Headphone for recording (sony 7506, akg 171mkii, beyer 770pro?)

[Mambosun]

Ok, tried the 7506.

Initial thoughts:
- isolation is less than hd25
- not sure about the sound, bit harsh. Maybe they need breaking in? Maybe the emphasis on high mids is a blessing and I just have to get used to it/learn to see the benefits of it? 7506 have been an industry standard for a reason right?
- Hd25 is less harsh but its lows are not as defined as 7506. Also i dont like the on ear pressure of the hd25. The 7506 is much more comfortable.

Doubting whether to keep the 7506.

Looking for something with a nicer sound and better isolation. Thinking bout the Beyer dt770 pro. Read BBC uses them? Hugh? Strange that sometimes it is said to be neutral whereas other times as bit hyped low and highs...

Anyone on the 770pro; does it sound better than 7506 and is isolation better?
Its less portable but thats the tradeoff im willing to take.

Hi,

Just registered so that I can reply.

I bought the 7506 this summer. I had auditioned LOTS of headphones at a store in Paris, and thought they were the best one (within reasonable pricing) to reproduce a vast number of pop songs. I especially listened to Enjoy the silence and to some old Kate Bush songs, music I know well.

When I bought a pair, I was surprised by how harsh they sounded! After a few weeks it got better and they have been fine since. I suggest you try breaking them in to get rid of the harshness.

Meanwhile, I also bought the AKG 712 Pro on a sale. They are fantastic! Funnily, the mixes I made on them didn't really translate well to others' systems (I only mix with headphones unfortunately). My mixes got too bass-heavy according to people at KVR. Therefore, I now use the 7506's when recording (since they isolate well), 712's when mixing (since they sound better and are nicer to wear) and the 7506's to judge the bass-treble ratio before uploading my music. So far, the bunch of listeners at KVR have all agreed on the balance being correct.

Good luck!

Funnlily enough, that's exactly what I've been doing so far, for my Sound Design projects: recordings with the Sony MDR7506 and mixing with the AKG K712 Pro. For better sound rendition accuracy from these two pairs of cans, I recently started to use the Sonarworks Reference 4 plugin.
I also use IEM for sound Design creation and finalize my mastering with monitor speakers.

[Guitarking]

Any suggestion about which Ohm I should choose with the 770PRO. I'd like to use it for tracking but also for listening to music on my phone.

[Drew Stephenson]

I have no problem with the 250Ohm versions on my phones but I seem to listen at a much lower volume than most people! 80Ohm should be easily driveable by just about anything these days.

[Hugh Robjohns]

I'd agree with that. 80 Ohms if the phone is your priority, and 250 Ohm if a mains-powered headphone source is your priority... but either will work perfectly well with anything. It's just the max output level capability that really varies.

[James Perrett]

250 ohms is probably safer if you, as I did recently, accidentally plug the headphones into a line output. It took me a while to work out why I could only hear something out of one channel but it also confirmed that the outputs on my interface are impedance balanced rather than fully balanced.

250 ohm headphones are also useful if you use old Swiss/Austrian/German hifi gear in your studio as they're often designed to be used with high impedance headphones.

However, 80 ohms will be fine for most things.

[Hugh Robjohns]

... the outputs on my interface are impedance balanced rather than fully balanced.

I know you know this James, but for the benefit of others whoc might be wondering, 'impedance-balanced' is 'fully balanced' -- as in fully capable of rejecting common-mode interference.

The terms are confusing and misleading for many, so I prefer to say 'asymmetrical' or 'symmetrical' when talking about balanced connections.

The traditional balanced line is engineered to transmit the half the wanted audio on each 'leg' as symmetrical contributions, while impedance-balanced lines transmit all of the wanted signal just on one 'leg'. The main benefit is that this manages to maintain the same signal level whether connected to either balanced or unbalanced destinations.