ear to really detect anything to get positive results above random chance.
Most people can't detect a quarter db push or pull on a medium Q over full range material, be it pink noise or music. And differences that occur in the few audiophile memes that do have some fraction of truth tend to be less than these kind of tolerances. In fact sometimes something as simple as temperature difference can give a greater audible change than the myth being tested.

We have a thread on this very forum that goes through the science of these kind of things.
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by CubiK Mass »

That's weird if it is just all in your head so to speak because they definitely seemed better after a while using them, and many people make similar claims when they buy a good pair of headphones.

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

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That is the point. What you attribute as better is your ears getting used to the new tonal balance. So you could say "they" sound better, but it is actually you.
It's like walking in to a dark room on a sunny day.
Initially you can see little. after time you adjust and everything comes in to view.
And then at night if you go from a well lit room to outside to look at the stars it can take your eyes over an hour to adjust for night vision. Hardly any stars becomes the milky way an hour later.

New neutral headphones might sound bass light after a year of cans with heavy bass (that to your naturalised ears sound "normal") But after a few weeks your ears realise the phones are not bass light, they are perfectly balanced. And then if you were to put on the old phones, where once they sounded normal, now they sound bass heavy and woolly.
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by zukenbauer »

Lost to the Void wrote:
New neutral headphones might sound bass light after a year of cans with heavy bass (that to your naturalised ears sound "normal") But after a few weeks your ears realise the phones are not bass light, they are perfectly balanced. And then if you were to put on the old phones, where once they sounded normal, now they sound bass heavy and woolly.
True story.. Happened to me when i bought first flat cans.. Didnt take more than week to get used to it.

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

Post by Mattias »

Exactly, the ears gets accustomed to the products,. That's the "burn in"
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by Mono-xID »

My ears didn't burn in on the Focal Spirit Professional so I sold them a few weeks ago. Looking for new cans and will try the praised K 702's next week.
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by Lost to the Void »

Focals are a bit bass heavy apparently. Never tried them when I was doing my "trials of a billion headphones for the studio"

How were they?
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by Mono-xID »

They were definitely not bass heavy. I'd say they are flat as hell,so accurate it's painful to listen to. I think they are brutally honest in a way I just couldn't work with them any longer.

I'm used to DT 990's for sooooo long that I'd never gel with such honest phones.

Weird,I know.
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by PixelKind »

I think thats similar to speakers. If you know them very well you know how to make the sounds translate well

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

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Mono-xID wrote:They were definitely not bass heavy. I'd say they are flat as hell,so accurate it's painful to listen to. I think they are brutally honest in a way I just couldn't work with them any longer.

I'm used to DT 990's for sooooo long that I'd never gel with such honest phones.

Weird,I know.
Accurate and honest should also mean easy to listen to.
Maybe they just aren't up to the cut if that is the case.
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by CRDM »

Just ordered a pair of AKG702 for a really good price, they arrive tuesday so I'll report back. Excited to hear them. If they are that bit better for mixing on than my current dt 880s that'd be great.

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

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Mono-xID wrote: I'm used to DT 990's for sooooo long that I'd never gel with such honest phones.

Weird,I know.
in what capacity do you use the 990's? I've been using them for years but all this AKG and Focal talk has me thinking of new set.

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

Post by Orin »

I have been doing nicely with just a regs pair of ATH-M50s, great balance, flat response and comfort. Relatively cheap too. But never really noticed this "burn-in" time. I think it's as everyone here is saying: that burn in time is just your ears adjusting to the new source.


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