Axe-Fx III and Headphones

@gigawatt if you're running them into the headphone output on the Axe-Fx III you don't need a headphone amp. The III can drive them no problem at all. I was actually a little stunned at how readily the III handled these headphones.
 
@iaresee I'll be using them with my Macbook Pro laptop as well and its headphone output is barely loud enough with the powered Blue Mix-Fi's. But yeah, the Axe III's headphone amp gets plenty loud enough, as well as my audio interface. Problem is, my laptop is where all the music files are. :eek:;)
 
I'll be using them with my Macbook Pro laptop as well and its headphone output is barely loud enough with the powered Blue Mix-Fi's.
Wow, I'm surprised to hear that... the Blue's with their amplifier switched on are seriously loud -- like to the point that, if the Blue MoFi's with amp on, isn't loud enough w/ them plugged into the computer's headphone out that you're still having to set the MacBook output full up I'd be worried that your hearing has either been shredded from years of the rock, your source material is recorded waaaaay too low, or the Blue's amp isn't even on ;) (still, with the amp off I'd doubt I'd ever need to get the MacBook's system volume above 60%ish at most personally).

Honestly, with my MoFi's amp switched on I'd never get my MacBook's volume above 25 or 30% for it to be plenty loud to be a pleasant listening experience with pretty much any music -- by even 50% I'd be seriously worried about damage to me or the speakers.

With my AxeFX I use them with the amp switched off and OUT 1 at about 50%. If I were to use them with the amp on for the Axe, OUT 1 wouldn't go above 1-3% at most... it's actually why i've never been in the habit of using the amp feature when monitoring from the AxeFX, it sounds great, but the OUT knob is just too fiddly with that low of a usable range, the slightest tweak of a degree on that Out1 knob can go from loud to take my head off with quickness.
 
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With my AxeFX I use them with the amp switched off and OUT 1 at about 50%. If I were to use them with the amp on for the Axe, OUT 1 wouldn't go above 1-3% at most... it's actually why i've never been in the habit of using the amp feature when monitoring from the AxeFX, it sounds great, but the OUT knob is just too fiddly with that low of a usable range, the slightest tweak of a degree on that Out1 knob can go from loud to take my head off with quickness.

No argument with you there, I do the exact same thing, but with my Mac, well, idk. I have some albums stored in iTunes, i.e. Rush; Hemispheres, Shinedown; Sound of Madness. Naturally Shinedown's recording is louder with a lower noise floor but I have no problem listening to it with the Blue's amp turned on and the Mac's volume dimed (if I were to guess, I'd say between 80 and 85 dBs. I copied them from the original CD to iTunes. I listen to Youtube vids too and their volumes are all over the place as I'm sure you know.

What happens to CD's when there converted to iTunes, they don't lose that much do they?

My Macbook's a 2011 btw.
 
No argument with you there, I do the exact same thing, but with my Mac, well, idk. I have some albums stored in iTunes, i.e. Rush; Hemispheres, Shinedown; Sound of Madness. Naturally Shinedown's recording is louder with a lower noise floor but I have no problem listening to it with the Blue's amp turned on and the Mac's volume dimed (if I were to guess, I'd say between 80 and 85 dBs. I copied them from the original CD to iTunes. I listen to Youtube vids too and their volumes are all over the place as I'm sure you know.

What happens to CD's when there converted to iTunes, they don't lose that much do they?

My Macbook's a 2011 btw.
Huh, yeah, my Macbook's from 2014 I think, possible the output was changed along the way I guess. I def always keep the volume slider on iTunes dimed, and then use the system volume to control what my headphones are getting so I can control the volume with the keys on the keyboard, cause, yeah, totally agree, youtube material is all over the danged map on levels for sure.

FWIW, in iTunes you can increase the volume of an individual album or track select the album and Edit -> "Get Info... " (or just hit Command key + I on keyboard, same idea if you want to do it per track) and then under the "Options" tab there's a "volume adjust" slider, worth seeing if the quite album is turned down for some reason, and if not, your can always turn it up I suppose. There's also the "Sound Check" option under Preferences -> Playback which gives iTunes permission to ride the volume fader for you w/ it's little robot brain if'n you want.
 
FWIW, in iTunes you can increase the volume of an individual album or track select the album and Edit -> "Get Info... " (or just hit Command key + I on keyboard, same idea if you want to do it per track) and then under the "Options" tab there's a "volume adjust" slider, worth seeing if the quite album is turned down for some reason, and if not, your can always turn it up I suppose. There's also the "Sound Check" option under Preferences -> Playback which gives iTunes permission to ride the volume fader for you w/ it's little robot brain if'n you want.

Hey thanks for the great tips on iTunes, I'll look into that for sure.

Does iTunes downscale and compress the music like MP3's? Am I better off playing the CD in my laptop? Same for Youtube, do the HD vids have as good a quality sound as CD's.

Thanks much h.c.e. :)
 
Hey thanks for the great tips on iTunes, I'll look into that for sure.

Does iTunes downscale and compress the music like MP3's? Am I better off playing the CD in my laptop? Same for Youtube, do the HD vids have as good a quality sound as CD's.

Thanks much h.c.e. :)
iTunes has several options when you rip CDs, my expectation is that the default these days is probably "AAC" (file extension .m4a) rather than "MP3", but yes, it would compress with either of those settings. AAC is like "better/newer MP3", it's a better compression at the same bitrate than MP3, and a higher quality sound file. I personally just stick with "iTunes Plus" settings, which is basically what you get when you purchase music direct from the iTunes store. You can check what settings you're iTunes is using under "Preferences" -> "General" -> "Import Settings... ". iTunes will also do a format called "Apple Lossless", which is compressed (not nearly as small a file as AAC or MP3), but the compression is completely "lossless" which is to say that no content is thrown out as part of the compressions, and you could convert back to an uncompressed AIFF or WAV (both of which iTunes can also convert to), or put back on a CD with no loss in data for the roundtrip... it's similar in concept to the "FLAC" (if you're familiar with that) format that some audiophiles champion, but obviously is only compatible with Apple devices.

You can check what settings your existing music files are using under the "File" tab of the "Get Info" window. In general the higher the bitrate the better the quality (less compression) but the bigger the file.

As for youtube videos, yes, they're also compressed, most often these days in either AAC (generally 128 kbps bitrate I *think*) format, or a newer format called "OPUS" which is higher quality. Though, it should be said that with youtube it really depends on the starting source of the uploader, I would not be surprised to hear that someone uploaded an "HD" video to youtube where the source was pre compressed at a lower bitrate, so it's not going to ever get any better than that.

Which of these is better format or would anyone notice as compared to a CD... I'm personally not convinced that anyone would hear the difference in a blind challenge between a high quality MP3 (say 320 kbps), a 256 kbps AAC, something encoded w/ Opus, something encoded with FLAC, or an uncompressed digital audio stream, especially given real world playback methods and listening environments, but the golden eared amongst us might disagree... for me personally I don't sweat for a second compressed audio these days, standards have come a long way since the early low bitrate MP3s in the late 90s/early 2000s that gave the format a (undeserved I'd say) bad rep.
 
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for me personally I don't sweat for a second compressed audio these days, standards have come a long way since the early low bitrate MP3s in the late 90s/early 2000s that gave the format a (undeserved I'd say) bad rep.

Thanks for all the great info h.c.e.! I'll look into those settings on my Mac. ;) About quality; the other guitarist in my old band also had a studio and he would record us, the results were excellent. He would email me the song files to listen to and I'd notice differences in what he was hearing, big differences. Anyway after a a while of listening to these we figured out it was because he was listening to the original wav files and I was listening to mp3's. This was around 2008 and there were very apparent differences. You think mp3's are better now?
 
Wow, 6 pages of new posts since June 17th? This sucker was buried, aren't you all glad to see it again? :D

First I'd like to thank everyone for there input especially @iaresee and @h.c.e. I found the internal volume control for iTunes, so I blew a C-note on a CEntrance amp for nothing. I bought the AKG K7xx's (with red trim ;)) and love them. They haven't needed much in the way of extra power except maybe with my iPhone, but the amp is USB powered so thats kind of useless.

Sound! I'm loving these new AKG cans! Very detailed and balanced, I read a ton of reviews before purchasing and don't know what some of these people were talking about. Saying they hear peaks in the upper midrange, valley's in the lower mids, like the frequency curve looks like a roller coaster. Whatever. There was a better share of good reviews; like wide soundstage, great for mixing, excellent clarity, etc. Very happy with both purchases; the Blue's closed back and the AKG's open back. The Blue's I think are more like my studio monitors, punchy and warm sounding. The AKG's have more presence, which to me is a good thing because many headphones were making me think I was deaf in the upper register. Nope, still got it :D. It's a little difficult to describe the AKG's at the moment as I'm listening to the Blue's... DOH! All I can say is I won't be needing any cans for quite a while, probably need new cables, def. for the AKG's, they only came with one 10 foot cable so right away I need a 3 or 4ft. It's unbelievable how thin they make these too now, at best 1/8 an inch, I bet we have joggers to blame for that. Well, time will tell. They both sound great, and most importantly great with the AXE FX III !!!
 
One of the things I like about the AKGs is the cable is replaceable. Because that's always the first thing to go, for me, on headphones!
 
Haven't read the whole thread, but how does the Axe III handle Sennheiser HD650s?

Hey thanks for the great tips on iTunes, I'll look into that for sure.

Does iTunes downscale and compress the music like MP3's? Am I better off playing the CD in my laptop? Same for Youtube, do the HD vids have as good a quality sound as CD's.

Thanks much h.c.e. :)

Rip your CDs into iTunes using ALAC. That's CD quality. It's not set as default though, you'll need to change it.

Youtube compression is bad, even HD vids cannot compare to CD quality.
 
@iaresee always Jonny on the spot ;). Helped me a lot in this thread. :) See @yeky83, it's the thread that keeps on giving. :p

Haven't read the whole thread, but how does the Axe III handle Sennheiser HD650s?

Define "handle." The Axe III has a powerful headphone output jack to say the least, and I don't think you will hurt it with your Senn's.

I wonder if posting this will push us over the cliff and into page nine :D. I prolly have, wait, probably ;) have to keep writing. I know, a picture of one of my favorite guitars :). Hey I can do it, this thread is my dog. :p

Bbe concorde-mark-32-guitar.jpg

Darn I don't think it's big enough, lousy Google images! Nice guitar though ;).
 
Ooooh..... that ^guitar^ makes me feel all warm inside, I like her black hardware o_O:confused:. Uh, yeah, right... Headphones.

Been using the Blue's more than the AKG's, although I love the AKG's clarity, and they sound great with the CEntrance Slim amp, I can't use them with my iPhone as it's USB powered. :( ...and my roommate sleeps a lot. So on the Blue's go. So it's either too loud outside or I'm being too loud with the AKG's, but I grab em every chance I get. What I was saying about the Blue's loudness earlier doesn't seem tobe a problem anymore. I'm listening to them right now with my phone and they are plenty loud (source: Youtube Megadeth Cryptic Writings, def recorded at a high level). I think that was the problem, too many low level sources, and turning up iTunes on my Macbook helped immensely, Thanks!

I was listening to an album the other day, I think it was Aerosmith "Night in the Ruts" or Right in the Ruts Reorge :p. Using the AKG's it sounded distorted, and I was trying to tell if it was the recording, the iPhone being dimed, or I partially blew the headphones! Well I think it was the recording because later that day they sounded fine on another piece of material. They really pick up the detail, and if something sounds bad in the mids and highs you'll definetly hear it.

The Blue's are much more bass heavy in comparison being closed back and more rolled off on the top end. Not a bad thing and sometimes prefered depending on the music and your mood. They're also more forgiving on bad recordings and much, much louder, especially when you engage that amp, and then going a step further by engaging the bass boost. :eek:. Aahh, the outro to "She Wolf" is playing, a classic! Now "Vortex" sweet! aw dammit a commercial... Youtube :rolleyes: The recording's a little bass heavy, maybe I switch to the AKG's, the roommate's sound asleep, he won't here em ;). Hey does the iPhone 4S have EQ controls? Ok I've switched to the AKG's, damn I wish I could use that amp with the phone. Gosh these are so light and comfortable in comparison. Not as loud but so detailed, you can literally hear everything in the mix. Hey "Addicted to Chaos" omg there's the hi hat, and that ride in the bridge, I never noticed that b4, prolly cuz I'm not a drummer. Ya know Dave Mustaine was asked what he'd do if he couldn't be a musician anymore, he responded with, "I don't know, probably be a drummer" ;). There aren't any around here are there? :eek: Now all the echoes at the end, aw CRAP it ended early! WTF Youtube, I was playing a mix, now I'm gonna have to go back and play the track individually, geez! Life sucks! and no freakin remastered garbage. Ooh that reminds me, I wanted to see some, I mean here some Garbage, omg Shirley's hot! It kinda weird though seeing as how that was my mom's name. K right after Addicted to Chaos, hey this vid has cool pictures of the band, ahh but now I'm thinking about some cool pictures of Shirley :cool:. Awh! I wonder if I can find that live version my old band "Pandora's Kingdom used to play of "I'm only Happy When It Rains." Chaaaaoooss........Chaaaaaoooss Ok time for some Shirlry, Shirlry? That's prolly what I'd call her if I were to meet her. F**K she's gorgeous!!!

800px-GarbageAsHeavenIsWideManchester.JPG

YES!!!^^^ Geez look at those legs... OH NO, I think my heart just stopped.... That's it, I'm dead, "smile when ya think about me, my body's gone that's all." Look at the bass player behind her, it's a good thing he plays his bass centrally located and not up really high like some bassists. ;) Oooh now "Stupid Girl" is playing, What is "Crush?" don't think I've heard that one, but she's bending forward showing her "girls." I bet it's a good song, aw crap wait... they have a song called "Queer?" I like what she's sayin but the song, an aquired taste I'd say, and wtf it's black and white, ope! a chaotic guitar solo, still what a sexy million dollar voice. Ya'll gotta go check out some Garbage again, it looks like they have a lot of good vids, I mean songs to check out. Back in PK circa 2008-2011 we were only after hits, i.e. Poker Face, I Love Rock an Roll, Hit Me With Your Best Shot, So What, Raise You Glass, Just a Girl, You Outta Know, Bad Romance, etc.. So I didn't get to deep into the bands we were covering, there just wasn't enough time. Although more than a few times I'd bring an idea about a band to the band and get a big fat "NO, nobody's going to know that song."

"Why Do You Love Me" Here's an up tempo almost heavy little number. Ok "Crush" finally, they're tuned to D standard, if I remember correctly so was Happy When It Rains, good thing I still had a dedicated "D" guitar from the Metallica band I was in for "Sad But True", (It was the black Oiuja guitar).
th

Well, one more song I guess, ah wait it's called "#1 Crush." Damn!! No video just audio with a pic of Shirley bending over toward me staring, not that there's anything wrong with that, just sayin'. Hmm, sexy trippy song, oh man she's looking right at me, she won't stop staring, saying "I would die for you." This is like Nine Inch Nails, what would be cool is if her picture kept getting closer and closer. OMG That's it, I'm selling my Green Sparkly Custom Shop guitar and going to go find her. Ya'll take care of my other guitars an Axe III ok? Hold on there's another one, this one's called "Push It." Such provacative song titles it's hard not to check them out. "When I Grow Up" ok I'm mesmerized... "SeX Is Not The Enemy" I think I need to lie down, or is it lay down, idk somebody get me a doctor. "Magnatized" Jesus! the chorus just kicked in, now these AKG's are loud, very loud, this might wake the roommate. Shirley seems disturbed in this vid :(. I think I'm looking at wife #3, and this time it's gonna stick! Ya know, the band is really good, I remember learning "Rain" and what a fun song it was to play, and they have some great sounding distorted and clean guitars. I had no idea how many vids they had, wow. Ok that's enough for now, I gotta go listen to some Yngwie or something, Shirley's in my soul and I need to knock her out with some "Rising Force." That's not what I meant! hah maybe it is...wow, one of a kind, she a TKO, she's a #13, she's a babe, she's a robobabe, if she were a city she'd be a Babelonian. Go check out some Garbage on Youtube, you'll thank me later, heavily produced well mixed and mastered recordings, hey I can tell, I'm wearing AKG K7xx's ;). How'd they afford that? Ugh, so who did she sleep with? I bet it was that Mutt Lang! OOOH! ah that's alright i'll still take er.

And thus ends our lesson, simulation over, good bye. :)

Seacrest out.


\m/
 
"I Think I'm Paranoid" is the song and Shirley Manson just put her fist in her mouth, I don't know whether I should like that or not :eek:. You?

Ya know, when Garbage gets going that band can really jam, LOUD, REALLY LOUD, heavy, and very full, and of course extremely compressed, especially in the song Magnatized, I'm getting addicted. I don't even need the Blue's amp with my iPhone.

(Yes I'm still thinking about her {God she's so gorgeous, eyes, mouth, hair, the whole package, and man does she exploit her attributes} while I listen to Youtube with my Blue Mo-Fi/Mix-Fi headphones. Which BTW, You all suggested, sooo, perhaps you can suggest where I can get an upgraded 1.2 meter cable for them? or better yet 1.5 meter). No more than $25. ;)

I wonder what she looks like now, haha, no I don't. ;)
 
OK exactly one month later and one month saner, until one of the drivers stopped working in my AKG K7xx's! I figured it was a solder joint and was correct, so I tied a wire at both ends temporarily to the posts until I could get some solder and they worked ok for about a half hour then became intermittent, 10 minutes later the driver was silent. I took it back apart and it looked fine, I jiggled the wires and it came back on for a minute and stopped. So I'm thinking maybe the driver is the problem cuz I can't get it to work at all now. So I tested it with a multimeter and got a zero reading, I think she's dead Jim... I'm at a loss for what to do, I think they're out of warranty, not really sure, Does anyone know? Ope, thats moot, I bought them off eBay. Well, any suggestions for a replacement, I'm not going with AKG again, those wires were hair thin.
 
The Blue Mix-Fi (successor is the Mo-F), which I bought because of this thread's recommendation, sounds absolutely pure, powerful and roomy!

Usually, I play through a pair of Neumann KH 120 monitors -- really great monitors. They sound fabulous with my Axe III and Apollo 8.

Regarding headphones, I got the ATH M50x and they're not even close to the Blue Mix-Fi. The M50x sound flat compared to the Mix-Fi's.

Those headphones are almost so good that they can replace my real monitors. They provide a true sound experience with corrective bass, midrange and treble, in a way that is simply impressive! True analogue they say - I don't' know about that. However, they just feel right. That's what's important to me.

Recommended.
 
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The Blue Mix-Fi (successor is the Mo-F), which I bought because of this thread's recommendation, sounds absolutely pure, powerful and roomy!

Haha, I don't blame ya for not reading the whole thread but I have the Blue Mix Fi's too, great cans until you hear what you're missing in the top end like the AKG's provided. I'm thinking for an "Open Back" set of cans maybe the Sennhieser HD 598 or 599 for top end, any thoughts???
 
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