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

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

Post by rsntr »

I have the AKG 701 but hardly ever use them because I feel like I can hardly hear what's going on in the low end which makes my mixes much too bass heavy, trying to make up for it. When I listen to other people's music I also really need to pay attention to hear what exactly is going on in the low freqencies.

Does a headphone amp make much of a difference? Right now I plug them into my old Motu Traveler Mk1.

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

Post by paclos »

rsntr wrote:I have the AKG 701 but hardly ever use them because I feel like I can hardly hear what's going on in the low end which makes my mixes much too bass heavy, trying to make up for it. When I listen to other people's music I also really need to pay attention to hear what exactly is going on in the low freqencies.

Does a headphone amp make much of a difference? Right now I plug them into my old Motu Traveler Mk1.

I combine them with the 770. AKG 701 for medium/high and 770 for bass.

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

Post by Lost to the Void »

rsntr wrote:I have the AKG 701 but hardly ever use them because I feel like I can hardly hear what's going on in the low end which makes my mixes much too bass heavy, trying to make up for it. When I listen to other people's music I also really need to pay attention to hear what exactly is going on in the low freqencies.

Does a headphone amp make much of a difference? Right now I plug them into my old Motu Traveler Mk1.

Headphone amp makes a huge amount of difference with AKG`s.
Mainly you have to use them a lot, like any new monitoring environment, it takes time for your ears to learn them, so you need to reference a lot.
They are extremely flat, so you treat them like quality nearfields, when the bass is clear and present, then the mix is correct, if you are trying to get them to "boom" then you just aren`t monitoring properly.
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by Lost to the Void »

paclos wrote:

I combine them with the 770. AKG 701 for medium/high and 770 for bass.
That`s a terrible idea.
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by Andre_Crom »

I have both the Beyerdynamic 770 and 990.

770 are great in a loud environment, but do strain your ears a lot, as the have LOADS of bass.

So i'd recommend the 990's a lot more, they sound flat and analytic, and allow to work with them a long time with little fatigue (and less damage to your ears, which is something most people never think about until they experience it.) Only downside to them, in a loud environment they are not great, as semi-open.

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

Post by Plyphon »

I have the AKG 701 but hardly ever use them because I feel like I can hardly hear what's going on in the low end which makes my mixes much too bass heavy, trying to make up for it. When I listen to other people's music I also really need to pay attention to hear what exactly is going on in the low freqencies.
I have/had this issue with mine too. I found having good reference materially and regularly coming back to it really helps. That way you learn to hear what the low end is doing on both your tracks and well made ones.

I too used to crank up the bass to make them boom - mixes didn't translate at all. but if you reference often to "recalibrate" your ears you can get translatable mixes

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

Post by Oktagon »

Lost to the Void wrote:Headphone amp makes a huge amount of difference with AKG`s.
Mainly you have to use them a lot, like any new monitoring environment, it takes time for your ears to learn them, so you need to reference a lot.
They are extremely flat, so you treat them like quality nearfields, when the bass is clear and present, then the mix is correct, if you are trying to get them to "boom" then you just aren`t monitoring properly.
I own the AKG's and have just ordered a subpac. I'm curious to see if they'll complement each other.

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

Post by HowieRis »

A question for you K701 owners.

I bought a Chinese made pair in the UK to be brought out to Vietnam (they are much more expensive here) but they had an insane bass rattle, so I packaged them up to be taken back to the UK for a refund.

I couldn't be bothered with the huge import duties or the wait for a replacement pair but I wanted this model so I found a shop here with an Austrian made pair. Listened to a few headphone tests as best as I could in the shop with my phone and amp, no rattle, however my my phone is old and has a quiet signal so I couldn't drive them that hard even with the amp).

Brought them home, hooked up my Macbook Pro and ran the tests again.

http://www.audiocheck.net/soundtests_headphones.php

They're better than the pair I'm sending back but the "quality" test with the Head Box S amp at about 3/4 produces a definite physical rattle at the lower frequencies.

Does anyone else have this? At normal listening volumes bass-heavy music sounds fine but I'm pretty sure I don't want to be paying the extra premium for these headphones if they're not perfect.

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

Post by HowieRis »

...or am I just overthinking it / overdoing the volume? Doing the quality test at slightly lower volume (2 o'clock) still sounds pretty loud and no rattle is heard.

In other words, am I simply trying to make these drivers produce more volume at lower freqs than they were designed to?

Should i just chill out and use them normally? Or is a rattle at that level definitely a reason to take them back?

I'm listening to some of my favourite tracks now and they sound crazy good.

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

Post by WOLF! »

Use them at a normal level or you will kill your hearing (permanently)... .
Rattling is already mentioned (I think even in this topic), seems that some 701's have issues; I have no problems with my 701 and think it's a very good headphone for the money.

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

Post by Lost to the Void »

Never had a rattle with mine, send em back, never had any other problems. Great earphones, with tight precise bass.
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by sergiobR1 »

I own DT 770 pro 250 ohm, they are reeaally good headphones. But I can only use them 1 hour. So much fatigue...

I can monitor hours and hours with my yamaha's hs5 at low volume. And with headphones I can't monitor at low volume.

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

Post by xonetacular »

My akg701s had an issue with one ear going out from a wire snapping without ever abusing or yanking on them. One ear just died one day. Was able to fix it, but seems like a common/design issue the way the wire connects and being kind of short that it puts stress on the wire/joint every time the cup swivels.

youtu.be/20VRAznJzgw

They are good though, much better once I got a decent amp

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

Post by HowieRis »

Lost to the Void wrote:Never had a rattle with mine, send em back, never had any other problems. Great earphones, with tight precise bass.
Yeah they sound good and I can push regular released music hard and I'm unable to produce a rattle as far as I can tell. It's just this test audio.

http://www.audiocheck.net/soundtests_headphones.php

If I remember correctly you also have the Headbox S - how do you think your K701s would perform with that page's "quality test" in the last quarter-turn of the amp's potentiometer? (btw I haven't gone further than the 3/4 point where the rattle begins)

I'll send the company an email tonight and see if they'll do a swaparoo.

Disclaimer - in no way am I listening to anything for sustained periods above sensible volumes, I'm giving it the beans very briefly and smoothly with low pure tones to check the headphones' build quality.

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

Post by Lost to the Void »

To put it bluntly I don't give a shit how my cans would perform in the last quarter turn. I don't ever need to have the volume at that ear bleed level. Nowhere close actually.
In the same way I have no idea how my mastering monitors would sound at full volume because in my room, at half volume, my chest plate vibrates with the bass.
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by HowieRis »

Lost to the Void wrote:To put it bluntly I don't give a shit how my cans would perform in the last quarter turn. I don't ever need to have the volume at that ear bleed level. Nowhere close actually.
In the same way I have no idea how my mastering monitors would sound at full volume because in my room, at half volume, my chest plate vibrates with the bass.
Me neither, in fact I deliberately work at low volumes to avoid fatigue. I'm a drummer with a hardcore / D-beat background so I've had my share of loudness and don't intend to dull my enjoyment of music any more than I have with needlessly high volumes at this stage.

I was just trying to really test for a rattle because the pair I bought in the UK were so, so bad and I was paranoid... but your reply sort of strikes to the heart of the dilemma I was getting at - "should I not worry about what they do at unsustainable volumes or is this some kind of red flag that they're another dud pair and I should get ones that just do not rattle regardless of anything?"

Maybe I'll just use them. They sound fucking ace.

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

Post by Lost to the Void »

Well, they shouldn`t rattle, I mean I`ve accidentally had mine loud and I don`t remember a rattle.
I would return them and get a new set.
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by Mono-xID »

HowieRis wrote: Me neither, in fact I deliberately work at low volumes to avoid fatigue. I'm a drummer with a hardcore / D-beat background so I've had my share of loudness and don't intend to dull my enjoyment of music any more than I have with needlessly high volumes at this stage.

I was just trying to really test for a rattle because the pair I bought in the UK were so, so bad and I was paranoid... but your reply sort of strikes to the heart of the dilemma I was getting at - "should I not worry about what they do at unsustainable volumes or is this some kind of red flag that they're another dud pair and I should get ones that just do not rattle regardless of anything?"

Maybe I'll just use them. They sound fucking ace.
You should send them back, Hardcore Howie. I bought a pair 701 last month and recognized this rattle as well. Brought them back to the store, came home with the new cans...no rattle. They seem to have some quality control problems but when you have a working pair it's great. Really nice headphones and they replaced my DT 990's immediately.

PS: Nice to have another hardcore/punk head on board... ;)
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by Pagan »

Neither amps or the headphone/loudspeaker elements are capable of reproducing pure sinewaves perfectly (this difference from ideal is what they measure with THD), and doing that long and loud enough may actually damage your gear. The rattling is more likely to be you overpushing your setup than a real manufacturing defect. There's a physical limit for the driver (yes, the sound is produced by mechanical movement, which might sound funny in this digital age) and exceeding that limit will cause the driver to hit stuff it wasn't meant to. The elements in cans aren't that big, and pumping out low freqs at high volume just isn't physically possible.

tl;dr, feed any loudspeaker with something loud and low enough and it will rattle and fart, and eventually break.

Of course, it's possible that there are some wires slightly loose in the coil, or somethind else dislocated inside the can. If you experience rattle at normal volumes, take them to the shop for a check, but don't tell them you performed some crazy sub tests- the test may have caused the issue. AFAIK some have even fixed coil wirings by themselves.

I couldn't be more happier with my K712s, reasonably flat for cans, epic soundstage and much heavier in the lows than any of the previous AKGs (141s, 242s, 272s) I've had.

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

Post by Plyphon »

As I said earlier in the thread my first ones rattled - but it was fairly obvious with doofy kicks and 808 bass etc, you could hear it clearly when tracks were playing also.

I've not tried my 2nd pair with pure sine tones, seems like an edge case that i'd ever be listening to pure sine tones, so I don't really care. They sound fine with 'normal' production sounds and listening to other tracks.

I also don't run them through a amplifier yet - I get more than enough volume at 3/4 on my 2i2 output. Whether it's effecting the sound is another matter.


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