Headphones question

T

tcarnes68

Inspired
Money not being an issue, what would be the absolute best headphone out there to buy that would be the truest reference of that ever the sound going into it. Was watching some of Dave Rats videos and he uses this approach to set up a good clean consistent mix
 
Can't tell you what the best phones are, but when money is much less of a factor for me, I've found with many products in general, there's a huge $ difference between say a strong A item and an A+. It's like, to get that last 5%, you gotta spend, it seems, at least 25% more, in many cases 2-3x's as much.
 
I use Beyerdynamic 1990 with an IR loaded into an IR-block last in the chain in my Axe FX that flattens the EQ-curve of my headphones. Sounds phenomenal to me. Don't think you need to spend massivley on headphones.
 
IMO the best solution is a set of headphones that is reasonably flat from the box and then combining it with either AutoEQ correction using the global EQ or if on an Axe-Fx 3, you could have IR-based correction for even more accuracy.

I used Sonarworks Reference ID plugin and my DAW to generate IRs of its correction curves and then just load them into the IR player block as left/right corrections. It is a little bit better than AutoEQ but maybe a bit overkill.

For "reasonably flat out of the box" headphones, I recommend the Sennheiser HD650/6XX. I use the HD 6XX model sold by Drop.com, it's basically the same thing as the 650 but a different color and cable and often cheaper too. They are quite comfortable as well. RTings review.

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I don't know if it's possible without having a gyro on headphones like the Boss Waza Air have, but I'd love to see a similar "virtual space" simulation for Fractal stuff where you could "place" the cabinet inside a virtual space and fool yourself into thinking you are listening to a speaker some meters in front or behind you.

Fractal already emulates a lot of the good stuff like how the guitar interacts with speakers at high volume or how the speaker thumps or room mics with Fullres IRs.
 
Steven Persson said:
I use Beyerdynamic 1990 with an IR loaded into an IR-block last in the chain in my Axe FX that flattens the EQ-curve of my headphones. Sounds phenomenal to me. Don't think you need to spend massivley on headphones.
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Do you need a headphone amp for use of these headphones with the Axe Fx?
 
rsvette12 said:
https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/best/by-enclosure/open-back#:~:text=The best open-back headphones we've tested are the,room around you instead of inside your head.
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In Dave rats videos he explains that he tunes the board first through headphones(good ones) and once that sounds the best it can( and use a good reference track to compare to in the phones) then you tune the speakers then tune the room. And it seems to make sense the way he explains it.
 
Flat response can't be done in terms of getting 'flat' headphones. There is simply no way due to physics. Find some 'good' ones that aren't overly boosted or cut anywhere and then learn how they sound and translate to other systems.
That's what all of the professionals do.
 
Ollo S4X outperform all other headphones I've used, some well into the >$1000 range. They are not only the closest to "flat response" I've ever used, but they have the tightest and clearest bass I've ever heard, and no harsh or hyped treble response like many popular headphones, particularly Beyerdynamics. Their impedance is 32ohm so they're easy to power, and I haven't noticed any distortion or frequency issues using higher impedance headphone amps like the built-in Axe-FX III amp. A distant second place is Sennheiser HD600.

This is the frequency response measurement of my particular pair.

2022-01-20 Receipt.jpg

Edit: I've since upgraded to Ollo's latest model, the open-back S5X which somehow managed to improve on the S4X. Even flatter overall response, with clearer low end and more articulate highs, but still without any hype.
 
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