# Headphones vs Monitors



## immortalgropher (Feb 16, 2010)

I don't have the best monitors in the world, nor the best room, however for a while I have been
mixing in nothing but my Sennheiser eH-150s and getting thoroughly consistent mixes and even masters.

I just wanted to know all of your opinions on a good pair of monitors vs a good pair of cans?

I am serious when I say I feel about 90% sure that I would rather do all my mixing and whatnot through
my phones than any monitors. Have any of you ever known any other engineers who have favored phones
over monitors?


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## spacedout (Dec 17, 2007)

I'm actually leaning the same way at the moment - I've just relocated to a room with acoustics that leave much to be desired (and I can't do anything to improve them). I haven't tried it yet, but conceptually it seems to me that all issues with acoustics would be removed once the room is inside your head, as it were, so then it would be down completely to the quality of the drivers/amp. I guess a danger might be that you might tend to add a little more reverb than you would using monitors since you're getting no natural room reverberation, but OTOH you could quickly learn to compensate for that... as I said I haven't tried it yet!

I also remember seeing a review a while ago of a headphone amp, made by SPL I believe, that allows you to crossfeed a little of each channel into the the opposite side, to simulate the way each ear hears both monitors when you're using speakers


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## immortalgropher (Feb 16, 2010)

I think my only concern is when it comes to clients, I suppose that perhaps it might seem somewhat unprofessional not to have 4000 dollar monitors and whatnot. I would think that in the end all that matters is the end result.

As for the reverb, I actually find it MUCH easier to dial in the proper amount as opposed to monitors. From using monitors in the past I feel that I added either just a little too much or not enough at all.

I agree too that it puts the room in your ears and one of my buddies made the point that you can hear certain things in phones that you probably wouldn't normally notice even with fancy monitors. I believe that to an extent. That's not to say one shouldn't have another set of speakers to at least listen to the mix on to check it.

I guess to me it does make more sense to use phones because of the fact that so many people use portable listening devices in their every day life, whether it's at work, on the bus, plane, etc. So if it sounds good in phones, it should sound good on other systems as well whereas when you're using monitors, you're not really mixing for headphone users, you're mixing for everything else. After that, THEN you normally run around testing it everywhere and end up wasting more time, whereas starting from the user point directly gives you more consistent results and less time spent checking everywhere.

(if that even made any sense at all! )


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## maikol (Nov 7, 2008)

I'd say it's a matter of getting used to it.

You can certainly do good mixes or masters on headphones if you know them well (ie if you know how things should sound on them to sound go everywhere else).

I am personnally to much used to working on speakers, so I just use cans to check specific things.
I have found that I struggle to get the low end right on cans (it seems to sound ok whatever you do), and also to get the balance right (as it makes me put the center panned elements too loud), but I guess it's more a matter of getting used to them.


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## ngarjuna (Mar 29, 2010)

I know it's not what you want to hear but I disagree...headphones lie. In a big way. They're too close to your ears, the sound doesn't have any space to propagate before it gets to you. It exaggerates things in a way that would be very difficult to "learn" (aka predict) because that's not how sounds work in spaces; reverb is a specifically problematic area in this respect as is low-mid-high balance, it just never translates well. Even near fields are less than ideal for the same reason although it's less problematic; and if we could all afford awesome rooms and awesome far fields the near field monitoring fad would be over (thankfully for the industry, we cannot!). I can tell you I've never met an experienced engineer who endorsed headphone mixing from the all time greats to the daily grinders, it's just not done.

You don't need $4000 monitors and a $200,000 room; using headphones is a lot less professional than a cheap ($500 a pair let's say) monitors with an appropriate amount of broadband trapping even assuming the headphones cost twice that much (which would be a waste compared to $1000 worth of monitor which would just about buy you some Adams or Dynaudios or Events or whatever flavor you like in the lower price range of higher quality monitors). If my band was recording somewhere and I found out the engineer was going to mix in headphones we'd likely be out of there (granted, it's unlikely that anyone but me would be producing my band, but hypothetically). I might even try to be fair and listen to some of the mixes but at that point it would even be too late, expectation bias having set in, it's far less likely I'll find the mixes complimentary _just knowing that_.

Monitors are flat out compulsory from small bedroom studios to project studios to bigger commercial houses. Get used to them not the headphones.


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## immortalgropher (Feb 16, 2010)

I understand where you're juna, but what comes out of the phones I use is just pure goodness. I have no issues with verb or low end, in fact on these particular phones, I find that everything is very flat and true. The monitors I have are JBL Control 2Ps and I've never exactly found them great, then again I don't exactly have a treated room.

I've worked off mackies, m-audio, etc in really good rooms and I honestly feel that I get the same effect from a good tuned room.

I agree it's all about getting used to your environment too, but at the same time I have the mindset of "if it's not broke, don't fix it". I'm not saying in the future I won't solely use monitors, but for _right now_ they're doing what I need them to and I hear no lies, just what I need to hear and I think that's the most important thing when it comes down to it. The end result is what matters, not how one got to it.


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## 0bazooka_joe0 (Mar 22, 2010)

Headphones are a good reference and that is pretty much it. The psycho-acoustic differences between headphones and monitors are too different to use headphones as an accurate way of mixing or...eh mastering. 

As mentioned before, wearing cups over your ears doesn't allow the sound to propagate anywhere but against your ear drum. This is an inaccurate representation of what you're hearing because sound should be moving through air to your ears. if it is right up against your ears it is giving you an exaggerated image of what you're listening to. Not to mention that having headphones on is much more fatiguing than listening on monitors. When your ears fatigue you start to loose high-end in your hearing and an inexperienced engineer will overcompensate for this. Wearing headphones will bring you to this point faster than with monitors and your mixes may suffer.
Another reason not to use headphones as your primary source for monitoring is that the stereo-imaging is much different. the left and right correlation are in a different "space" and the stereo field itself is in your head instead of out in front of you. 
The most obvious reason that headphones are a bad idea is their frequency response. For one thing, you've got 20Hz-20kHz (apparently) playing through one driver (on most headphones). That in itself is very inefficient. There is a reason that monitors have crossovers and more than one driver. It is to separate the information to appropriately sized drivers and split up the information as to allow each driver to have a much faster response (as they only have to react to a certain band of frequencies). Also, despite posted frequency response of headphones, realistically, a driver that is 1-2" is not going to be able to give you an accurate representation of bass lower than 60Hz (maybe even higher).

I suggest above all, before dropping money on plug-ins and fancy gear, invest in some acoustic treatment and even a 500$ pair of monitors will be very beneficial. I made a dozen 2'x4'x2" acoustic panels with frame and speaker fabric wrap and insulation (equivalent to OC 703) for less than 200 bucks and my room sounds infinitely better. You don't have to buy real-traps, gik, or ready acoustics stuff (though they all have fantastically educational info on their sites). It doesnt have to cost 1200 bucks for some treatment. Notice i used insulation equivalent to Owens Corning 703? look around and ask around at local construction distributors. i bought two bags of six panels for 80 bucks.


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## immortalgropher (Feb 16, 2010)

All of my mixes have been extremely consistent with my cans vs monitors. That's all that really matters. Not a single person has been bothered by the fact that I'ved used cans on their mixes, they've actually been impressed by it. 

The end result is all that matters. I'm not saying I solely use cans, I DO have two other sets of speakers for reference...However in my case, cans beat all.

Saying someone is "unprofessional" because they do something differently is silly.


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## 0bazooka_joe0 (Mar 22, 2010)

I don't doubt that your mixes are consistent. But, the question is, consistent to what extent? i don't doubt that you've got your own style and can pull off consistent results for each of your mixes but that isnt to say there isnt the same one or two things lacking from your mixes that you maybe dont notice because you're using cans. I simply stated the facts about using headphones for mixing, take it as you will.


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## PepAX7 (Mar 11, 2008)

I use phones mainly for panning and spatial characteristics. There's no comb-filtering in phones. Okay, yeah, you can put some phasing and flanging on your Fender Rhodes, but air wise there's nothing to interact with the air waves to add or cancel sound waves.

Put two of the best speakers in a typical untreated control room, and you will see Lo, Lo/mid bass buildup. This is what we try to convince people to take care of first. It's why we calculate room modes and do the "modal" spectrum analysis. There is no perfect room but there are great sounding rooms. Your always trying to shoot for, as Bob McCarthy calls it; "Minimum sound variance!" 
Since most engineers assume that their mastered product will be played over audiophile quality speakers, they master over reference speakers in a treated room and viola!.. great sound. They know it can sound fantastic over a great system. There's no harm in shooting for perfection!

In today's world, with everyone wearing ear buds, poured ear buds, multi-driver poured ear buds,.... then your way of finishing your product may be perfectly valid! I mean, take a look at the HiFi section of Wallmart and that's what your typical mom, pop, teenager is buying. My daughter just bought a iPod touch dock/clock radio. It's got a 3" speaker. It sounds OK.... it's mono. It fills the room with decent sound... not much bass.
And she knows my reference system. She's played my synths through them and knows that some of those low notes will shake your pant legs! Go figure???

I think you should use all the tools you can to evaluate your mixes/masters. That's why we use Radio Shack bookshelf speakers on top of the NS-10's on top of the Hot Spots, which all sit on top of the 3 way, tri-amped, time aligned, air pistons that push 35Hz like butter. All tools to tickle the complicated audio analyzers you have... your ears. That's what the final decision is made from!

I agree with a lot what was said above though, and I think you will find that your spatial nuances in the stereo spread, will sound somewhat different with a typical listening environ. You may or may not like this. It's your call and I think you will find others to like it too.

That's what makes sound so..... subjective.onder:

Peace:innocent:

Pep


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## ngarjuna (Mar 29, 2010)

AstralPlaneStudios said:


> All of my mixes have been extremely consistent with my cans vs monitors. That's all that really matters. Not a single person has been bothered by the fact that I'ved used cans on their mixes, they've actually been impressed by it.
> 
> The end result is all that matters. I'm not saying I solely use cans, I DO have two other sets of speakers for reference...However in my case, cans beat all.
> 
> Saying someone is "unprofessional" because they do something differently is silly.


All due respect...I don't know how long you've been doing this, but I've been mixing for about 15 years now and I think you're fooling yourself. Really, they've had headphones for a very long time; do you really think if it was viable that you would be the first one to actually discover that? When all of the other professional engineers from the last 75 years or so have been using monitors? Speaking frankly: if you're getting better results from headphones than you are from monitors then you need to evaluate and potentially alter the way you're using your monitors.

Doing something "differently" is a total straw man; this isn't an issue of being a maverick. People have explained why the prevailing view in pro audio is that headphones are inappropriate for mix monitoring. If you do nothing else (and nobody is forcing or even asking you to change your modus operandi), at least understand that this is indeed the way pro audio engineers feel about headphones rather ubiquitously.

Even if everyone else was just doing it wrong...do you want clients who are somewhat studio experienced? Because if they have much experience there's a good chance they also know that headphones aren't really used in this manner; with the way home recording has exploded, do a search on pretty much any audio forum and you'll find some variation of this exact thread. Whether or not it's "fair" or "right", they are going to form opinions about you that are going to inform their subconscious about you and your work. The way people look at you in terms of professionality has a very real psychological effect on the way they perceive your mixes. If they perceive you as a bedroom/basement mixer that will immediately change the way they hear your mixes. In fact these kinds of perceptions, which indeed are literally "inaudible", will have a much larger effect on the way people hear your stuff than what converter you used or if you went for 88.2k instead of 44.1.


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