Headphones for Mixing and Mastering

[Whoops]

I just left a response today on another post. Talking about how the Sony 7506 headphones translate really well with the low-end. Not hyped and the mid forward sound really works for me. I am 90% all in with the Sonys. Tried others, but when going to the car all other headphones just do not translate well to an actually frequency response. With the Sonys my kites are spot on in other listening environments.

For sure, the Low End is really good.
Actually from all the many Headphones I tried over the years, the Sony 7506 are by far the best in terms of Low end translation. The Low end is so clear that it's impressive.

It's a bit hyped in the high mids and treble, and I can totally understand that some people don't like it,
but I'm very aware of that hyped region and I'm used to it, so after many years of using them it's pretty easy to me to do a mental compensation of what that region sound in the headphones and how it will sound in the outside world.

But again, the Low end is so clear and thrustworthy that they're unbeatable.

 

[kags]

I also find that Sony headphones, more than others, are sensitive to how they sit on your head. I have glasses and the earpads don't close well around the frames, so LF doesn't couple well. The Beyer and Senn headphones have less of this problem. The new Sony phones I demoed last week (the open back "spatial" ones) were very good.

 

[MicMaven]

I also find that Sony headphones, more than others, are sensitive to how they sit on your head.

Yep. I had a terrible experience when I purchased SONY 7506 headphones - they repeatedly zapped my ears with static electricity! I have owned a lot of headphones over the years, but these were the only cans to bite me ! James

 

[kags]

Yep. I had a terrible experience when I purchased SONY 7506 headphones - they repeatedly zapped my ears with static electricity! I have owned a lot of headphones over the years, but these were the only cans to bite me ! James

Ha! The 7506 have an aluminum diaphragm that sits right behind the foam pad - I wonder if that was coupling to your ear! I've never heard of that happening before, but it might be something common.

 

[Whoops]

they repeatedly zapped my ears with static electricity!

Oh really?
That's really bizarre, it never ever happened to me and I've been using them for around 15 years,
had many pairs over the years.
Never had that problem either with the 7506 or any other pair of headphones

 

[MicMaven]

Oh really? That's really bizarre, it never ever happened to me

Yep, It really WAS bizarre. But they also zapped my wife and the salesman at the store, so I returned them for a refund.

The 7506 are legendary cans for multiple applications, so I had a faulty set, and the issue is not endemic to the species. James

 

[fazer]

7506 headphones - they repeatedly zapped my ears with static

I added a plastic chair mat to roll my chair on over carpet. I noticed after I added it I was getting static zaps when wearing headphones. I got rid of the plastic mat and no more zaps.

 

[MidnightArrakis]

I added a plastic chair mat to roll my chair on over carpet. I noticed after I added it I was getting static zaps when wearing headphones. I got rid of the plastic mat and no more zaps.

[after I added it, I was getting static zaps when wearing headphones] -- Try grounding your plastic chair mat to a heating radiator, a water pipe or the "GND" terminal of an AC outlet. That just might do it for ya!!!

On the other hand.....you could connect your plastic floor mat to a kite and fly it out of your studio window during a storm and see how well that works for ya!!! You just might find yourself coming up with an amazing and -- electrifying -- headphone mix!!! WHOOO--YAAA!!!

/

 

[ccaudle]

Try grounding your plastic chair mat

"Ground" a non-conductive surface?

 

[cyrano]

"Ground" a non-conductive surface?

Well, of course. Just like some of these antistatic wrist bracelets. Even over a high impedance, static charge will flow. In fact, it's preferred in safety rules, as it will lessen the chance of electrocution.

 

[ccaudle]

of course. Just like some of these antistatic wrist bracelets

You will find that devices sold for ESD control are actually noted as "dissipative," they have a known and controlled high resistance value.
A quick check of chair mats at an online office supply store has mats made of vinyl, PVC, and polycarbonate. Defintely not dissipative, if you connect one corner to anything else with a wire it will do nothing useful.
You can buy static control floor mats, but they are generally around 5x to 10x the cost of a standard floor mat, so that is rare unless someone has gone out of their way to make an ESD safe workstation (in which case it would probably be connected correctly already).

 

[cyrano]

Sure, pure Polycarbonate has a resistivity of 10 to the power 16 or so per cm. And so has PVC.

But a typical flooring material will have some organic filler to prevent static electricity. Can be as simple as a coconut fiber flooring. Or some carbon black filler in vinyl (PVC), or Cu, Ag, Ni, or Au filler or even just being made from recycled materials.

If the resistance is less than 10 MOhm/cm, it is considered conductive, or even ESD friendly. Over 10 MOhm/cm, it is called dissipative as it will still discharge static electricity, but more slowly.

Hospital floors, fi are typically around 10 MOhm per cm. And the preferred filler is copper, as that has antibiotic properties. They need to be, as there's sensitive equipment around, that's often being wheeled around.

It's also the reason why high voltage rooms need to have specific flooring. Bare concrete, fi, has typically not even 1 MOhm/cm, less if it's even a little bit moist. It needs to be painted with epoxy based paint to be HV safe. And that needs to be checked periodically.

 

[ccaudle]

But a typical flooring material will have some organic filler to prevent static electricity.

Interesting. I think the clear plastic kind I have used doesn't have filler. I wish I still had easy access to a surface resistivity meter. I may have to see how difficult it would be to make something close to the commercial unit I used to have at my old workplace, I am curious now about the resistivity of various surfaces I have now.

 

[waltzingbear]

After several dissapative pads broke down over a fairly short period I moved to using a sheet metal pad, never had to replace it and it always conducted to the attached ground

Cheers

 

[ccaudle]

I moved to using a sheet metal pad

Current is charge moved per unit of time. If you put a charged item down onto a metal pad the charge can move out so quickly that the current is high enough to cause damage that would be avoided by a slower time constant of discharging device capacitance through a high resistance. Primarily a concern for bare components and not assembled circuits.

What caused the dissipative pads to break down? Or what was the symptom of them breaking down if you don't know the direct cause? I have a pad that has been used (but not every day) for ten years, and it appears to be fine. As I noted in my previous post I don't currently have access to a surface resistivity meter, so maybe I should make up some contact pads and check before I claim too confidently that my ESD control mat actually is fine (as opposed to just appearing that way).

 

[cyrano]

Interesting. I think the clear plastic kind I have used doesn't have filler. I wish I still had easy access to a surface resistivity meter. I may have to see how difficult it would be to make something close to the commercial unit I used to have at my old workplace, I am curious now about the resistivity of various surfaces I have now.

You can probably buy floor protection made without a filler. I've only checked IKEA, since that's the only one I know who sells worldwide and their products definitely have a filler.

Pure polycarbonates aren't explosion safe in an environment where combustibles can be present, but that's because they can cause sparks from friction. I think safety rules warrant a dissipative floor in this case. I don't know about vinyl, but if you have vinyl that causes sparks, it's definitely the cheap kind and the air is so dry it might be unhealthy to work in such a room.

In Holland there is/was a data center in a former NATO bunker. They had problems with these office floormats until they realised it was only happening in the very dry rooms. Nothing explosive, but the sparks triggered the fire safety system, fortunately not in the area where the servers were located, just in an area used as an office. Adjusting the HVAC system fixed that.

 

[svyet]

Back to headphones:

I can echo (and repeat my older posts) the Sony 7506/V6 being great for tracking and low end checks, though they had become hard to listen to for longer periods of time due to their sibilance (to me) without any calibration...which is hard to imagine since they were my ONLY professional headphones (including the 7506 I used at work) for nearly 10 years until getting the Sennheiser HD600. Sonarworks was added only maybe a year before getting the HD600 and made a huge difference in listenability, but still that's about 8 years with uncalibrated Sony's beforehand. HD600 were bought after a lot of reading and seeing that specific pair very calmly praised here and there by some legit engineers, even over the HD650 that Sonarworks is in love with. That was of course referring to them in their stock form. Calibration can obviously level the playing field, but I thought, why not start with something perceived to be the better of the two before calibration? Anyway, Sonarworks + CanOpener made them even more listenable, and as I've said before: I can mix and master on them and they will translate almost exactly to a friend's Genelec setup, except reverb (though that is something I notice a difference on ALL speakers I do quick mix checks on). Any differences I do find there and on other speakers I check on (including my currently uncalibrated JBL LSR305's and a Sony bluetooth speaker with muddy bass and smeared highs), I simply go back into a project and make small adjustments to find a happy medium primarily for the headphones (HD600, V6, Apple earbuds), Genelecs, and JBL's, and then use the bluetooth speaker to just make sure it doesn't sound terrible there. And I'm almost certain thats what a majority of mixing and mastering attempts to acheive? That's been my approach in my still-early years of doing this.

In any case, I'll repeat an important but highly underrated tip for ALL headphones: keeping the ear pads fresh. Frequency response changes as the pads get dirty and break down. If I can explain it well, I've experienced with both my V6 and HD600 a decrease in perceived "soundstage" and high frequency clarity over time before putting on fresh pads. They start to sound dull and muddy and not as articulate. There has been a lot written about it, and I do recall it influencing EQ decisions. Can anyone else confirm a similar experience? If the importance of working on headphones ultimately lies in knowing them well, then obviously it makes it harder to deal with if you are also letting your brain "learn" and get used to their degredation. I think that is ultimately why I wanted to have as flat a pair as possible when stock, so that in keeping them fresh I can at least know I'm still in the ballpark.

 

[svyet]

I should clarify that breakdown of the pads with time contributes to a decrease in distance between ear and driver as well, which contributes to changes in perception of the audio. This falls under the category of proper headphone fit and placement as others here have alluded to.

 

[kags]

I should clarify that breakdown of the pads with time contributes to a decrease in distance between ear and driver as well, which contributes to changes in perception of the audio. This falls under the category of proper headphone fit and placement as others here have alluded to.

I replace the ear pads on my HD650s about every 12 months. I buy them from Sennheiser for about 50 bucks. I probably wear them 20 hours a week and I wear glasses, so the pads wear out in about a year. Definitely worthwhile!

I also use Sonarworks SoundID and sometimes CanOpener, though Sonarworks has an “add-on” now that includes binaural virtual environmentls. I’m still getting the hang of that idea.

 

[svyet]

That mirrors my usage. HD600s, 20hrs a week, glasses, new pads once a year. Worthwhile indeed! I got my last new set of pads for just under $42 shipped.

I don't currently have any justification for the new add-ons in Sonarworks, but I'm interested in how their new speaker/room sims compare to CanOpener. CanOpener has been very good to me.