Best headphones for producing music?

Help needed.

akg701s, sex in headphones form. and if you can't quite stretch to them get its equally ace little brother the akg240s (what I had before I upgraded).

absolutely perfect for music production and mastering due to it's uncoloured flat frequency response. (plus they're equally suited to home listening too)

been producing for many many years on a pair of sony MDRs... I have MDR V700s right now but i think the generation or step down before them were just a touch more comfortable. the key is making sure they're comfortable and it's probably best not to get open ear. and then you have to brace yourself for the shock of hearing your track on a stereo or in your car.

i recommend headphone amps

my friend made me cheap cmoy one, the difference was noticable, as opposed to going straight from the sound card. but i guess it all depends on the quality of the amp wherever you are plugging in.

bump on an old thread.... im looking at getting a new pair of headphones for producing my music (ive decided monitor speakers are not really an option, for various reasons)

These seem to get good reviews, in this is the best online price ive found:

http://www.iheadphones.co.uk/beyerdynamic-dt770-pro-2251.html

Anyone had any experience of them? Anyone got any other views on alternatives?

Cheers

These are incredible for the price. They sound way better than those piece of shite Dr. Dre headphones, and cost one tenth of the price.

http://www.amazon.com/Koss-PortaPro-Headphones-with-Case/dp/B00001P4ZH

If you don't need to compensate for any disappointments in the pants with $300+ headphones, these are great, as long as you don't care about having closed headphones. They aren't technically studio headphones, but hey, stay in the tradition of bedroom production.

Edit: The key to good mastering without the $$ for lots of gear is outputting your track to at least 3 types of speakers. I listen on my laptop, headphones, and then the best speakers I have, which are JBL's. Compare it to stuff you know is produced well, and try to get it to stand up. Not to say you shouldn't try to occupy a unique sonic space, and that takes confidence.

you should really go for a closed pair of headphones, ideally.

beyer dynamic, akg, sennheiser, are all good makes. spend as much as you can afford!

  On 1/16/2011 at 8:56 PM, sheatheman said:

These are incredible for the price. They sound way better than those piece of shite Dr. Dre headphones, and cost one tenth of the price.

http://www.amazon.com/Koss-PortaPro-Headphones-with-Case/dp/B00001P4ZH

lol those headphones look like a hipsters wet dream. So ridiculous.

thumbs up for the ole AKG240m

light, comfy, good uncoloured sound (little ear faituge over long sessions) very durable and mine are over a decade old now.

  On 1/27/2011 at 9:08 AM, Rullot said:

http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD800-Over-Ear-Circum-Aural-Headphone/dp/B001OTZ8DA

Ffuuuu thats serious $$

I'm still married to that imperfect Sony sound, so I'm rocking a pair of MDR-V700s myself. It's more that I'm used to them than they are necessarily the perfect headphone for producing.

I have a pair of PortaPros and they are awesome, but not good for producing. Too much bass bump and the highs are not clear at all. They are awesome and "fun" headphones for the money though, I really enjoy just chilling on the couch listening to my iPod with them. But not for production, IMO.

I have a pair of (open) Grado SR-80s and they are also fun to listen to, but I never had any luck using them for production either.

I guess it depends on what you want to do. I just do IDM shit with VSTs and some synths and samplers so I'm not necessarily looking to listen critically to the SOUND of something in the way that you'd want to if you were, for example, trying to mix a drum kit from mics. Or EQ some rock vocals. For techno shit it's more important to me that the headphones are comfortable, not WILDLY out of line EQ-wise (and again, you could totally have some gripes with Sony here, but I am used to the sound and how it translates), and like, inspiring to use or whatever.

One thing that has been blowing me away recently is that, while everyone talks about speakers/headphones affecting your perception of EQ, etc, no one mentions that they can also greatly affect your perception of PITCH itself. I've found that it's extremely difficult to use closed headphones (my Sonys, or any other pair I've tried) to determine if something is IN TUNE or not. It's really crazy! I'll loop up some acoustic guitar and it sounds totally great in the headphones, and then even throwing the WAV out to my built-in iMac speakers it's like, holy shit. This guitar is WAY out of tune. It's crazy. I have no such problems perceiving pitch on my Grados, however.

Just another something to consider depending on what sort of instruments you may be using.

Price: $2,199.00 without AMP with AMP about $5,000.00

FFS!!! Would some "Admin" do me a god damn favor and make a sticky for a headphones threads?

  On 1/27/2011 at 4:42 PM, soundwave said:

thumbs up for the ole AKG240m

 

light, comfy, good uncoloured sound (little ear faituge over long sessions) very durable and mine are over a decade old now.

For those that do go this route (the 240m rather than the 240s) remember you MUST purchase a headphone amp to drive them as they've got something like a 600ohm impedance. Well unless you want everything to sound like a Richard Chartier album that is !

  On 1/27/2011 at 7:16 PM, Ascdi said:

One thing that has been blowing me away recently is that, while everyone talks about speakers/headphones affecting your perception of EQ, etc, no one mentions that they can also greatly affect your perception of PITCH itself. I've found that it's extremely difficult to use closed headphones (my Sonys, or any other pair I've tried) to determine if something is IN TUNE or not. It's really crazy! I'll loop up some acoustic guitar and it sounds totally great in the headphones, and then even throwing the WAV out to my built-in iMac speakers it's like, holy shit. This guitar is WAY out of tune. It's crazy. I have no such problems perceiving pitch on my Grados, however.

I'm glad someone else has noticed that. I've had a few similar experiences myself. I would like to know why this is. I'm quite often judging my pitch with headphones.

Another thing that headphones will fuck with is your perception of space, distance & width for reverbs, panning, seperation etc. Headphones kind of glue the sound together to feel more cohesive even when they are not.

Look up some HD6xx series from Sennheiser. Be sure you are on a quiet space tho.

Grado SR325i. I've been using these phones for years and I know some professional producers who swear by them. Great price for something this good as well...

http://www.amazon.com/Grado-Prestige-Series-SR325is-Headphones/dp/B000J1N3HW