Is there a consensus headphone choice?

What about the Apple Airpods Max Pros? Apparently they make a custom frequency molded for your ear type. It's basically room correction eq but for your ears.
 
What about the Apple Airpods Max Pros? Apparently they make a custom frequency molded for your ear type. It's basically room correction eq but for your ears.

I haven’t tried them, but I did go look at the link by Apple…(Holy smokes they’re more than the Ollo Audios w/ hand-selected and matched drivers.)

I also scrolled a couple pages and couldn’t find a single technical specification.
 
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I have the Max Pro and love them for general music listening, but I didn't care for them for playing. I believe @Admin M@ said somewhere in this thread that he liked them for playing. Just wasn't for me.
 
What about the Apple Airpods Max Pros? Apparently they make a custom frequency molded for your ear type. It's basically room correction eq but for your ears.
IME the Max Pro did not cut it for Axe use latency wise, when I tried using the only wired option, Lightning to 1/8” …..but if @Admin M@ is an advocate, might have to revisit…….
 
One thing to always consider about 'flat' sounding headphones is that the manufacturers design not flattened highs per se for a good reason. A closed headphone makes it's own micro environment around the ear with it's own air pressure. That has consequences for the reception of the highs. Try an opened or half opened headphone and feel how that is an all different animal.
Another thing is that everybody has different unique ear cups with different angles. That matters when the sound is coming from a central spot instead of coming straight directional in a free field.
I could go on but...
All that means there is no guarantee for a flat response for everyone. It has to fit for one personally like when buying clothes.
Adding an eq curve can help some, but it also means you judge the headphone manufacturer to be unable or unwilling to make a better product. What if they took other factors into consideration?

You notice if a headphones gives a true and fair picture when you compare it to other stuff.
The SX5 are open back. My Sennheiser are open back. My Beyerdynamic are closed back. I have to use compensating curves to rein in the Sennheiser and Beyerdynamic. I’d say I have a pretty good collection for triangulating the sound I want.
 
I wanted as flat as I could get and the frequency response chart for my pair is definitely that.

Agreed… I presume it’s the flatness, but it might be other things as well; having owned and used so many different headphones over the last decades.

The key take away from me is, I’m hearing what I want to hear at a very detailed level while producing music.

Also, they are not unpleasant just to listen to music for enjoyment.

I think I read somewhere that the differences between S4X, and S5X has to do with the angled diaphragms (a clear left and right headphone orientation for proper sound stage), and less of a mid hump than the 4x

I saw something on YouTube yesterday about Apple Music wanting to push everybody into Atmos to disintermediate SoundCloud. Made a lotta sense to me. Don’t mind the ability to hear psychoacoustic information clearly as well.

They are better than the electrostatic Stax headphones I used to own because the play at volume (electrostatic membranes suffer to make spls ).

Also, my ears are fairly damaged… I can’t tell you what that does the equation. But they appear to work really well for me right now.

All that being said… One anecdotal note about keeping your Blue MoFi around…

A well-known producer on YouTube mentioned that they were great for analyzing your bass mix because of the hyped nature of those headphones. Dialed in right for those headphones and you won’t have too much bass generally, was the advice.
 
Something that may be obvious (or potentially overlooked) is that frequency EQ curves do not tell the whole story. Just because a headphone has a semi-flat EQ curve, does not mean it sounds "better" (subjective) than another headphone that is less flat. There is also Headphone Impedance, Volume, Components, and Design to consider in the equation. Even two headphones with the same frequency and impedance will likely sound completely different. There are also variances between the same model of headphone (e.g., your HD 650 vs your friends HD 650), which is why there are services that specialize in calibrating your specific set.

We know that "louder sounds better", also that lower headphone impedance means more sensitivity (i.e., louder at lower volumes or with less power). Therefore, a less subjective way to test headphones between varying impedances is to use an appropriate reference point. For example, the RME ADI-2 displays the output levels and a measurement in dBu or dBv. You can essentially use this reference to compare headphones more accurately. For example, comparing a 300 ohm impedance headphone to a 32 headphone impedance headphone will not be fair if you're relying on your hand to simply turn up the volume. By the time you reach for the volume control, the impression is already left in your mind of how that headphone sounds: mid-focused, bass heavy, too bright, too dark, etc. While charts and graphs can be helpful when trying to make an informed decision, there should be additional factors to consider as well.

Using the methodology described above, I tested the following: Beyerdynamic DT 770 (32 ohm), Beyerdynamic DT 990 (250 ohm), Sennheiser 660S, Sennheiser HD 650, Ollo S4R, KZ ZS10 Pro.

DT770: Incredibly hollow in the mids. Not recommended.

DT 990: On the brighter side, not a bad choice if you can power them appropriately.

Sennheiser 660S: Very dark, sounds like there is significant high frequency roll off.

Sennheiser 650: Very balanced and full, slightly on the darker side.

Ollo S4R - Very bight, lacking in bass and balance.

KZ ZS10 Pro - Incredibly bright (and noisy), but it can be very fun to play guitar with. However, it should not be used as a reference for your tone.

So far I have decided to use the DT 990 250 ohm for practice and Sennheiser HD 650 for reference. But I will likely be trying other recommended models in the future.
 
If building patches that translate to recording and/or live applications is the goal ....

What are the strengths/weaknesses of open backed vs closed backed headphones ?

THANKS for your advice !
 
I've tried probably a dozen high-end pairs of headphones and for recording and mixing I keep going back to my HD650s- I prefer them even to headphones that cost 3x as much. Ultimately it comes down to personal preference and how familiar you are with your gear.
 
I have to use headphones at home, it's a domestic peace thing, but once I'm set up and am doing sound check then I do the final adjustments, and, with careful use of the headphones and compensating curves, I've been really happy with my results.

I just switched to the Ollo SX5 headphones, which are extremely flat, so I'm looking forward to re-EQing my presets to see how they do with these.

It's always an adventure. :)
Are you still happy with these headphones? I've got HD650 phones that I'm not thrilled with.
 
Are you still happy with these headphones? I've got HD650 phones that I'm not thrilled with.
Still? I only got them yesterday, but so far I like them very much. I got the Ollo S5X because they are very flat and they pair the drivers, and give us the response curve for that particular set so I can build a compensation curve for them if I want. When I saw the chart I decided it was flat enough that I could live with it without fiddling around. That’s one less thing that I need to worry about.

The Sennheisers are very good too, but for building presets I use a compensating EQ curve, or an IR, to flatten them further. For regular listening I think they’re fine.
 
Still? I only got them yesterday, but so far I like them very much. I got the Ollo S5X because they are very flat and they pair the drivers, and give us the response curve for that particular set so I can build a compensation curve for them if I want. When I saw the chart I decided it was flat enough that I could live with it without fiddling around. That’s one less thing that I need to worry about.

The Sennheisers are very good too, but for building presets I use a compensating EQ curve, or an IR, to flatten them further. For regular listening I think they’re fine.
o_O

I found this on a search, and assumed it was old. So much for reading comprehension...

Thanks for responding!
 
Still? I only got them yesterday, but so far I like them very much. I got the Ollo S5X because they are very flat and they pair the drivers, and give us the response curve for that particular set so I can build a compensation curve for them if I want. When I saw the chart I decided it was flat enough that I could live with it without fiddling around. That’s one less thing that I need to worry about.

The Sennheisers are very good too, but for building presets I use a compensating EQ curve, or an IR, to flatten them further. For regular listening I think they’re fine.
This, I love my S4X, I have two pairs.
 
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