Hold The Phone(s)

It's a headphone listening world that we live in these days,mainly Ear Buds and their knock off cousins,exhibiting wild swings in both quality and price. And these days, audio mixing on headphones is taken for granted by many audio professionals. After all, what's the point in spending thousands of dollars on speakers that may not even work in your untreated room at hours when your neighbor (or partner) may not want to listen to your lastest project ad infinitum?

Most of the studios that I have worked in have relied on sturdy workhorses such as the AKG 141s, the Sony 7506s or the AT 50s. But are they good enough for mixing a finished project? In other words..do they translate to other listening devices (speakers/ear buds/other headphones)? Most engineers that I know are happy enough with a pair that they know very well and they simply work around the anomolies of a "less than perfect" frequency response.

But I'm always searching for "no surprises" monitoring, be it speakers or headphones. So I was intrigued by a recent podcast that extolled the virtues of Audeze high end headphone models ($ 5,000 and up) and then discovered that they had a "budget" set ($ 400) that purported to share a lot of the positive attributes of the more expensive ones.

I pulled the trigger and was amazed to find out that...I hated them. This may be partially because I am used to the somewhat hyped sound of the Bose Quiet Comfort Noise Canceling headphones as well as the Sony 7506s. But I knew within a few days that I was never going to enjoy listening to ANYTHING on these phones so I exchanged them for a pair of the new Focal Lensys headphones*. They are also "non hyped" (like the Audeze) but they engender confidence across the frequency spectrum and seem to (so far) translate very well. And isn't that the Holy Grail?

* Yes, I know that they're closed back and open back are (supposedly) better for mixing/mastering. And it's possible that I got a defective pair of the Audeze headphones. The ones that I got sounded like Auartones.