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

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Lost to the Void
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by Lost to the Void »

I produce mainly in headphones, I get my ears checked twice a year (they are my livelihood), I`m a little sensitive to high frequencies, but this is good as your high end response dulls as you get older.
But yeah, as long as you aren`t pounding your headphones, your ears will be fine.
I drop my headphone volume to zero every half hour, then sit in silence for a minute or so and slowly take the volume back up to comfortable levels. It stops you from getting level creep.
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by arkos »

Lost to the Void wrote:I produce mainly in headphones, I get my ears checked twice a year (they are my livelihood), I`m a little sensitive to high frequencies, but this is good as your high end response dulls as you get older.
But yeah, as long as you aren`t pounding your headphones, your ears will be fine.
I drop my headphone volume to zero every half hour, then sit in silence for a minute or so and slowly take the volume back up to comfortable levels. It stops you from getting level creep.
Yeah that is the smart thing to do, guess it's my own fault being stoned 24/7 you tend to forget things :oops:

Almost 4 months since I quit smoking though, fucking had it with that shit...

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

Post by Barfunkel »

Just bought the K701's yesterday after my old headphones broke. Let's see where these babies take me...


Also got a soundcard and monitors but that's another story.
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by CRDM »

Lost to the Void wrote:I produce mainly in headphones, I get my ears checked twice a year (they are my livelihood), I`m a little sensitive to high frequencies, but this is good as your high end response dulls as you get older.
But yeah, as long as you aren`t pounding your headphones, your ears will be fine.
I drop my headphone volume to zero every half hour, then sit in silence for a minute or so and slowly take the volume back up to comfortable levels. It stops you from getting level creep.

I do the same thing, break often and turn it right down then back up. It took a while to drill in though, I used to always creep it up and had to really reinforce it on myself. I am now mixing at very low levels and I'm now getting used to setting compression levels at really low levels just so the transients are popping through which I'm liking.

I had my ears tested last year at a hospital and the doctor said I had above average hearing and wasn't missing anything freq wise, though it's not the deepest of tests but I got the gist. I do have tinnitus though from working and going to clubs a lot when I was a bit younger as well as long term/loud headphone use in my teens. I felt like some of the really highs were masked a bit by it but I could still feel those frequencies, I'm also pretty sensitive to high frequency sounds.

That's my main issue with music making now, is making sure that the length of time i'm at it and levels I'm listening to aren't aggravating the ringing. When I leave it for a few days it does settle and reduce and I do lots of other things for my overall health which I find keep it at bay. Void - do you have any ringing after all the shows you've done and your youth in the rave scene or were you always wearing plugs and have kept the ringing away?

I wish I could go back and give myself some ear protection and education on it, it is what it is though and I think on the scale of things I don't have it so bad. It'd just be nice to not have to think about it when making music and I hope in time it reduces even further. Like you say low levels help a lot!

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

Post by Lost to the Void »

I have no tinnitus luckily.
Being behind the Rig for my rave years and wearing protection saved me.
I'm very careful now. Always have earplugs when I play, go to concerts or whatever. I have to, my ears are my job.
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by CRDM »

Lost to the Void wrote:I have no tinnitus luckily.
Being behind the Rig for my rave years and wearing protection saved me.
I'm very careful now. Always have earplugs when I play, go to concerts or whatever. I have to, my ears are my job.

Damn that is lucky! I thought with your style of music and history you'd have had some damage, that's really good going! I have been wearing ear protection the last few years but in my younger years, I either didn't or only occasionally.

I've moved country a few months ago and thinking of ordering some small monitors from overseas here. In your opinion are monitors less or more fatiguing than headphones, I guess it's not black and white as the speaker/headphone sound and placement etc is going to come into play, going by my own logic and by things I remember hearing, headphones are more fatiguing, interested to hear what you think... I would be using both at very low levels, I'm using AKG702 and really don't want the tinnitus to get any worse. I'm still relatively young so i'm looking to future proof my hearing, they aren't my job but certainly an enormous part of my life!

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

Post by Lost to the Void »

My style of music? I make everything from rock hard industrial dubstep to classical music.

It all depends on the levels you work at and what you work on.

I make music mostly on my in ear monitors. I can get that full on immersive level of sound, but actually keep the levels low as the in ear give a total seal.

I rarely work on my nearfields at a high level, and in the mastering room I generally work to around 78db at the listening position.

Anything over 90db for prolonged periods is bad.


I generally use in ears as you need a far lower volume to get the same immersion as over ears.
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by CRDM »

My style of music? I make everything from rock hard industrial dubstep to classical music.
I know you do all sorts, I was referring to your interest in noise stuff and the techno-ish stuff I've heard of yours before is very heavy sounding.
I generally use in ears as you need a far lower volume to get the same immersion as over ears
That's definitely a good advantage, cheers.

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

Post by Lost to the Void »

apparently noise can be a treatment for tinnitus.

I mean, obviously not Merzbow haha
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by Amøbe »

Lost to the Void wrote:apparently noise can be a treatment for tinnitus.

I mean, obviously not Merzbow haha
yeah it is a strange process. It has something to do with tinnitus being a "mental tone" - nothing is actually vibrating to produce the sound. However, the brain is wired in a way, where it can turn down specific frequencies if they are listened to over a prolonged period. That is why you will stop noticing a ventilation fan after some time. So what they do is to listen to a spectrum of noise that encapsulates the imagined tone of the tinnitus, and then if you do that for a long period of time (I believe the treatment takes months) your brain might turn down the tinnitus. Humans are smart! :)

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

Post by CRDM »

Lost to the Void wrote:apparently noise can be a treatment for tinnitus.

I mean, obviously not Merzbow haha

Haha the healing sounds of Merzbow.

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

Post by ekwipt »

I bought some AKG K701s to use at work editing, getting use to the sound, the cheap monitors we use, Cakewalk MA-150s :) cant drive them properly so i’ve Bought a Schiit Headphone amp ( Magni 3 ) that should arrive next week

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

Post by Plyphon »

Lost to the Void wrote:I produce mainly in headphones,

Whats the tip to producing in headphones? The K702 makes everything sound so good, but doesn't translate to monitors at all. Levels and EQ are all off (typically in the mids and high end), mixes/sound treatments sound flat etc. A lot of elements are super quiet in the mix but sound perfect in the headphones. A/B with well made tracks and levels seem to match, but then on the monitors they're all off.

I thought I was getting somewhere with my productions on the cans, but after this weekend where I opened some recent projects and listened on my monitors, I'm not so sure.

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

Post by Lost to the Void »

Plyphon wrote:
Lost to the Void wrote:I produce mainly in headphones,

Whats the tip to producing in headphones? The K702 makes everything sound so good, but doesn't translate to monitors at all. Levels and EQ are all off (typically in the mids and high end), mixes/sound treatments sound flat etc. A lot of elements are super quiet in the mix but sound perfect in the headphones. A/B with well made tracks and levels seem to match, but then on the monitors they're all off.

I thought I was getting somewhere with my productions on the cans, but after this weekend where I opened some recent projects and listened on my monitors, I'm not so sure.
I can only say that is not the fault of the headphones. 702s are flat....

You just have to get use to the difference the proximity effect has with headphones.
Nearly all the mixes I do in cans these days translate to the mastering room with very little need to check on the nearfields in the production room.

Time and experience.
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by Plyphon »

Aye well thats the other thing, my monitors are budget and in the worst placement imaginable.

But its weird that stuff I make on the headphones doesn't really translate back to the monitors.

I wonder if i'm listening to the headphones too loud? When on the monitors a lot of detail is lost or too quiet.

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

Post by Leskey »

Yeah I am experiencing the exact same thing as you Plyphon...

Like a delay could be heard for like 5 secondsin the mix with cans and on the monitors barely the first delay is heard for example...

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

Post by Lost to the Void »

If they aren`t translating it`s more down to how you are mixing rather than volume.
I don`t think it`s weird they don`t translate to your monitors (though I don`t have any idea what monitors you use and how good/bad your room or your production skills are) but it`s not the fault of the headphones.
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by dubdub »

If you don't have highend monitors and play at a low level it's normal that detail gets lost compared to headphones. It's also possible that you are running the headphones to loud. When you crank headphones what ends up happening almost always is that you end up making detail stuff too quiet in the mix because you are so buried in the sound.

That said I bet what's also happening is that you are just now actually hearing all the issues in your monitors, that's why it sounds weird compared to the headphones. It's very easy to get used to fucked up sound. I know it happened to me, it takes a while to get used to. I rarely reference on monitors anymore.

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

Post by Lost to the Void »

It takes a long time to tune in to any monitoring system, and longer to get adept on that system.
It may be frustrating but you just gotta put in the hours and things will get better. Reference pro mixes often.
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Re: What headphones would you buy for £100-200ish ?

Post by The_G »

I bought AKG 702s on Lost to the Void's recommendation and have been extremely happy with them.


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