Ableton Forum

So a while ago I bought a pair of Grado SR80s so that I'd have quality headphones for both listening and creating in Live. Over the course of months, however, I've noticed that there is something very, very wrong about the Grado's.

They are far, far too forgiving. They make my poorly mixed / equalized beats and melodies sound good and fair. Tones always sound more pleasing and all instruments are well represented.

This happens for my whole sesh, of course, until I try the same mix on my Klipsch 2.1 set, or through my home theatre stereo, or ipod headphones. The song/mix sounds absolutely atrocious, shit is out of EQ, some instruments drown out or dominate one another and it's just generally a mess, causing me to revisit nearly all parts of the song and rebalance.

I can't deal with this happening any longer. I'll have to bite the bullet and just get new headphones. Any suggestions? Looking for sub $100 range.

TL;DR: The Grado SR80's I have produce sound that is too forgiving in Live to my EQ'ing perception. I need new headphones for accurate mixing in Live. Can you guys suggest any?

i would rather suggest to get some really flat monitors, headphones are not a good option for mixing down tracks.
if you really want to work with headphones i would suggest akg studio 240 (or 171) or something from beyerdynamic (DT Pro series) but they are not in the price range you gave...

Yeah, monitor speakers are the way to go!
The only headphones I would even consider for this purpose are Sennheiser HD-25s. I used to use cheaper headphones a lot, but ever since I tried a friend's HD25s I have used nothing else.
They are a bit over your price range, but will last forever, and every single part is individually replaceable, which is a huge plus!

hd 25's are excellent for djing but i find them too generous in the bass frequencies, i would more suggest semi opened headphones (hd 25 are closed)

This is true, but they're still more accurate than most.
Good monitor speakers are essential, and you can get decent onew for very little cash nowadays

jackstraxx wrote:This is true, but they're still more accurate than most.
Good monitor speakers are essential, and you can get decent onew for very little cash nowadays

OK the general ruling seems to be "get monitors" ... what are some decent inexpensive monitors? Money isnt too much a problem, but I'd rather get better at what I do than appear to be good at what I do just by having nice equipment.

Also, do monitors need a separate amp? If so, will any sort of preamp do? I have an old Roland SRA-50 preamp (has red/white AV inputs, +/- speaker outputs) laying around, would that work?

Thanks for this thread, I thought about buying a Grado Headphone, f.e. the SR 60 for outdoor listening and playing. So I have to find some other ones. @home I use AKG K 240 DF. They are very analytical, a little bit too dry for listening, they don´t provide much bass volume, but regardless I like them very much and my mixes work very good on CD.

id reccomend anything from the Genelec 80xx series...i have a the 8020s and i love them!!

Give them a try!

Genelecs are excellent, but you gotta pay for that kind of quality.

Run a search for "monitors" and "budget". Some good threads to be found.

I have the Alesis M1 520s, very good value for money!

No more words! HD-25 for the pro! Excellent! Other headphones just cant beat that Neutral sound......

Over And Out!

xzusa8ky wrote:No more words! HD-25 for the pro! Excellent! Other headphones just cant beat that Neutral sound......

Over And Out!

Excellent yes, neutral no ( I use them since 15 years). HD 25 are great for tracking and DJing but for studio monitoring you need professional monitor headphones - Sony 70... series, AKG 701,Sennhs 650 or 600 for example. Top of the line in ear like Shure or Ultimate Ears are incredibly accurate but some people dont find those comfortable or healthy.
Beware of consumer models that might sound nice but despite high price are useless for studio.
P.S. unless stolen you wont find anything to your expectations for under 100.

rikhyray wrote:

xzusa8ky wrote:No more words! HD-25 for the pro! Excellent! Other headphones just cant beat that Neutral sound......

Over And Out!

Excellent yes, neutral no ( I use them since 15 years). HD 25 are great for tracking and DJing but for studio monitoring you need professional monitor headphones - Sony 70... series, AKG 701,Sennhs 650 or 600 for example. Top of the line in ear like Shure or Ultimate Ears are incredibly accurate but some people dont find those comfortable or healthy.
Beware of consumer models that might sound nice but despite high price are useless for studio.

could you please clarify? Everyone else in this post is telling me to buy monitors, whereas you say there are many studio-appropriate headphones available!

I would prefer headphones, for convenience (as I already have like 3 sets of speakers for other uses because I'm a blatant consumer) but will buy monitors if they're the only thing that will fix my problem.

It just depends how you prefer to listen to music.
There are so many different factors to consider.
Monitors will probably give you the truest sound, but you can get amazing headphones as well. I myself would rather spend £200 on some nice speakers than on something much smaller you put in your ear

If it's headphones you are definitely after, then that's probably the route to investigate further...

Not much to clarify, I use Genelecs, Adams are great or BlueSky great value for money but that all much more then your budget. Any quality boxes will cost you 5x the price of good cans. It is almost impossible to get good mix with headphones only and even then you would have to use few different for checking for example HD 25+HD 650 or AKG DF, there are no cans that would cover everything accurately. You can get some good results with say AKG 701 or HD650 but you will have to check the mix on good monitors later. Headphone mix will cost more time and from my experience one out of 20 will be without faults once you check it on monitors.

one man's opinion on KVR:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 59db453dcb