I picked up a pair of beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO (250 ohm) headphones a couple of days ago. My reasoning being I don't have a decent pair (I borrow a cheaper pair occasionally, AKG K77s), and my room has a bass resonance so I want something else to check mixes on.. as well as for doing fine edits, checking tracking etc.
Anyway, I did a little monitoring while recording some drum tracks and the high end seemed a bit prominent. Got back home and started working on them, bit of EQ, compression etc to get a rough idea. Sounded great but then I took of the phones and listened through my monitors [Behringer Truth B2030A.. despite the brand they are rated very well I believe]. The mix was instantly a lot duller and the tracks I had worked on were lost.
I did some further comparisons. The monitors are "normal" as I would consider it, the DT 770s have what I would say is a 'very prominent' high-end and the AKGs somewhere inbetween. Then I noticed the impedance of the phones (250ohm). I figured maybe since my interface had a 75ohm output there was a mismatch and that might cause a loss of bass. However, I have been assured that high impedance would only cause a level drop, and the interface manual says it works up to impedances beyond 250ohm anyway.
So I'm a little confused. The DT770s seem to have great reviews but considering their marketing includes words like 'reference monitoring' and 'good for mixing' I am left asking myself:
- Is this normal - phones just clearly have more high end?
- Why does it seem so obvious, so different between my 3 tests (AKG K77/DT770/B2030A)?
- Would this change with a high-quality (+£££) pair? Should I be looking with a higher budget or is this simply how headphones work?
Any thoughts greatly appreciated, thanks guys.