Speakers and headphones?

[Eleanor Fudd]

If you have speakers, why would you need phones? Do you need both? Could you mix using only phones?

Thank you.

 

[RAMI]

You COULD mix with only headphones. But, you'llprobably find that even the best headphones won't give you a mix that will translate well anywhere else but on those phones.

As far as why you need headphones if you have speakers. ...You should do your mixing with speakers, but headphones are good for listening while doing surgical edits and more detailed work. But they're not absolutely necessary for mixing, you could definitely make a great mix with just speakers in a well treated room.

 

[Massive Master]

Headphones are handy for zeroing in on anomalies in the audio -- Clicks, pops, crossfades, etc. And obviously for tracking, when you're looking for isolation.

Could you mix using only phones?

The "stock" answer is "not really" -- The more complicated answer is far more complicated (but if you try the search function, you'll find it over and over and over again to be sure).

 

[grimtraveller]

You could mix using phones. But I think speakers {monitors} are better because despite what people report about todays listening habits, I'm willing to bet that most listening to music is still done in open ear situations. And therefore it makes sense to mix in real world, open ear situations. You get to hear all the sounds interracting in a room. I'm not of the absolute opinion that mixes can't be done with phones but like alot of things in recording, there are good reasons why certain practices live on and become standard. There are also dumb ones ! As is often the case, suck it and see, try both ways and see which you feel are the better mixes in a variety of locations.
By the way, your opening post doesn't make it clear if you are talking about recording or mixing. If it's recording {tracking}, phones are absolutely necessary because if you're overdubbing, you'll get the sound of what you're overdubbing to in your overdub.

 

[John Willett]

Ideally you need both.

You can miss things on monitors that will clearly show on headphones.

But getting the best balance really needs good monitors.

I have both closed and open headphones as they can hear differently.

I have Harbeth M30A monitors and K+H O110D small monitors, Sennheiser HD 800 open headphones and HD 25-1 closed headphones - Grace m902b monitor controller.

I will often use them all on some recordings.

 

[Eleanor Fudd]

You COULD mix with only headphones. But, you'llprobably find that even the best headphones won't give you a mix that will translate well anywhere else but on those phones.

As far as why you need headphones if you have speakers. ...You should do your mixing with speakers, but headphones are good for listening while doing surgical edits and more detailed work. But they're not absolutely necessary for mixing, you could definitely make a great mix with just speakers in a well treated room.

Thank you. That seems a comprehensive answer. Let me try another question [which has probably been answered 99 times:] how much should one expect to spend for a pair of entry-level speakers, not the cheapest, but entry-level more-or-less? Thanks again.

 

[bassman1441]

If by speakers you mean monitors expect somewhere between $250-$400ish a pair.

 

[Massive Master]

Well, let's not get the whole "speaker / monitor" thing going... Monitors are speakers. And half of them that have a sticker on them that says "MONITOR" on it barely deserve to even be called speakers -- Much less be called "monitors..."

 

[Harvey Gerst]

Well, let's not get the whole "speaker / monitor" thing going... Monitors are speakers. And half of them that have a sticker on them that says "MONITOR" on it barely deserve to even be called speakers -- Much less be called "monitors..."

We can probably blame Bob Clearmountain and Yamaha for the whole speaker mess. The general public just assumed that now any "hi-fi" could be used as a "studio monitor" and that unleashed a flood of low end, home studio "nearfield monitors".

Since most home enthusiasts can't soffit mount real monitors (or afford them), this cheap "nearfield monitor" segment of the market boomed and small speaker sales soared.

The downside is that mastering became more of a correction tool for bad mixes, rather than the normal task of turing a good mix into a great mix.

 

[moresound]

Curse Bob and Yamaha!

 

[mixsit]

Thank you. That seems a comprehensive answer. ..

And this; "You can miss things on monitors that will clearly show on headphones." (Thanks to John there
I have a fairly wonderful monitor rig and got into the habit of never considering going to the phones.
Well I just went through a real 'yikes I should not have frogetten this little bit of CYA!