New Head Phones

G

guitarmike

Experienced
These days almost all of my playing requires in ear monitoring and, as you can tell from my avatar, I have a really weird head. I have tried several different brands, eq'ing, reverb,...you name it, and have been way less than satisfied. One problem is having my ears plugged and everything piped in. I partially solved this problem by using only one of the in ears. Recently I've been using the westone um3. In listening test with my Yamaha HS8's, I have to boost a curve centering around 3-4K almost 9db. I also cut a curve at around 400 about 6db. With out this eq, the westones sound incredibly veiled. So that's the second, and main problem; the in ears I've tried just don't translate the sounds I dial in with my Yamaha HS8's - which do translate nicely with the QSC KW122's we use for FOH. The westones are also intermittently cutting out on one side so there on their way back to the factory. I have some etymotic's which are very bright and have no bottom end; they translate even worse.That's a total of $700 spent on in ears.

So, I just got a pair of Sennheiser hd558 headphones and they sound almost identical to my yamaha hs8's. The hd558's are open and let sound in so you don't get what I call the finger in the ears syndrome. I am loving these! I am finally getting accurate sounds on my personal monitoring device and not just having to know that, even though it sounds like crap in my head, it sounds great out front. Finally, my personal monitoring matches what the FOH sounds like. Plus, I can hear everything around me so everything sounds so much more natural. $120 on amazon.
 
Yes, HPs can sound really differently depending on the user head's shape and also the amp driving them. I've just published a post on the matter here, you might want to give it a look.
 
Great info viabroce. I believe the open air design is really critical for me. The sound stage is huge compared to in ears and other closed designs I've tried; very natural sounding - almost like listening to a real cab. Also, I believe there are more than a few folks around here using the yamaha monitors. The sound of the hd558's is really close to the yamaha's according to my ears so this is helpful to make sure everything translates well. For those just not digging the in ear paradigm, these (or other) open designs may work for you. The fact that they're fairly cheap is also a major plus.
Hey, you do know that's not my real head, right?
 
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