Experience with Headphones - recommendations?

F

fearlessflier

Inspired
I'm interested in peoples experiences with headphones.

I've ordered an AxeFX, intend to buy FRFR speakers and would like a good pair of headphones so I can muck aound with patches.

What I'm after is:
Good sound quality, so what I hear is a reasonable match to what I can expect through my FRFR speakers.
Proper headphones that fit OVER your ears, not ones that flatten them.
Reasonable pricing i.e. not over-the-top audophile perfection, but nothing too shabby either.

What might I expect to pay? Any recommendations, experience, either good and bad?
 
The Audio-Technica ATH-M50's are the go for me. Very nice sound. I find them to be fairly "flat". You can pick them up off ebay new for about $90-100. I bought a pair my last trip home to Texas in May and have been loving them since. They need some breaking in, 10-20hrs, depending on how hard you run them. If you don't have time, you can just put them in a room with white noise or you're fav CD running through them over night and you'll be sweet. I don't know where you're located, but here in Australia, the list is $400. Just look on ebay. There's a specific dealer who specializes in pro audio and sells them for cheap. I can't remember the name, but they should be pretty easy to find. They're the cheap one.

The M50's are probably the best bang for the buck headphone around IMO. I've found you could spend many times over with little or no return in terms of sound quality.

As far as matching them to a FRFR, that depends quite a bit on your FR. I'm personally having a cab designed and built for me by a local designer who came highly recommended. It's basically a 500w studio monitor. I wasn't thrilled with the extreme cost of the quality FR options available in Australia. What would be a cheap monitor in the rest of the world, is quite expensive here. It was supposed to be done ages ago, but alas, the funds weren't there....because I bought another acoustic. :D :D I got 2 of the last Garrison's to come into Australia at an absolute steal. Anyway, the cab has been designed, just needs to be built. Tax return should cover it.

In short, it doesn't matter how good your headphones are, if your FRFR is not of equal quality, they won't sound the same.
 
I have a lot of headphones like the Sennheiser HD600 and that one is definately great but
I find most of these great headphones give me ear fatigue.
My favorite one for hours of noodling is the AKG K271.

;)
 
onemoreguitar said:
The Audio-Technica ATH-M50's are the go for me. Very nice sound. I find them to be fairly "flat". You can pick them up off ebay new for about $90-100. I bought a pair my last trip home to Texas in May and have been loving them since. They need some breaking in, 10-20hrs, depending on how hard you run them. If you don't have time, you can just put them in a room with white noise or you're fav CD running through them over night and you'll be sweet. I don't know where you're located, but here in Australia, the list is $400. Just look on ebay. There's a specific dealer who specializes in pro audio and sells them for cheap. I can't remember the name, but they should be pretty easy to find. They're the cheap one.

The M50's are probably the best bang for the buck headphone around IMO. I've found you could spend many times over with little or no return in terms of sound quality.

As far as matching them to a FRFR, that depends quite a bit on your FR. I'm personally having a cab designed and built for me by a local designer who came highly recommended. It's basically a 500w studio monitor. I wasn't thrilled with the extreme cost of the quality FR options available in Australia. What would be a cheap monitor in the rest of the world, is quite expensive here. It was supposed to be done ages ago, but alas, the funds weren't there....because I bought another acoustic. :D :D I got 2 of the last Garrison's to come into Australia at an absolute steal. Anyway, the cab has been designed, just needs to be built. Tax return should cover it.

In short, it doesn't matter how good your headphones are, if your FRFR is not of equal quality, they won't sound the same.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll look out for those on eBay. I am in Australia too - in Melbourne. you make a good point about the FRFR. This is another area where I don't have a lot of knowledge. At the moment I'm leaning towards powered PA speakers. The DB Technologies Opera 405 has been recommended to me (by a salesman though!), 15in bi-amp, currently $799 at a few places, down form $1400-dd RRP. Ugly as hell, unfortunately. Another option I was considering was a pair of Wharfedale EV15P. They are a bit heavy at 28.5kg though and I don't have a lot of feedback on their quality. I prefer something under 20kg as my back is rooted. QSC K10s seem to be highly recommended on this forum, but they are a bit spendy at around $1200.

Did you try any PA speaker options, or just decide to go straight to a custom FRFR cab? I assume it is passive and you'll use a power amp? Valve or SS? I'd be really interested to see how it works out for you. If it goes well maybe I could get one too? Cheers, Phil
 
On that note, I find ear fatigue with the Audio-Technicas to be extremely low as well. I regularly use them for sometimes up to 8-10hrs at a time with only very small breaks. The next day everything still sounds pretty much the way I thought it did during the long session. Just keep in mind, if you're setting up your patches on cans, unless you're used to compensating for it, you'll probably need to adjust the wetness on an actual speaker.

I only tried a few different options with the AFX, but I've dealt with the full gamete of PA and studio monitor options and am pretty familiar with how they color your sound. It didn't take much to come to the conclusion that I needed to look elsewhere. I looked at going with an active box, but the amp the designer was going to use was one he built himself, a Phase Linear copy he does, and I didn't want one of my nicest amps to be locked away in my speaker cab.

I'll probably use an active crossover with my ART SLA-2 to start with and later go to the Phase Linear copy. The designer is looking for a good supplier of extruded heat sinks to go with the amp. Once he finds that, he'll build it into a rack mountable unit, probably 1u, maybe 2u. I personally don't want tubes if I can avoid it. I've got a plenty of tube amps. I just don't want to deal with that hassle anymore.

If it goes well or ill (fairly unlikely), I'll post it. I started a thread about it a few months back, but haven't added anything to it as I really don't have much to add. I think it was called FRFR Quad box(it's being made to the dimensions of a Marshall quad box). We all love hearing specs and such, but it all means nothing without hearing the final result. The guy I've got designing it routinely makes gear for heavy gigging use so it should be plenty durable. I'll probably just stain the wood and put an extremely thick layer of lacquer on it. I thought about tolex, but it's really expensive and really like to look of wood. I'm also trying to get a wicker grill, but it's kinda hard to find someone to supply it. It'd actually be quite easy to make it look like a Marshall qaud, but the cost would be significant.

Actually, while writing this I've been looking in the background and found a tolex supplier that's not too pricey. If I can't find a wicker supplier to go with the stained wood, I might go the full Marshall on it.
 
Thanks for the further info. I looked them up on eBay and cheapest i could find was $238 but I'll keep looking. It is had to tell for the pictures - do this fit right OVER your ears so the padded part contacts your head only, r do they press up against the ears? I have biggish ears and the 'phones that press against the ear cause pain after a while.

Your FRFR quad box sounds like a fantastic project. I assume you've thought of trying furniture makers for wicker. FYI, I recently made a 112 guitar cab and used black shade cloth instead of grill cloth and it looks fine. Yours sounds a bit more upmarket though!

I look forward to hearing how the FRFR quadbox turns out, but I guess I'll stay with the powered PA speaker option for now.

I do have Mesa Boogie 20/20 power amp so could power passive PA speakers, but like you, I'd prefer to go solid state all the way. Also, no EQing available on the Boogie.
 
I've tried my Axe-Fx with Sennheiser RS-130 wireless headphones and wired old AKG K-400s. The Sennheisers, while they work fine for music, aren't that pleasing with the Axe. Not because of the wireless thing but they have a midrange that doesn't quite gel with the Axe IMO. The AKGs are better but not mindblowing either. I'd still rather use proper monitors or the Atomic FR instead of headphones.
 
Hi,
Can anyone comment on headphones that they know match well to the sound of the FR Reactor?
Thanks.
 
I use some AT D40s's. They are closed and do not sit on your ears. I will upgrade to ATH M50s because my old ones start to fall apart (after years of daily use). For guitar noodling, they need to be cranked to sound really "cab like", though. That said, the one complain I have is that they really "change" their sound depending on the volume you are listening, which is pretty uncool and makes it a bit hard to let stuff translate to the real world. And another thing: although they are closed, they are pretty loud outside, so sometimes my wife yells at me (without luck) up in my attic-located home studio that the noise is too loud when I am playing ;-).
 
My wife does that too, but it's because I tend to dig in and strum pretty hard and my electrics are quite loud acoustically. The M50's will sit on your ears if you place them properly, but that's pretty true for most cans. I find that as long as I'm using a good far field IR the cab sound is there. It just sounds like you're listening to a real cab in an acoustically dead studio room (which is pretty much what it is). When you turn them up too much, you start getting an inaccurate sound because your ears compress. I find the M50's give you pretty accurate monitoring (especially for closed ears) with very long fatigue, as long as you don't crank it too much. Keep in mind that I heard Pete Townsend say in an interview that he reckons it's all the loud headphone mixes in the studio that wrecked his hearing more than the live playing. Personally I reckon neither helped, but it's something to keep in mind. See how cab like they are when you start losing your hearing. The M50's are quite accurate at pretty much any volume once they're broken in. It's really important not to judge them until they are broken in. That being said, even straight from the box they sound pretty good, just no where near as good as they sound after 20hrs use.

IMO and YMMV and all that crap.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom