Headphone Test (and other little musings)

[Rich Smith]

Headphones are critical to successful tracking. I recently took the time to run a little test… and reminded myself of some old lessons learned.

Initial playback of a raw analog track is not intended to enjoy how great it sounds. Its purpose is to critically judge and optimize your equipment setup and, later, listen for performance errors. Occasionally you get to factor-in a pleasant anomaly or surprise. But, if you can’t get satisfactory results here, you probably won’t find a satisfactory analog fix later on. There really is no substitute for headphones at this stage. Nothing else can provide the critical focus you need.

Monitoring while recording has a totally different objective and may require different equipment. So does playback during mixdown and mastering where headphones, amps, effects, speakers and multiple opinions all have their place and come into play later on.

For initial track playback, I tested all three(3) sets I have and found that my cheapy Tascam HP-VT1 came out way ahead of my beloved old-school Pioneer SE-205 or Pioneer SE-50's. I never really respected the Tascam’s before because they felt like something playschool made compared to the well-built old Pioneers. The Pioneers felt wonderful like great old shoes and I’ve never been disappointed in their sound quality. But, they almost sounded muddy by comparison. The Tascams had equal bass and were FAR more crisp with much better mid and high range response. (I’d love to test them against my old-fluid filled Koss’s from the 60’s… but alas they’re gone now.)

Running an objective Comparison Tests also reminded me how important it is to plug directly into the recorder for initial track evaluation. Plugging headphones into any downstream amp of reasonable quality will probably smooth-out and “improve” the playback quality. But that isn’t what you need to accomplish at this stage. The objective here is to critically evaluate the raw track(s). You need to listen with the best headphones available to you without trying to compensate for anything. And you need to listen as close to the tape as possible.

Rich Smith

 

[sweetbeats]

Rich,

Interesting thoughts.

I really like my Sennheiser HD280's...I have a pair of AKG K55's too but they have a falso bass response on them. They work better for cue mixes. The Sennheiser's are really sort of flat...almost lackluster but very true and my ears acclimated to them quickly. I also have a couple pairs of Yamaha headphones that I got recently for talent monitor mixes. Haven't tried them yet. They were cheapy-ish so it'll be interesting...I've always been impressed with what I get for my dollar wth Yamaha product both in build quality as well as performance and features so who knows...

None of the decks I use have a built in headphone amp...well, that's not true. The BR-20T does but that still awaits a going-through and I'll have to keep your comments in mind when that enters production. The Ampex 440-8 has a headphone jack for each track on its respective electronics module, so that'll be interesting.

I'm so used to taking advantage of the convenience and consistency of the headphone amp on whatever console I'm using and hadn't really thought about direct monitoring at the transport...interesting.

So do you not think it an advantage to use one headphone amp to which your ears can be acclimated but rather switch depending on the recorder and the stage in the process?

 

[pianodano]

He Fellas,

Take it from the old guy. Tsk tsk. Never listen to raw music (uncompressed and leveled) tracks through headphones for even 1 second more than absolutely necessary. There are 2 reason for this.

Here is a hearing graph representation.

Freq 250 500 1K 2K 3K 5K 6K 8K 10K 12K

DB

10 -<> -<>
20 -------- -<>-<>
30
40
50
60-------------------<>
70
80
90----------------------<>
100 ---------------------------------------

Where DB = level you can hear it at and < = left ear. > = right ear.

Although you might still be able to hear some higher frequences, it is a self fulfilling prophecy that in order to hear them, you'll need a level so loud it is certain to cause even MORE DAMAGE.

REASON 2. Severe tinnitus.



The above hearing chart is what mine looked like in 2004 just prior to the onset of permanent tinnitus.

Forget headphones no matter who makes them or how good they sound.

Regards,

Danny

 

[dodgeaspen]

pianodano, thanks for the info.

 

[pianodano]

pianodano, thanks for the info.

Well, back in the day, 25+ years ago, I had spent 100's of hours with headphones. You can pretty much put anything thru them and it will sound good. For tracking, what you really want for headphones are something like the studio standard, which was the old Fostex T20. Every studio had a dozen or more pairs of them. They are dead flat for a reason. Anyhow, protect your hearing now. Otherwise you will be hearing more in your head than music. And it won't ever stop. EVER.


Re hearing or picking up things in headphones that you can't hear in the mains. NOPE that just ain't how it is. If anyone insists that's the case then there is either something wrong with the mains or the room acoustics or both.

Regards,

Danny

 

[sweetbeats]

Ahhh...nothing like a thread with polar opposite points...

Okay. Well, I know I personally don't do any critical listening using headphones. The acoustic environment inside those little cans is so different than a room. I will use headphones as a PART of the mixing process but more to confirm or disconfirm something I'm hearing from my monitors. During tracking I use headphones to make sure that there isn't something drastically unwanted and that's why I'm fine using the console headphone amp which in anything I have is driven by a pair of 386 opamps...some have called the 386 a horrible opamp but it works just fine for functional monitoring for me.

BTW, Danny, I have the good fortune of not having to wait for headphone use to elicit that lovely 24/7 ringing in my ears...drum corp did that in the 90's...I've always been good about hearing protection but I don't put the earplugs in very far so...at least I have a built-in pitch reference right?

 

[pianodano]

Ahhh...nothing like a thread with polar opposite points...

Okay. Well, I know I personally don't do any critical listening using headphones. The acoustic environment inside those little cans is so different than a room. I will use headphones as a PART of the mixing process but more to confirm or disconfirm something I'm hearing from my monitors. During tracking I use headphones to make sure that there isn't something drastically unwanted and that's why I'm fine using the console headphone amp which in anything I have is driven by a pair of 386 opamps...some have called the 386 a horrible opamp but it works just fine for functional monitoring for me.

BTW, Danny, I have the good fortune of not having to wait for headphone use to elicit that lovely 24/7 ringing in my ears...drum corp did that in the 90's...I've always been good about hearing protection but I don't put the earplugs in very far so...at least I have a built-in pitch reference right?

Cory,

I am sorry to learn that you have tinnitus. Who/what is drum corp ? are you referring to the Military drum corp ?

I was very fortunate in that I was able to play professionally for many years without developing it back in the era when the high sound pressure was behind us from a wall of amplfiers and Leslies on stage. That was very different from today or should be with todays great sound systems.

The most damage was done to my ears by a guitar player that place his cabinet which had a radial horn in it, on top of my Leslie which sat directly behind my right ear. He is still my lifelong friend though. High frequency loss started from that in my early to mid twenties and really didn't progress further until my very early 30's when I started spending weeks and then months in the studio working under headphones mainly, spending countless hours programming drum tracks.

The tinnitus can develop into mulitple tones of many different frequencies after further exposure.

Try to get a Radio Shack sound level meter. It's about 70 bucks as iirc. Use it to learn what 85 dB sounds like by periodically placing it as near as possible to where your ears would be in the sweet spot listening postion. Check the level often. 85 dB is a great level to monitor at and a max of 4 hours is about the limit. 90 dB for more than a few minutes is causing damage to the ears. For those that can't resist 100 db or more and long wave low frequencies, all those dudes will be wearing hearing aids in their 40's and that's assuming hearing aids could even still help them.

Btw, you can also use that meter to correct your room by graphing freuencey levels. It does a great job at that.

Danny

 

[The Ghost of FM]

I too have 24/7 tinnitus.

Not sure where to place the blame as I've loved loud music almost all of my life as well as worked in a number of jobs that exposed me to very loud noise levels. The only saving grace for me at this point is that I've learned to mentally tune it out/not pay attention to it unless someone mentions it or if I choose to concentrate on it.

As far as headphone usage goes, I only use them when tracking vocals or acoustic guitar for the obvious isolation needs and after that, everything is monitored on my JBL L110/4310 equivalent speakers.

Cheers!

 

[pianodano]

I too have 24/7 tinnitus.

Not sure where to place the blame as I've loved loud music almost all of my life as well as worked in a number of jobs that exposed me to very loud noise levels. The only saving grace for me at this point is that I've learned to mentally tune it out/not pay attention to it unless someone mentions it or if I choose to concentrate on it.

As far as headphone usage goes, I only use them when tracking vocals or acoustic guitar for the obvious isolation needs and after that, everything is monitored on my JBL L110/4310 equivalent speakers.

Cheers!

Ghost,

Sorry to learn about you having tinnitus also. I bet you keep a fan going in your bedroom at night too. I know it's pointless, but I still encourage the youngins to loose the headphones whenever the oportunity arises.

JBL. I learned on 4311s and have always loved them but I could not afford to get a pair when they were new. I have tried to find a mint pair for years but no luck at all. I do have a pair of JBL L-5's at the sofa for listening to finished mixes but have used Mackie HR824s for a number of years. I am also crazy about those speakers.

Regards,

Danny

 

[The Ghost of FM]

Ghost,

Sorry to learn about you having tinnitus also. I bet you keep a fan going in your bedroom at night too. I know it's pointless, but I still encourage the youngins to loose the headphones whenever the oportunity arises.

JBL. I learned on 4311s and have always loved them but I could not afford to get a pair when they were new. I have tried to find a mint pair for years but no luck at all. I do have a pair of JBL L-5's at the sofa for listening to finished mixes but have used Mackie HR824s for a number of years. I am also crazy about those speakers.

Regards,

Danny

I keep a fan going in my studio/computer room 24/7 but in my bedroom, I don't bother with one as I'm a sound sleeper and usually fall asleep very quickly when tired enough.

About the JBL's, I bought mine off a customer at the store I used to work at as the woofers needed to be re-coned due to foam rot on the suspension and the customer thought they were junk because of that and sold them to me for 50 bucks and I spent another $70 on the re-coning kits and after that, they were good as new! The L110 used the identical drivers to the 4310 speakers only they weren't mirror imaged and the level controls for the mids and tweeters didn't have the gigantic scale marker grid plate. Otherwise, they sound identical using the same drivers and cabinet design and fantastic to mix on!

Cheers!

 

[Rich Smith]

Turning back to my initial musings……..

I have personally used Headphones extensively for “initial” playback of raw tracks to determine what the tape is getting. Little else. High volume playback is not generally important at this stage. Particularly on a sustained basis. But taking this step and preventing yourself from being fooled is critical. The visceral enjoyment of high volume is generally counterproductive to most aspects of the “initial” critical evaluation (momentary increases not withstanding).

My comments are not intended to advocate Headphone use for all purposes. The danger of subjecting yourself to sustained high volume is well known. The last I looked, OSHA used a sustained average 85db has the benchmark for requiring industrial ear protection. How the decibels reach your ears doesn’t matter.

All with Tennitis have my sincere sympathy. At the same time, “initial” playback evaluation is not the same thing as Monitoring (while tracking), Mixdown (of acceptable tracks), or Final Playback. I’ll speculate that onstage performers are at greatest risk of ear damage. Next would come studio performers using earphone monitors. Anyone in a control room, or anyone listening during playback, should be able to control themselves and protect their ears.

Used properly, Headphones are one of your best recording tools. But, I’ve never liked using them for personal enjoyment. I find them annoying and void of pleasurable ambiance (grin)….. I want music to fill the air.

Rich Smith

 

[sweetbeats]

Yeah I can generally tune it out.

Danny, I was in the snare line for my college.

And I happen to have one of those Radio Shack sound pressure level meters...very handy for a lot of reasons. I generally level a room using a reference mic into a PC based spectrum analyzer. I don't eq the speakers, I move things around in the room and add or take away damping material to flatten out the lumps in the response curve. I guess that's not totally true though as I also use the adjustable crossover point on the sub...I look at the cuve and get it as flat as I can and then listen to program material and if it sounds ridiculous then I'll tweak again and compromise between what sounds right and how flat the curve is. Sorry to the OP for hijacking but how does that sound process-wise?

Thanks for the 85dB reference and the time limits. I probably do that somewhat instinctually, but its good to have concrete limits. Ears do indeed get tired and it is just pointless to keep going at that point. I have to aware that as my ears fatigue the response curve of my ears changes...its a moving target and it is important to pace the listening.