Are Your Headphones/Monitors Lying To You?

[Lechmere]

I've often wondered, who's telling me the truth when it comes to my guitar tones?

I'm currently using a pair of Sennheiser HD600s for the purposes of monitoring my recordings. I like them, but I'm also growing increasingly suspicious of them as well.

Let me explain...

I'll record something, listen back to it on the Senns, and the recorded material will sound the same as what I was hearing when I was recording it. I will then play what I recorded through some cheap desktop speakers. Why? B/c they brutally accent anything glaringly wrong w/ the tone, like big 300Hr woofs or those icepick 2K whistles, and so I get that immediate feedback.

Anyways, what's interesting is that when I listened to some music through Senns and then listen to the same thing over the desktop speakers it'll sound the "same", and by same I mean it'll sound good, just that much smaller on account of the crappiness of the speakers. But what's got me is that when I play something I recorded using the Senns to monitor back on those same speakers there's always some hugely noticeable difference. Like it'll sound super-scooped, riddled with whistles, or suffering from some massive low-end congestion. But the thing is, I don't hear those same problems when I'm dialing in and recording my tone prior to and during my recording sessions.


What do you suppose gives?

 

[budda]

Two audio sources provided two different sounds

 

[jaxadam]

So that's why I didn't like the Sennheisers and went with the Beyerdynamics. What I was hearing through the Sennheisers actually sounded too good to be true, like they already had a little bit of a V eq going on. The Beyerdynamics sounded very flat and boring.

 

[TedEH]

Your headphones are always lying to you. There's no such thing as "flat" headphones, no matter how good they are. And I'd argue that monitors are also always lying to you. Even the best monitors that produce the flattest and "true"-est output will have limitations, and be subject to the listening environment.

So the best you can do is check things against all of the contexts you expect to hear your sound in, and do the best you can to compensate accordingly.

 

[profwoot]

The point of the mixing and mastering process is to make your music sound as good as possible from any audio source. So in many cases things sound worse through monitors, which are designed to sound accurate, vs your headphones which are designed to sound good.

 

[Lechmere]

So that's why I didn't like the Sennheisers and went with the Beyerdynamics. What I was hearing through the Sennheisers actually sounded too good to be true, like they already had a little bit of a V eq going on. The Beyerdynamics sounded very flat and boring.

Which model of Beyerdynamics are you using?

 

[nightsprinter]

To feel like I'm combating some of the coloring that phones/monitors add, I use this https://www.sonarworks.com/soundid-reference

ymmv

 

[jaxadam]

Which model of Beyerdynamics are you using?

DT770 Pro 80 ohm.

 

[Grindspine]

The point of the mixing and mastering process is to make your music sound as good as possible from any audio source. So in many cases things sound worse through monitors, which are designed to sound accurate, vs your headphones which are designed to sound good.

QFT

After I record, I will mix using my KRK Rokits, then test through my Bose desktop speakers, then my Sony cans. A properly mixed & mastered recording should sound decent through various speaker systems. If you hear something harsh in one set of speakers, see if you can mix it out and still have a good mix across a few different speaker sets.

 

[Not The Same as Yours]

The problem is not the headphones is the psycho acoustic effect of listening to them. The brain models itself to whatever source of information one is receiving compensating the blanks it needs filled in. Get several types of headphones to get a grasp of what the mix sounds like.