This may have happened to you if you’ve ever mixed and mastered your own tracks. You spend hours over the course of several days trying to produce a demo quality recording of an original composition, and it sounds great in your home recording studio. You upload it to Spotify, Pandora, iTunes or Nimbit and think that it sounds pretty darn good. Which it does, until you play it in your car! And then OMG, it sounds aweful! The bass is just dominating the sound spectrum (which is typical of car stereo systems), drowning out the mids so much that the only highs you can hear are the screeches from the upper ranges. How could your mix be off by so much? Didn’t you double-check the mix with Izotope’s Tonal Balance Control or with a Spectral Analyzer? And it sounded so great in those headphones and over the monitors in my home recording studio.
Well maybe I was overcompensating for the bass in the mix because I wasn’t getting the proper perspective from my cheap little pair of Sony headphones. I absolutely love these little, lightweight headphones – I’m talking about the Sony MDR-G45‘s.
Many home studio producers like me rely on headphones principally (as opposed to studio monitors) to mix their tracks beacuse some of us can’t turn up the volume as loud as we’d like in a home environment. Either that or the sound proofing and/or dimensions of the room aren’t optimal. Or our monitors are not tonally balanced – they favor the highs or the lows. I realize that some of the best engineers out there prefer to mix either really loud or really soft – as Andrew Sheps does for example. You can hear the details of the mix better at louder levels and quiet levels also provide great indications as to whether EVERYTHING can be heard in a balanced fashion. Being able to hear everything in the mix is one of the mantras of great mixing, and I obey this rule whenever I mix. My main problem in some cases was that I didn’t control the low end properly – really because my cheap little Sony MDR-G45’s weren’t pumping the lows hard enough.
I still love my Sony MDR-G45s for taking with me on the road and for listening through a cell phone or laptop (at 24 ohms, you’re ok) – they’re lightweight and practical. But the big take-away is that they’re definitely for studio mixing.
The solution: get some decent studio quality headphones. So I started doing extensive research – watching a ton of audiophile headphone reviews on YouTube (you can see my own review of the ones in this article by clicking on this link). I also started to check out headphones on display wherever studio quality headphones were sold. Unfortunately, there really aren’t many stores around for audiophiles. Forget Best Buy – there you mainly see trendy mega-bass headphones for sale – whether it be the ones from Beats from Dr. Dre or Bose Quitecomforts. The Bose is about the highest quality you can get at Best Buy. But I’m not a big fan of Bose headphones or speakers for that matter because I find them to be too bass heavy. Again – not useful for home studio engineers.
I walked into a local Guitar Center and as I was waiting for a sales rep I tried out some of the studio headphones that they had on display. It was one of those shoot-out displays where you could A/B headphones from different manufacturers and models. While they didn’t have some of the higher end headphones on display – like the Sennheiser HD 800, the BeyerDynamic DT1990 or the AudEze LCD-2 Planars (which are on my long-term buy list, e.g.), they had some cost-efficient solutions available for comparison. I currently have a budget for how much I can spend on headphones, and that’s about $375 for a good pair of open-back studio headphones. So I went around the carousel of headphones and started listening attentively for any candidates.
They had a pair of BeyerDynamic DT 770s and some cheaper Sennheisers but I wasn’t impressed. They sounded nothing like the higher models that I’m interested in. But I kept listening and comparing, and finallt started to be impressed by the Audio-Technica ATH-M40x. They were on sale for $84 which for the quality of sound they produced is a steal in my opinion. I had to get these headphones – even if they’re closed-back – I could always used them in the studio for recording miked vocal or guitar parts.
I love the level response of these headphones. The highs, mids are pretty well represented. The lows are especially present – after all, we’re dealing with closed-back headphones in this case. A nice overall frequency curve – pretty clear, not too tinny sounding. My only gripes about these headphones are mainly with the ergonomics: I find the cups to be a bit uncomfortable – I have to take a break every 15-20 minutes or else my ears feel as though they’ll suffocate. The headphones do not feel light over the head either. Finally, AudioTechnica built them so that they collapse into a pouch, but by doing so, placing them over the head into place can be a challenge – more than once I managed to ensnare the side of my hand in one of the cup holders – ouch! The other minor drawback is that the soundstage or stereo field (spread), while pretty good, is not exactly great. You’re definitely not talking about surround sound here. But, the stereo imaging isn’t bad either. I would say that only extremely picky audiophiles would not be happy.
Another plus about these headphones is that at 34 ohms they sound pretty awesome on lower fidelity devices (cell, phones, iPods and laptops), as well as on amplified DACs.
Bottom line: I can live with what I consider to be small drawbacks, and the sound is pretty awesome. At $84, I think that the Audio-Technica ATH-M40x are a great value indeed, especially if you need a pair of closed-backs for record miked instruments or vocals.
But I still needed a good pair of open-backed headphones. Two main reasons: (1) I did not want to get swamped by low frequencies when mixing and (2) I wanted to give my ears some breathing space (translation: avoid over-heating and discomfort), and (3) in order to get really nice spread (i.e. soundstage) you really need open-backs. I had to pick up another order at Guitar Center and one of the reps started telling me about the Audio-Technica ATH-AD900x “AIR” open-backs.
These really are exceptionally balanced headphones. The frequency curve is impressive in terms of its balance across the audio spectrum, except for the bump around 10K Hz, as you can see from the frequency response chart below (courtesy of GoldenEars.net):
These headphones have incredible range – from as low as 5 Hz to 35,000 Hz – which is well beyond what the human ear can hear (20Hz – 20K Hz). The soundstage is also incredible – you get an incredibly wide spread – so instruments that you never heard before start to pop out in front of your aural imaging, if you will, making these extremely accurate headphones for audiophiles and engineers. The midi come through nicely -so vocals, guitars, piano and strings sound clear and present.
They are extremely comfortable as well – among the most comfortable headphones I have ever worn. You can wear them for hours hardly knowing that they’re there.
Amazingly, the AD900x‘s have a fairly low impedance at 38 ohms, which mans that you can get some good results with lower fidelity devices (like a cell phone, iPod or laptop), but to really appreciate them you should drive them through a proper preamp or DAC. Under these circumstances, these headphones really shine. I really love the bass roll-off (HPF) starting around 100 Hz, so the low end never feels overwhelming. As stated, the balance across the spectrum is incredible – so the mids and high ranges come through nicely. If I had to make one critique about the frequency response, it’s the fairly noticeble bump around 10K Hz. There are times when the music is really cranking the high end, or during very loud arrangements that I found that I had to turn the volume down a bit because it started to get a bit piercing. But once again, this is only when everything’s at full steam – or tutti – to use a classical term. Otherwise, it’s a beautiful listening experience.
How much would you expect to pay for the Audio-Technica ATH-AD900x headphones? $600? $800? Would you believe that I got them on sale during the holiday season for a mere $130? This is an absolutely incredible deal. If you’re looking for a pair of high quality open-back headphones for the studio then these are a must have, in my opinion – unless of course, you want to go for the higher end models mentioned above. But for the higher end models you’ll have to shell out at least $800.
You know, price and even name doesn’t necessarily guarantee an incredible listening experience. I test-drove a pair of the highly regarded Sennheiser HD 650s.
I bought them, listened to them for a few days and felt that I had to return them. The reason had nothing to do with the soundstage (absolutely incredible) or comfort (also very nice), but rather with the fact that I felt that the high end felt rather veiled (or suppressed) and the low end rather exaggerated. The Sennheiser HD 650s in this sense are the polar opposite of my little Sony MDR-G45s. I would be replacing one problem with another.
The Sennheiser HD 650 frequency response curve as seen above shows a very mid-range heavy curve – which is great for vocals, guitars, piano , strings etc. From the curve you’d think you get a nice bass roll-off but to my ears they were rather bass heavy. I just needed something more tonally balanced for mixing, so I returned them. Many audiophiles swear by this pair of headphones (as opposed to the notorious Sennheiser HD 700s, the so-called improved model) – which unfortunately was a huge let-down – that is, until the ultra-exceptional HD 800s came along. But at an average price of about $360, I feel that I get a much better deal with the $130 Audio-Technica ATH-AD900x’s.
My final headphone review for this article is for PreSonus’ HD7′s, which is sort of hybrid open/closed-back pair of headphones. The main reason that I’m including them in this review is that I got them for free when I bought PreSonus’ Audiobox USB interface for Studio One Pro. I found one or two Studio One users who like them and gave them positive reviews. However, based on my experience, I quickly discovered that they have pretty poor clarity. Things just sound muffled. I simply can’t recommend them – even though I absolutely LOVE Studio One Pro 4.0 and a host of other hardware products that they make (like the Faderport 8 and the ATOM drum pad). But the HD7 headphones are basically just collecting dust at this point.
A final key point that I’d like to make is that everyone’s ears are different. This is due to the pair of ears that we’re born with, our age, health and how well we’ve preserved our ears. There’s no way that two people comparing headphones will come to the same conclusions. Some of our biases also have to do with what we’re accustomed to listening to. And, as I suggest in this article, it also depends what we need headphones for. You may need a pair of bass heavy cans to give you some perspective for hip-hop, while someone else may be mixing to more of an orchestral track. If you’re mixing Adele, for instance, the Sennheiser HD 650s may be perfect. Or even better – why not have several pairs of headphones in your arsenal – one for bassier tunes, one for vocals and mids, and another for more of the high end?
That’s I plan to do when I mix my tracks going forward. I will employ some of the following tactics to arrive at better mixes, with better tonal balances – so I won’t be pleasantly surprised when listening in the car, for example:
- Mix in mono – to get get better sense of placement in the mix for each track
- Use a spectral analyzer and a plugin like Izotope’s Tonal Balance Control to study and compare the final mix to reference tracks
- Use at least 3 pairs of headphones for the final mix – one for highs, one for mids, one for lows. Ideally the middle one should have great balance across the frequency response curve
- Listen to your mix through monitors at high and low volumes – as some seasoned engineers suggest. Please note that some of the best out there suggest listening at loud volumes only for short periods – most of the mixing should be done at quieter levels! This practically guarantees that everything will come through properly in the mix.
- Consider buying a program like Audified Mix Checker Pro to double-check how your final mix sounds across a variety of speakers (from your car to your ear buds). I haven’t used this program myself yet, but I’ve heard some good reviews and it seems to be especially useful in the mastering stage.
Well that’s pretty much what I’ve got for now. I hope you enjoyed this review and remember to check out my YouTube headphone review videos at Closed-End or Open-End Headphones: Which Ones are Right for You? and at Quality Headphones for the Home Recording Studio Artist.
I’m curious to hear your take on the headphones that YOU use in the studio, or simply to enjoy music. Leave a comment below or on my YouTube channel. Please Like, Share and Subscribe as this will help me produce some more reviews and compositions for the channel and for this web site.
If you’re interested in checking out the headphones that I discussed in the reviews, here are the links on Amazon:Audio-Technica AD900xAudio-Technica M40xSony MDR-G45
Thanks so much.
Ricky Molina