Yes, another Headphone question...

Question

As this will be the first time I spend any 'large' amount of money on headphones I want to get it right! I've read through the previous posts and (think I) have some good ideas about which pair to go for. I'm looking to spend somewhere in the region of £100 - £200... sadly can't spare anymore.

Use: I will be using these for Field Recording, Mixing and occasionally recording bands and overdubbing, though the first two subjects will be the primary uses so ideally good isolation and an 'uncoloured' sound.

Now I know that there's this whole thing about mixing on headphones, but with my previous (and first) release one piece of feedback that I received multiple times was compliments on the mixing which was actually done about 70% on phones. They were only some cheap £20 sony phones but I knew their sound so it worked and thus would like to continue to mix on phones once I get used to the new pair. I unfortunately dropped the sonys at the end of a field recording session so no longer have them :'[

http://soundcloud.com/disconnectuser - to give you an idea of the style of music I generally make. It could help influence the decision, who knows! :]

Models: Anyways I've narrowed it to these at the moment but feel free to suggest others more suitable:

Sennheiser HD280
Beyerdynamic DT 880 - too open for field use?
Beyerdynamic DT 770

Cheers for your help as always SSD!
Al

Answer 1

I have the DT770 and bought them for the same reasons. I'm really loving them. I decided against the 880s specically because of the isolation. I'm sure they'd be slightly nicer for mixing, but I think the 770s are a champ for all around use.

Answer 2

Hi! I love the audio-technica ath-m50. They are great sounding ones, and are well built so they lasts long. I like the sennheiser hd 25, and others from the hd series, but I always had cable issues with them.

Answer 3

Nice to hear more people mixing in part on headphones! As far as I see it, we get the best results from mixing in as many formats we can so we can find the best way possible, and many viewers will listen to our works in headphones :-)

I always have my DT 250's (have three pairs) wherever I go, but that's as much an absolute minimum according to me as well as a personal favorite. Although I absolutely hated Sennheiser's HD25 (I know they're popular, but they gave me tremendous problems when I tried them on a job...) I got deeply impressed with the 280's! It's been a few years since I tried 'em out, but the guy I visited actually had both a pair of Sennheiser 280 and a DT 770 there so I could compare them to each other. In my opinion (though this wasn't in a work-situation) the 280 had a more neutral sound with a little more presence, whereas the 770 had a little more thick sound in the high bass/low mid.

I can't say that one is better than the other as such. The sennheisers seems a little less colored and gives a very full spectrum, but the bump in the DT770 makes great use when recording, giving some great pointers of a range that often risks getting fuzzy and annoying, especially considering so many using the loudness-function as default. Unlike loudspeakers, headphones often seems to translate different to different ears to some extent, the best way is trying for yourself, using both material you know has errors, and material you like and know well! For me, when originally choosing the DT250, it was Skinny Puppy's album Rabies, Yello's album Baby, Front 242's Tyranny >For You<, and a bunch'a my first mixes made on shitty hifi-loudspeakers and cheap amplifier in the early 90's that showed me the way past such competition as AKG and Sony :-)