Headphone Studio Mixing

Good Studio headphone....

As a composer, recording artist and 20-year veteran of big recording studios, I had been looking for a reliable headphone to use during the mixing and mastering process in my new home studio (I have great reference speakers, but I like to mix at night, and this helps keep peace in the neighborhood). Yeah, I know and I've read in every magazine and online source that you can't mix with headphones. WRONG. The K 701s provide superbly reliable reproduction of instrumental music during tracking and mixing (bleed during tracking can, of course, be an issue with the 701s...if your mic is close to your headphones during recording, you need a closed-back headphone...I use my Sennheiser HD 280 Pro headphones for those kind of tracking applications). But mixing and mastering is where the 701s are worth more than twice the price. Finally...reliably true sound (no phony extra bass, etc.), no ear fatigue (even after a 6-hour mixing session), and the price, especially from B&H, is on the money. I buy all kinds of recording gear from MIDI controllers to outboard effects processors, etc. Nothing I've ever purchased has made me feel as good about spending my hard-earned money. If you are a WORKING (home) studio musician and you want your next CD to sound professional...mix it using these, and it will. PS: I'm a struggling musician and recording pro, NOT an audiophile. I like things that work, that last and that sound good. That's why I like my 701s.

I made a 10-song mixing with this headphone and... I hit it right the first time! The songs sounded great on other equipment. I was surprised with the quality. Recommend!

These are staple in my studio for general mixing and production work.

I do home studio mixing and this unit is very nice looking and performs smoothly.

I was looking for a headphone cradle to add to my mixing desk. I already have several of the Auray headphone holders for my mic stands when tracking and this one looked good online. I couldn't be more happy. It fits the thickness of my desk with ease, it's very sturdy and the padded cradle is easy on my A-T mixing headphones. Highly reccommended.

Great value headphone monitors with a flat frequency response for accurate audio mixing. Buying a second pair now.

I have ath-m50 and ath-m50x. Comparing both of them, this is definitely lighter and more comfortable. If you have extra bucks, I'd say get m50x. I use this headphone for mixing and mastering and for its price, the quality is great. Worth it!

I've looking for a headphone who helps me to listen for details when I mixing live bands. When you are mixing on a stage wich SPL of the band is about 110 dB you need something that isolate the stage sound from your ears. And the isolation of this headphone is fantastic. Altough, the frequency response is also amazing too, with no coloration.

Reference has breathed new life into my Sony MDR-V6's which have been faithfully serving me for more than 10 years. The only qualm I've had with the Sony's are an apparent sibilance, even if it can be pleasant at times. Reference improves that problem (including an issue with bass) to flatten the response. This has helped immensely with mixing, but has also made general listening more enjoyable and less fatiguing. SONARWORKS has reviewed lots of headphones and rated them based on their before and after calibration performance, so if you're on the market for new headphones, that might be a good starting point for reference. They also offer an additional service for individual calibration which requires sending your headphones in so they can produce a personal profile for your headphones, as opposed to using the general profiles included with the software (you can also purchase a new pre-calibrated pair from them). That's all of course if you're looking for some kind of edge and really find yourself doing a great deal of work on headphones; it could certainly be worth the extra cost particularly for mastering headphones. Pairing this software with something like CanOpener (to simulate monitor crossfeed) will put you pretty close to a solid monitor mixing environment, so this is incredible software particularly for compact or mobile headphone-centric setups, or as a compliment to a studio setup that utilizes headphones in any critical way. Looking forward to using it with new headphones when the time comes. Highly recommended. Be sure to check the full headphone compatibility list to be sure they at least have a general profile for your particular model.