Guitar Gear Forum

I need both but which should I get first? I can not afford both.

Not sure which are more accurate for mixing.

Was looking at AKG 701 for the headphones and I have no idea what I should get for monitors but I need a bang for your buck type of deal. They cheaper the better with a $200 max.

I use Audio Technica ath-m50 ..love these cans ! for cheaper monitors KRK's nice bang for the buck

The gospel is generally that monitors are much better for mixing in every situation ever...but I don't really abide by that. In an untreated room with really bad acoustics (i.e. pretty much most bedrooms in apartments and houses), headphones can actually be more viable IMO, as long as you get a really good pair. But most of the good stuff will be high impedance and you need a really good headphone amp to get the most out of them (the difference is really in sound quality, not just volume -- I used to read about that and think it was mainly audiophile bullshit but it really is true, with my Beyerdynamic DT 880s, there's a gigantic difference between using an audio interface with a decent headphone amp and an onboard sound card, especially in the low end). Judging the sub-lows may be tricky (but my DT880s somehow seem to defy physics and reach WAY down into the lows), but you can compensate by taking a peek at frequency analyzers every now and then and listening on other systems.

If you have a treated room (and I mean you actually know what you're doing, not just randomly throwing absorbers around), then good monitors will probably be a better choice. But it seems that good monitors are disproportionately more expensive than good headphones, so that's another reason headphones can be a decent option if your setup isn't ideal.

Headphones are fucking worthless. No serious engineer is mixing with headphones unless used as a reference.

Oh yeah, as for cheap monitors if you decide to go that route, the Equator D5s are probably the best thing in that price range (although they're selling for $400 new these days it looks like, but maybe you can snag them close to $200 used). I like them a lot, but they seem to be more directional than most monitors, so finding a way to get them up to ear level is a must. Honestly I think that buying monitors for $200 or cheaper would just be a waste of money if you can't stretch your budget for some used D5s, so if you can't, I'd go for headphones once again.

Telephant wrote:Headphones are fucking worthless. No serious engineer is mixing with headphones unless used as a reference.

I agree if you've got great monitors and a great room at your disposal (and serious mixing engineers usually do ). And I mean serious top notch stuff. But for mixing at home in an untreated room, and even in partially treated rooms (since legit treatment will cost as much, if not more, than good monitors), spending a lot of money on good monitors is pretty much a waste of money (and spending a little bit of money is usually a waste too since the monitors will likely suck anyway). Good monitors will never make up for a crappy room that's obscuring the real frequency response. There are tons of shitty cans out there but there are a lot that are truly really good. It's just that a ton of them are manufactured to sound hi-fi (i.e. shit), even "studio" ones since they often are meant more for tracking than mixing. But there are some fucking amazing ones out there designed with mixing in mind, even for relatively cheap (my DT880s blow my mind and they were like $300).

Markdude wrote:

Telephant wrote:Headphones are fucking worthless. No serious engineer is mixing with headphones unless used as a reference.

I agree if you've got great monitors and a great room at your disposal (and serious mixing engineers usually do ). And I mean serious top notch stuff. But for mixing at home in an untreated room, and even in partially treated rooms (since legit treatment will cost as much, if not more, than good monitors), spending a lot of money on good monitors is pretty much a waste of money (and spending a little bit of money is usually a waste too since the monitors will likely suck anyway). Good monitors will never make up for a crappy room that's obscuring the real frequency response. There are tons of shitty cans out there but there are a lot that are truly really good. It's just that a ton of them are manufactured to sound hi-fi (i.e. shit), even "studio" ones since they often are meant more for tracking than mixing. But there are some fucking amazing ones out there designed with mixing in mind, even for relatively cheap (my DT880s blow my mind and they were like $300).

Yep serious engineers have good rooms... Once I got out of engineering I had my decent monitors at home in the office. Hated trying to mix on those - switched over to my Sennheiser HD 650s and I do better with them. Even when I had a good environment I would do the first rough pass under cans if there were a bunch of tracks to work through.

Believe it though if I can get a room treated and setup right I will be back to monitors in a heartbeat.

I don't know, headphones are wrapped around your ears. I think that alone makes a huge difference. Even in an untreated room I would vastly prefer monitors.

I also admit to having a hatred for headphones, especially while tracking guitar. It always sound like shit and not at all representive of whats in the room yet that same track always sounds better through monitors.

If someone was learning to mix I would advocate monitors just cause it sounds more natural.

Course its entirely subjective.

Telephant wrote:I don't know, headphones are wrapped around your ears. I think that alone makes a huge difference. Even in an untreated room I would vastly prefer monitors.

I also admit to having a hatred for headphones, especially while tracking guitar. It always sound like shit and not at all representive of whats in the room yet that same track always sounds better through monitors.

If someone was learning to mix I would advocate monitors just cause it sounds more natural.

Course its entirely subjective.

Oh I agree about tracking - I would rather do it with a mix cube than under cans

Actually my favorite is tracking with the amp in the same room wound up to nasty.... It's like bullfighting (that's what I used to tell people but not sure it makes sense )

Definitely monitors...

then check with several pairs of normal headphones

Telephant wrote:I don't know, headphones are wrapped around your ears. I think that alone makes a huge difference. Even in an untreated room I would vastly prefer monitors.

I also admit to having a hatred for headphones, especially while tracking guitar. It always sound like shit and not at all representive of whats in the room yet that same track always sounds better through monitors.

If someone was learning to mix I would advocate monitors just cause it sounds more natural.

Course its entirely subjective.

It does make a difference in the stereo field (although most cans designed for mixing are open eared or semi open eared, which makes a big difference), but IMO frequency response of a mix is way more important than getting the stereo balance absolutely perfect (you can guest-imate a lot of things with the stereo field, especially with rock where it's usually overheads and guitars hard L and R, toms tweaked to roughly match the OHs, and everything else up the center unless you get creative with verbs and delays). And I think good monitors with a bad room still make it WAY hard to judge frequency content, plus most bedroom guys don't even do the measurements to set up an equilateral triangle with the monitors and their listening position, so their stereo field is fucked anyway.

I used to feel the same way about cans but I had just never tried any good ones. Like I mentioned, the vast majority are designed for either hi-fi listening or DJ shit or tracking, so they all sound like crap. But there are some amazing ones meant for mixing that are fucking incredible, they make me swear I'm listening to great monitors in a great room. The hate that cans get in the recording world is really outdated and honestly I think it's another one of those things that a couple of guys said and then a billion n00bs with no experience on the internet repeated it ad nauseam (like "BROS YOU MUST HI PASS EVERYTHING BUT BASS AND KICK ALL THE TIME NO MATTER WHAT") and then it became a 'thing'. Sure the pros don't use them much (although I do hear many talk about using them extensively for making detailed edits, because they can be really revealing with things like clips from non-zero crossing splices) other than A/Bing with different setups, but they got world class gear and rooms so why would they? There's really nothing wrong with using them for amateur bedroom stuff, and I really think a great pair of cans (but it really does need to be the right ones, not just any cans over $x) is a better choice than many, many monitors in a shitty room.

But the most important thing is knowing your monitors/cans. A pair of 'meh' monitors in a crappy room that you've used for 10 years will probably be a better choice (at least at first) than a brand new pair of nice cans. But if you're starting from nothing, I think a really great pair of cans will be easier to get accustomed to than any monitors in a crappy room.

I tend to agree with Mark here, and not just because he's a dude.

A half decent pair of headphones is a pretty invaluable thing to have. Besides needing them for tracking where you might as well be comfortable and be able to hear stuff, once you get to know them they're really handy because you can work in any situation - I've been doing editing work in my little study/ tiny 3rd bedroom and speakers in there are pretty much a waste of time. Plus with headphones you're not bothering everyone else - getting the playback up to the ~85dB needed to defeat the fletcher-munson curve is a pain unless you've got the right situation going on.

That said I don't like mixing in them, even if they're flat, because no matter what you do the sound is always strung in a line between your ears (ignoring some terrible bits of clownfuckery that ruin mixes!) which makes it very hard to judge depth in the mix. And that's not just reverb - Panning, EQ choices, compressor settings, overall volume, they are all partly informed by how well the mix gives you a front-to-back picture as well as side by side and headphones pretty much rob you of that perception. I've noticed beginners mixing in headphones also get some strange ideas about what does and doesn't work with panning - that's where you end up with internet wisdom that states "Hard panning is unnatural" etc, which judging by the countless millions of hard panned records enjoyed by music fans is clearly wrong.

In a bad environment - poor speakers and acoustics - I'd probably still set my basic mix using speakers but would reference headphones as well because in that situation nothing else is going to give you a clue what's actually happening in the low end. I'd probably even go so far as to say that headphone-only mixes are less likely to work on speakers than speaker-only mixes are likely to translate to headphones.

Maddnotez, in your situation my priority would probably depend on the room. If it's passable, monitors. If it's not, headphones, then some room treatment, then monitors.

Monitors. I've had some GREAT headphones over the years, various headphone amps, and it doesn't matter how great they are, I can't judge bass/mid balance with headphones worth dick. Give me even an untreated room with relatively flat monitors, keep the volume below normal conversation level, and I do a HELL of a lot better. That said, I still check mixes on good headphones, but I couldn't get anywhere close to a good mix until I moved to monitors. It was really night and day for me.

Yep. Check mixes with cans but the actual mixing is done through monitors. Its the gold standard for a reason.

Hey, I never said headphones are superior to monitors in most situations, or even very many situations at all. If you have a good room, then of course monitors are the way to go (so for any kind of professional work, of course monitors are the standard). But in a shitty, tiny room, they can be the uh...least sucky option. Especially since at the same price point, the quality of headphones is generally substantially higher than monitors of that price. Plus putting really nice monitors in a crappy room is, once again, a total waste.

Monitors are the way to go the vast majority of the time, but for a ghetto bedroom studio, headphones can be the better option. I just think the hate/automatic dismissal they get is outdated, unjustified, and perpetuated by people who just repeat things they read on the internet (i.e. Gearslutz ) without getting significant experience.

Really, this kinda boils down to the philosophy that pops up with photographers argue about gear -- the best camera is the one you have with you. Monitors/headphones can be the same way -- the best ones are the ones that you own right now because you can dive in NOW, just get to work and start using them and learning them.

But that being said, I think doing said learning on headphones can be a good choice for a far less than ideal mixing environment. And as for checking low end, I agree about sub-lows (although those are hard even with non-huge monitors too), but if you can't tell what's going on with the lows or low mids, it's your particular headphones and/or your headphone amp that's the culprit. Some headphones can reach down and provide amazing detail in the lows and low mids (I keep mentioning my DT880s for that, I love them), you just have to do your research. But there is a night and day difference between a good headphone amp and a bad one, and the low end is heavily affected, so that's part of the equation too. It will be very neutered without a decent amount of power from a low impedance output. And I've actually heard of some pros checking SPECIFICALLY for how the low and low mid balance is on cans even after using monitors, since that's the area most affected by standing waves in even a decently treated room.

personally, i'd get monitors over cans any day. i wouldn't live without BOTH, honestly.. but since you can't... you can get far better resolving cans for $200 than monitors- and in this sitch, resolution is probably more important than an economically compromised monitor.

i use a set of beyer dt770's which are in your budget, and they've translated pretty well outwards-- but with monitoring of any kind it's always a learning curve-- and you're gonna need to check all your mixes on lots of other systems until you REALLY know what's going on. that distinguishes their use from monitors.. umm.. not at all you're ALWAYS gonna need to learn your system/room and it's idiosyncrasies-- so in this instance, i'd go with the highest fidelity you can afford-- and despite it being 180 degrees the opposite of what i'd do usually-- which is recommend the best monitors you can possibly afford-- your budget doesn't let you get very far, and at best, you'd find used 5"ers. at least a set of good cans would be full range, and compatible with whatever room you have.

i know a lot of people doing great with AT m50's, beyer 770's or 880's, i also like using grado sr80's-- but they're mostly for midrange, and sony 75xx's, AKG k240's... stuff like that. but when y'can afford it-- find your way to some monitors, 'cause they'll give you way better spatial information than cans, and let you get away from them a bit so you get a better read on what you're doing.

not that i gave you anything this crew didn't already-- but yeah- my 2c!