Do you get annoyed by not matching what you hear in headphones to...

[miden]

14 hours ago, The Real MC said:

 

You're doing it wrong.  Headphones can lie to you.

 

I learned a long time ago that headphones should NEVER be the reference.  Speakers projecting in air are NEVER going to be same as the sound in headphones.

 

NONE of my four headphones were a good reference for program mixes.  They all had their faults in the frequency spectrum, and some can hide the mud in a mix.

 

Headphones can fatigue your ears so gradually you don't notice it.  

 

Small wonder you have so much trouble getting the same sound from speakers!

 

I had to mix a live band recording using headphones once out of necessity and I had so much trouble getting my mixes to sound good in my acid test car radio system that I swore off headphones for program mixes.  

My reference has been my JBL Control-5 with subwoofers.  My studio sounds translate to my Bose 802 speakers very well, and I have been happy with the results.  The audience is not hearing over headphones.

The ONLY time I use headphones during a mixing session is on a problem source in isolation or when auditioning synth sounds in isolation.  But when it comes time to put those sources in a mix, the headphones come off.

 

 

 

Please don't misunderstand - I am not using them for referencing or anything like that...just for listening. The point of the OP was it was annoying that you cannot find a speaker system that will deliver a similar sound to the cans.

[The Real MC]

3 hours ago, Docbop said:

Sounds like Bose hasn't changed since they first came out.     I remember the original Bose what was it 9 speaker, reflective sound speakers and that was their big hype over and over.   Basically they were 9 high end car stereo speakers so tech reviewer decided to dig in and figure why does it sound good.   In the end the whole secret was the mystery box that was a EQ tuned to  the speakers to make them sound good.   Turn off the mystery box and the Bose sounded like everyday bookshelf speakers, but  they tried to keep that key to the sound was that box away from the consumers.     So sounds like nothing has changed. 

 

Maybe so but the 802s have served me well since the late 1980s.

[KuruPrionz]

3 hours ago, miden said:

 

 

Please don't misunderstand - I am not using them for referencing or anything like that...just for listening. The point of the OP was it was annoying that you cannot find a speaker system that will deliver a similar sound to the cans.

Again, headphones have a (self-contained) small space. The response in that space will never match your room. A small driver can produce huge bass in a small space. 

A larger driver may or may not reproduce huge bass in a room, there are lots of reasons for that.

 

You might be able to EQ your headphones to sound like the speakers in your room, maybe. I suspect you have a better chance of doing that than finding speakers that sound like your headphones. You might as well curse water for being wet, it's not something that is going to change. 

[Mighty Motif Max]

I do get annoyed...but I also realize that my headphones (various AKG models) aren't perfectly flat, so I know full well I'll have to do some tweaking when I hear my patches on a PA rig. I really do tend to like the <$120 "AKG" sound though, which has a substantial cut in the mid-to-upper mids. I use Sonarworks/SoundID in the studio for headphones, and they show the correction curve. I'd be tempted, if I had enough free time, to get a good graphic EQ and try to match that curve going into my speaker rig, maybe running into another eq to correct the PA speaker to being pretty much flat (according to its own frequency response chart). Not sure it's worth my while though.

[miden]

4 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

You might be able to EQ your headphones to sound like the speakers in your room, maybe. I suspect you have a better chance of doing that than finding speakers that sound like your headphones. You might as well curse water for being wet, it's not something that is going to change. 

 

 

Haha, yep. Just more a topic for discussion

[KuruPrionz]

7 hours ago, miden said:

 

3 hours ago, miden said:

 

 

Haha, yep. Just more  topic for discussion

 

There is some good discussion here, good thread - what these forums are about. 

[Theo Verelst]

Even the mid frequency range on a piano gets quite mangled by sampling/digital processing and sample reconstruction. It's seldom going to sound on headphones like the piano is standing there and is restful in it's tone and sound development, apart from what the digital piano source models or doesn't. A good 96kHz/24bit piano recording which may sound passable on headphone when all is analog isn't going to be without damage through any of the common digital paths.

 

It can be imagined the distance between left and right sounding the same or a little different  can be picked up my microphones or a artificial head with binoral mics inside it, but getting that subtle sound a piano makes a lot of the time to sound alright through the headphones, including chorusing, transients and reverberation gets a bit lost in sample reconstruction distortion and most processing tools.

 

It's possible to make the effect left prominent, even for a bit of a quality sound with highs in it, and that sort of bright, clear, non distorted and geometrically right sound, like an analog signal source will sound strange and not so great on some modern (digital age) headphones. Some of the studio products simply properly let you hear the digital imperfections, like a high frequency digital tone is seldom rendered right.

 

T