Adding some good headphones to existing 5.1 setup

E

Elledan

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - April 2010
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I currently got my system connected to a Creative Inspire 5300 5.1 surround set, and I wish to add some good headphones to this configuration. What I will be using these headphones for is quite diverse, ranging from merely listening to music, to judging the sound, music and such in the games I develop professionally, as well as in videos I produce in Vegas. I'm not looking for expensive, high-end professional headphones as these fall outside my budget for now, but just some nicely balanced ones, which can be closed or open assuming they don't let through too much environmental noise. By the way, I live in The Netherlands, which may change the brands available to me somewhat.

A complication is that the PC is some distance from my desk and also lacks front audio connections. Ideally I'd like to be able to switch between speakers and headphones without unplugging any cables, but all audio switches I have found so far seem limited to 2.0 setups. The speakers I have lack a headphone out feature.

Any thoughts? :)
 
Well if you're going to be using them to test out your mix/game sounds, I would suggest the Sony MDR-V6.
 
What's your budget? I'd highly, highly recommend the Beyerdynamic DT770 80ohm over those Sony's. We're talking totally, totally different league. These are the defacto headphones at many professional studios. When I was at the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, which has a top three electronic media program, these were the headphones in the lab.
 
It seems a little counterintuitive, but I'd actually suggest a set of gaming cans here. If you feel that a large portion of your target audience is going to be using mid-range or low-end gaming cans, then it's not a bad idea to try and duplicate the experiences your customers are going to be having. It's akin to a mix engineer mixing with Genelecs yet still burning a CD to listen in his car just to ensure that, in the environment most listeners are going to be listening to his mixes in, his work translates well. He's not going to be mixing in his car, but he'll be paying close attention to any issues that might come up on a system that's less than what we'd call 'ideal' for production.

Unless you're actually involved in the aspects of audio production, try to duplicate the way in which your audience is going to be consuming your audio.
 
I'm mostly concerned with the final product, yes. In that regard it's not a bad idea to not go for the pro cans, but something more mainstream instead :) Once I get more involved with the audio production itself I could always go for something like those Beyerdynamics. Since we're only a starting game studio we try to spend as little money as possible, within reason of course.

What about those JVC cans as an intermediate solution? I do have access to my housemate's AKG ~200 Euro cans in the meantime, BTW :)
 
Elledan said:
I'm mostly concerned with the final product, yes. In that regard it's not a bad idea to not go for the pro cans, but something more mainstream instead :) Once I get more involved with the audio production itself I could always go for something like those Beyerdynamics. Since we're only a starting game studio we try to spend as little money as possible, within reason of course.

What about those JVC cans as an intermediate solution? I do have access to my housemate's AKG ~200 Euro cans in the meantime, BTW :)
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Well, if you were serious, I wouldn't go with those DT770 Pro's anyways, they are very very bass heavy with recessed mids, not neutral at all. They are great for bassheads though.
 
aZn_plyR said:
There are several versions of the DT770's. I know for a fact the 80ohm Pro version is very bass heavy as I owned a pair. I am actually not sure how many there are, but at least 3 at the top of my head, not including the non-pro versions.
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Wow, that certainly makes it easy to pick the right one :eek:
 
phide said:
It seems a little counterintuitive, but I'd actually suggest a set of gaming cans here. If you feel that a large portion of your target audience is going to be using mid-range or low-end gaming cans, then it's not a bad idea to try and duplicate the experiences your customers are going to be having. It's akin to a mix engineer mixing with Genelecs yet still burning a CD to listen in his car just to ensure that, in the environment most listeners are going to be listening to his mixes in, his work translates well. He's not going to be mixing in his car, but he'll be paying close attention to any issues that might come up on a system that's less than what we'd call 'ideal' for production.

Unless you're actually involved in the aspects of audio production, try to duplicate the way in which your audience is going to be consuming your audio.
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Thouygh that is a good idea, and its what I think when mixing music thats going to be heard on shitty ipods. With gaming headphones and lower level headphones (unbalanced) you're going to miss things that people with "better" headphones are going to be able to hear. It would be fine for 99.9% of the population, but someone is going to have squely noises and be able to hear clicks and pops that you missed because you weren't able to hear them.

I'd go for some Sony MDR 7506s they have been around for ages, so have gone down in price so can be got for not so much. They give a nice flat response and let you hear pretty much everything, yet they still have bass. Its what gets used as lots of mastering studios because of that, so would be great for sound design.
 
I also own the DT770's, and have also owned the Grado RS-1s with a Melos SHA Gold Reference amplifier.

The DT770's are bass heavy if you are driving them out of a stock ipod jack or the like. Throw them on some proper amplification and the flabby bass goes away and they become quite balanced, though slightly tipped towards the lower end of the spectrum.
 
http://www.amazon.com/Maxell-DHP-II...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1280673208&sr=8-1 - I just got these Maxell DHP II headphones for $26.98 shipped.

I bought it from Midwest Tech Direct through Amazon, and it shipped from Southern California (San Diego warehouse). Luckily I'm in Socal, so I got it next day.

I think these may be better than the JVC HARX-900's they replaced. They are also lighter and more comfortable. After a few hours of break-in, the bass was less subdued than it had been out of the box, but subjectively less muddy than that of the JVC. It has plenty of bass output, and can reproduce deep bass below 25hz. The midrange and higher-ranges are very clear, and not fatiguing at all, even at high volumes. Sound is open - can convincingly articulate separation of instruments and a sense of space. There IS audible sound leakage, but I feel this would be reduced if it had more head-clamping pressure: It is cheaply made overall... Maybe I just have a small head... but if I press the cans inward a bit, then the sound (and bass, especially) improves.

I was looking for some budget headphones, so I decided I'd give the Head-Fi forums a quick read before settling on the Koss KSC75 or portapro like usual.

http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/503183/the-best-headphones-for-30-usd-or-less - it was this thread that led me to the Maxell headphones.

That guy (who repeatedly suggested that the Maxell was great) was right... they are damned good for the price... probably about as good a deal as the Koss KSC75 @ $14.

As a side note: I've listened to the DT770 pro 80ohm, and it was bass heavy. I agree that the midrange was slightly veiled, but they weren't being driven properly. I could tell they were being starved...

Edit: I haven't owned many headphones... one might look at my posts about speakers and conclude that I'm also a headphone fanatic = this is not the case. I do own the Ultimate Ears Triple.Fi 10 pro IEMs, however.
 
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DeathPrincess said:
Thouygh that is a good idea, and its what I think when mixing music thats going to be heard on shitty ipods. With gaming headphones and lower level headphones (unbalanced) you're going to miss things that people with "better" headphones are going to be able to hear. It would be fine for 99.9% of the population, but someone is going to have squely noises and be able to hear clicks and pops that you missed because you weren't able to hear them.

I'd go for some Sony MDR 7506s they have been around for ages, so have gone down in price so can be got for not so much. They give a nice flat response and let you hear pretty much everything, yet they still have bass. Its what gets used as lots of mastering studios because of that, so would be great for sound design.
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If I am to believe Wikipedia, the 7506s are a slightly different successor to the MDR-V6s, without any real difference in performance, just a higher pricetag and harder to get in retail.

At this point I'm using just the onboard Realtek audio of my AMD 770-based system. I'm not sure whether upgrading to a dedicated PCI(e)/FW solution will make a significant difference there? I don't do any significant recording or anything at this point, so the standard I/O of an onboard solution is sufficient for now.
 
Elledan said:
If I am to believe Wikipedia, the 7506s are a slightly different successor to the MDR-V6s, without any real difference in performance, just a higher pricetag and harder to get in retail.

At this point I'm using just the onboard Realtek audio of my AMD 770-based system. I'm not sure whether upgrading to a dedicated PCI(e)/FW solution will make a significant difference there? I don't do any significant recording or anything at this point, so the standard I/O of an onboard solution is sufficient for now.
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The higher price is because of the better warranty and there is apparently less noise on the plugs from the 7506 because the gold rather than nickel plugs, though mostly it's the better warranty. Their harder to get hold of because their the sony "professional" division so can only be got at "professional" sound retailers and not "consumer" ones. They are the same apart from the warranty.

Unless you get a load of noise/crackles down your headphone socket, It probably wont make significant different going for that type of card no. Most soundcards/audio interfaces are more for the "in" part of recording than the out. Also unless your doing multichannel it won't give significantly higher quality than the inputs either, just 4 or more channels as opposed to 1. With the realtek audio there is usually an option to seperate the front and rear audio channels which can be useful to do seperate studio/room monitor channels (I use it for VJing too..).
 
Thank you, DeathPrincess :)

I'm currently using the AKG K701 headphones from my housemate, and they do sound pretty nice, even if they make me realize how poorly encoded most of my music collection is :p

I'll see about obtaining those 7506s, I must admit to never having bought from a professional retailer before :)
 
Wait, if you're using AKG K701's why do you need to get new ones? Those are among the most neutral cans you can find and are perfect for editing. Everything we are talking about in this thread is a MASSIVE step down. Especially the Sony's.
 
computerpro3 said:
Wait, if you're using AKG K701's why do you need to get new ones?
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I think she's getting new headphones because the k701's aren't hers.

The 7506 will be a big step down, but it'll probably do the job fine.
 
450 said:
I think she's getting new headphones because the k701's aren't hers.

The 7506 will be a big step down, but it'll probably do the job fine.
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Yeah, my housemate got them for use with his 17,000 Euro Hauptwerk-based organ :) At the time he opted for the best headphones for listening to classic music, which turned out to be these K701s. IIRC they're around 250 Euro. For now I'll get to borrow them. Maybe I'll just wait a bit for my game studio to run a profit and get K701s of my own :)
 
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