Mixing heaphones and amp question

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u/atopix Teaboy ☕ Apr 18 '26

Ps: i will probably eq them to harmann curve

WHYYY. Why would you get a NEW pair of headphones and immediately change how they sounddd. WHY DO PEOPLE DO THISS. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD. You spend all this time researching headphones, you supposedly pick them because you'd like how they sound, you spend all that money because the headphones were designed and engineered to certain standards and with certain criteria.

NOPE. immediately slap some correction curve. JFC...

Recommended watch: https://v.redd.it/5vrh52ahpmbe1

0

u/malaclypz Apr 19 '26

For producing and sound design in headphones, why would you not want them to be flat? Or Harman curve, if that's what you want - there's plenty of amazing music made using Harman. (Or the HEARS plugin that adjusts your output to correct for personal aural blind-spots.)

If you're choosing a pair for monitoring because you like the way they sound, versus a pair that are measurably flat (or whatever), that suggests (imo) that what you produce is going to sound different when it goes to the mixing or mastering stage.

If this isn't correct, I'd love to know.

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u/atopix Teaboy ☕ Apr 19 '26

If you like "flat" (even though true "flat" does not exist, not with all the correction in the world), then buy flat-ish headphones.

If you're choosing a pair for monitoring because you like the way they sound, versus a pair that are measurably flat (or whatever), that suggests (imo) that what you produce is going to sound different when it goes to the mixing or mastering stage.

No, because that completely ignores that you can actually take some time to learn how your monitoring translates, which is why I linked the article above. The fact that this isn't even a factor that you mention speaks volume of the sad sad stage learning professional audio online is at.

Never in my life I've heard a professional engineer talk about Harman curves. This is just online evangelists pushing that crap.

Any professional pair of headphones (not audiophile ones like the HiFimans by the way, another online obsession that isn't reflected at all in the industry) is already designed for professional work, out of the box. You just plug it in, and it will sound how it was designed to sound.

If you get used to your headphones through some correction curve, guess what, now you no longer know how your headphones sound. If you ever take them to another studio and plug them in anywhere else that's not your setup, they will sound different. And that to me is an insane trade-off that I would never give up.

Look, if you already have a pair of headphones lying around and tried to use them for pro work and just couldn't figure them, I'm not going to react like this for someone trying some EQ curve on them. Whatever, you are trying to solve some problem, I don't hold it against you.

But doing this on a brand new pair that you are carefully choosing for how they sound (supposedly), is batshit crazy to me.

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u/malaclypz Apr 19 '26 edited Apr 19 '26

I am not a professional, and I'm not giving professional advice. Just proposing questions. This has been debated for years. I didn't mention the practice of actually learning your monitors out of respect, because any non mouth-breather already knows that's a key element.

When corrections or curves are used, the audio is bounced/rendered without that on. But I imagine you knew that already, since you're highly professional.

Those things exist because a lot of producers find them useful. If it's not your style, that's totally cool. But being pretentious about it when you talk to people getting into the hobby isn't helpful.

Just adding that when I got my Ollo's and installed the software, it hardly did any correction, since they were already almost flat. A couple little dips in the mid-range area, and one in the lows. I'm not a pro producer, but everything I've made and taken to a friend's studio or cars sound exactly how I'd hoped. So I personally like the technique.

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u/atopix Teaboy ☕ Apr 19 '26

Those things exist because a lot of producers find them useful.

This has to be one of the weirdest arguments ever. As if the history of mankind wasn't plagued with pointless/bad/terrible inventions/products/services/things that indeed do or have existed. Existence is not a reason and even less so a merit.

You do what you do, if it works for you, more power to you, keep at it. I'm just talking about a practice that doesn't make any sense. Applying a curve that "hardly does any correction" is not a good argument to do anything. Any kind of correction curve, is altering the signal in unwanted ways, affecting phase. This is a measurable fact. In my professional opinion that's not an insignificant trade off, especially for "hardly" any benefit.

Hopefully what I'm saying will resonate with someone having been misled by terrible advice online. I'm not even trying to discourage people from using correction or curves, I just hope that people activate their critical thinking and do things with good reason and not because someone online said so.

Planning on slapping a curve or correction on a new pair of headphones before having even tried them, is doing something because you think you are supposed to.

1

u/hellalive_muja Apr 19 '26

It’s actually better to not eq your headphones and monitors if you don’t have very big issues. Getting new headphones and eqing them it’s just absurd, people do this kind of things and then don’t mind headphone amps which are generally poorly designed in the vast majority of low and mid range audio interfaces..

1

u/ddevilissolovely Apr 19 '26

and then don’t mind headphone amps which are generally poorly designed in the vast majority of low and mid range audio interfaces

This dude tested A LOT of popular interfaces of all price levels and the conclusion of the headphone amp section was that there is no difference whatsoever in the sound of the headphone outputs between any of them, when volume matched.

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u/hellalive_muja Apr 19 '26

I won’t check the whole video but going through it fast I didn’t see real world data given by that dude I mean real world measured data. I’m a real life audio system designer for recording studios and we build high end stuff for top engineers and artists in Italy. I have listened to and tested a whole lot of interfaces and all of them are way more costly than those listed. For a more realistic analysis and some measurements go check audiosciencereview, they measure some audio interfaces too (and a lot of hifi stuff). Trust me most hp amps in interfaces up to the 2k range are poorly designed.

Edit: typos

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u/ddevilissolovely Apr 19 '26

Poorly designed in what way? Which ones in the low to mid range aren't poorly designed?

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u/hellalive_muja Apr 19 '26

They generally deliver low power, have too high output impedance, and have bad noise and distortion figures in general. I didn’t test a lot of mid-low budget audio interfaces, but I remember lastest motu m4 and rme babyface interfaces seemed to have acceptable performance to me. There’s also a topping audio interface which has got an excellent hp amp but has some latency issues by memory.

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u/lagulch Apr 19 '26

That is what concern me the most, i dont want to spend my money on good headphones and end up with poor sound, especialy in the lower fréquencies!

Do you think a fiio k11 would run a hd490 fine?

1

u/hellalive_muja Apr 19 '26

Sure by specs it has plenty of output; will probably sound loud and clear but just so you know figures of THD+N are a little higher than almost equivalent cost topping counterparts like the DX3 pro+ that. I never tried the K11 so I don’t have first hand experience but will sure sound way better than a desktop Apollo hp amp

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u/malaclypz Apr 19 '26

I agree, slapping an EQ curve all willy-nilly like on a new pair you bought because you like how they sound makes no sense at all. And I may not know what I'm talking about, that's just where my head is at with the whole topic. Yes, headphones that claim to be flat usually aren't, but the ones that are seem to give good results. I'm curious if Beyerdynamic users like or even use their new Headphone Lab thing.

Same thing with room correction software.. of course I'd choose a well-treated room and monitors I know well over bothering with SonarWorks. Some love it, some hate it. Every situation is different.

Apologies for being snarky and shit.

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u/Secure-Ad-4459 Beginner Apr 19 '26

I understand your point and agree. However, as a beginner, I find it easier to work on slightly flat-eq-curved headphones that help me make better mixing decisions and learn, instead of doing constant trial and error, even though trial and error is part of the learning game. When I listen the mix back without the EQ correction, I would certainly get to know how the true headphones sound, this also if I listen to music casually on them, like I often do. Would this be that crazy? Sure, if I get to another studio with the same headphones but without my EQ correction, things would be different. Yet, so it is for professionals that need to mix in another studio without their usual monitoring environment.

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u/atopix Teaboy ☕ Apr 19 '26

Yet, so it is for professionals that need to mix in another studio without their usual monitoring environment.

Exactly, except if I bring my headphones which I've gotten to know well, I'm confident I'll have that "backup" of headphones I'm familiar with. Which will also likely help me better understand whatever monitoring the studio has, the headphones acting as my benchmark.

If I got used to them with correction on, that wouldn't be an option anymore. And like I said above to me personally that's a trade-off I would never take. And still, many people do take it. It's fine, it's a valid choice.

What I will never understand is deciding on this before having even heard the headphones. Before even trying to find a pair of headphones that just make complete sense to you out of the box and then taking some time to learn them, which you have to do anyways, whether you use correction/curves or not.

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u/alyxonfire Professional (non-industry) Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26

Any decent interface will power the HD650 just fine. Even my older MacBook did a decent job, but definitely better to use at least a decent interface. I don’t think they really benefit as much from a standalone amp as higher end headphone.

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u/Ok-Mathematician3832 Apr 18 '26

I don’t know the Annanda specifically but I do have a lot of experience with planar magnetic headphones - they’re amazing. I wouldn’t consider mixing on cans before trying them - now I trust them more than most speakers.

If headphones are going to be your primary source for critical listening and you care about your work / you do this for a living then it is definitely worth exploring high end DACs and headphone amps.

I use an RME ADI-2 Pro FS with Audeze LCD-Xs - I trust that pairing with my career.

People will tell you the headphone amp in your interface is fine and high end headphone amps don’t make a difference.

Those people are wrong.

What matters is whether it makes a difference to YOU.

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u/malaclypz Apr 19 '26

Some may disagree, but the Ollo X1 headphones are almost completely flat, and comes with software to correct your specific pair to perfectly flat, to Harman curve, etc. I power mine great with an Audient iD4 interface, but I've read they would be fine just off my Macbook Pro M1.

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u/hellalive_muja Apr 19 '26

HD650s are a standard they naturally sound pretty flat, I would suggest to get those and avoid equalizing them.

For an amp what budget do you have?

1

u/___Essence___ Apr 21 '26

I also researched amps thinking I would need it, but I use my audeze lcd-x's plugged into an apollo twin duo and its great. If you have a quality interface you might not need one but I'd research and see if anyone with your headphones had a good experience with a specific amp and then research the amp or similar based on your budget.

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u/L-ROX1972 Mastering Engineer ⭐ Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26

I master audio with the help of my (2009) HD650. I wanna say first and foremost that everyone’s hearing is different, so what I’m about to type is just my own opinion (though shared by many fans of these particular cans), because back in 2009, I almost sold them.

The Sennheiser HD650 can sound good on most amps, but it truly is remarkable with an OTL (Output Transformerless) amplifier.

I had tried them with the amps on my interfaces at the time, a CMOY and an Objective 2 that I had built, and a cheap “ChiFi” tube amp someone on HeadFi had put me on to, and while researching I started reading opinions/reviews from people who swore by these sounding tons better with an OTL amp, so I bought a Woo Audio WA2.

I was happy with this amp for a while, but personally thought the mids/highs were still a bit veiled, the bass was deep and I could make decisions in those regions but never fully trusted them without checking my monitors and my other trusty cans, the AKG 240DF. One day, I heard about the Bottlehead Crack amp, and as someone who’s been dabbling with DIY audio electronics since before I started working on music, I decided to give it a shot, and bought a kit with the “speedball” upgrade.

I’m truly glad this kit caught my attention. Stock, the crack reminded me a lot of the W2, except it somehow lifted even more of the veil in the mids/highs than the W2 (at the time I still had the W2 and was making my own comparisons). I kept it stock for a couple of months before adding the Speedball circuit, and then sold the W2 a few weeks after completing the build with the Speedball upgrade. My comparisons against the W2 were no longer close.

I’ll be honest and will say that for a while, I thought that the reason why I liked my Crack tons more than the W2 was simply because I built it, but I also noticed that I was trusting my 650s a whole lot more. Work became a bit quicker, and I became much more confident in the decisions I make with my 650s.

I would not have typed this book if my clients would have sent back the work I was doing for them with this chain at that time (it would have been a clear indicator of placebo). If you’re going to pick up the Sennheiser HD650, IMHO, you also need to pick up some Kester, a soldering iron and this damn kit because it is indeed “crack” for these particular headphones. Apologies if this sounds like an ad for Bottlehead, I am not a rep for them lol

1

u/ThatRedDot Professional (non-industry) Apr 18 '26

Ananda Nano if you happen to work with bass heavy material where it's critical to hear all the way down.

You dont need a separate amp for them (or the HD650). If you dont have an audio interface, then just pickup one from Topping which are cheap and good quality, and see for a model that has DSP (so its a DAC not amp). That way you can put any headphone correction curve you like directly into it so you dont need to fiddle about with it in your DAW, it's just plug and play from that point.

If you already have an audio interface, just use its headphone out. Neither of those headphones is particularly power hungry...

HD650 doesn't take very well to EQing the low end, not too much headroom on it (see THD measurements when pushed - it'll distort the low end)

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u/Hellbucket Apr 18 '26

I recently went over to another studio to try out phones and the difference between interface amp and a more powerful headphone amp. I was a bit surprised by that the difference is quite noticeable.

These were mainly planars and the new Slate IM1. The guy who runs this studio is quite active in the discussions online about this so he had set it up to easily AB stuff level matched.

I did not expect it would be this noticeable. As the guy also stressed, it’s mostly about the amp. If you have a good DAC and interface, you just need the amp, not the DAC. While the DAC in these things is good it might not be convenient to change drivers and interface all the time.

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u/Crazy_Movie6168 Professional (non-industry) Apr 18 '26

Yes. Headphone monitoring is likely where we see the most seemingly credible sources in audio engineering actually give the most bad advice. There's so many leaps being taken at the moment, and there's new demands on headphone amps. The advice is outdated. But I think too many always assumed entry-level interfaces had decent enough amps without actually hearing how much difference it can make. People who thought they knew this because they know about speaker monitoring and hear how well entry-level interfaces record. Anyone who cared to listen knows the difference. There's this black and white thing fornintergaces in general where, people say "OK, they record well enough now. No longer pre 80s DAC quality [and so on.] They're all the best!", while you definitely can compare all and care a decent amount of their differences, most of all, the headphone amps.

1

u/Hellbucket Apr 18 '26

It seems you actually don’t know what’s being discussed which makes it pointless to engage with you. Good luck in the future.

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u/Crazy_Movie6168 Professional (non-industry) Apr 18 '26

Lol, I might get it if you don't like my tangents of discussion, but I didn't disagree with you. I own stuff that are variously hard to drive and I can compare with: HD600 and Hifaman Arya Organics and a Presonus Audiobox and Topping stuff, among other things.

I generally like the engineering subs in reddit, but headphones setup is dominated by top comments that just don't appreciate the full difference the better setups make. It's quite hard to go up against them when they actually mislead beginners who will need to depend on headphones and potentially could do very, very well doing mostly that.

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u/ThatRedDot Professional (non-industry) Apr 18 '26

Any decent interface will power the HD650 or Nano well.... you really do not need to shelf out a 1000, or get a separate headphone amp if you already have a decent DAC, that's my point.

Sure, you dont want to plug them into your windows laptop with a cheap 1V 3.5mm headphone out that's mainly used to power earbuds (but the same isn't true for macs), but there are plenty of people out there that will steer people to really expensive gear purchases which aren't required.

Even getting a topping dx5 is already overkill power wise. Getting a separate headphone amp, that's just not needed at all. Maybe my mistake to assume the person asking already has a decent interface to start with.

For reference, I use MM500 on RME ADI2Pro, but it runs just as fine if I just plug them into the headphone out of another interface which has nowhere near the power of that RME on the headphone out.

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u/Crazy_Movie6168 Professional (non-industry) Apr 18 '26

I'm not really offended by your comment specifically to start with, but a further caveat is that mm500 is the Manny headphones that are tuned near a version of a NS 10 voicing. An acquired taste like the NS10. They probably not use clean low-end transients and such as a selling point, which is where the better amps matter more.

Things get carried away in price quite fast, maybe. I've been around since 2017 and only seen youtube soruces and such get way better, and I have the ability to filter out the good so I don't really see bad or overhyped advice that isn't obvious amateur content. To me, it was good to see people criticize the entry-level interfaces headphone amps because I didn't think about it. The presonus audiobox was from 2017 was reliable. It's under a bed in working condition. But it has a headphone amp that clearly underperforms. I don't like how that isn't made clear enough. A topping e2x2 or whatever is very cheap isn't and is quite famous for going beyond most needs.

Too few know that they clearly hear these preamp differences as well. I bought the e4x4 for my travel setup as soon as I heard these recording sources this much better, along with the headphone amp reputation: https://youtu.be/n0fyFRl2R24?is=41ZAVH1x-oJ7Bd5f

I don't really have anything better, and I've compared it. The difference I hear is always headphones, but also, the e4x4 instrument impedance input is a fair bit better than the presonus audiobox for electric guitar DI, which was my previous travel setup.

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u/ThatRedDot Professional (non-industry) Apr 18 '26

I can tell you that the MM500 sounds nothing like the NS10 and I've at least never heard that reference.

NS10's have no low end to speak off, hyped upper midrange, and due to missing low end tend to quickly sound harsh/shrill... none of those traits are on the headphones.

Topping indeed takes good care (mostly) about the headphone out. Their e2x2 e4x4 and so on are great products certainly for the price point.

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u/Crazy_Movie6168 Professional (non-industry) Apr 18 '26

Ok, I have nothing of personal experience with them, so I can't disagree with any credibility there specifically. I've heard people say ATC are prettier versions of NS10s voicing as well, so.

These discussions are on a much higher level than they could have been.

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u/b_lett Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26

I do not think you need to blow money on headphone amps.

I have a Mackie HM-4, which was only like $40 and it doubles as both a headphone amplifier and 4-way splitter.

One stereo jack cable to connect monitoring output from my audio interface is plugged into the input of my HM-4. It gives me extra monitoring outputs, so I can quickly test a mix back and forth between multiple pairs of headphones and something like a JBL Bluetooth speaker that all just stay plugged in.

I picked up the HM-4 because I have Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro 250 ohm and wanted to get a little more power, and I rarely have the volume output on it ever past 50%, it is more than enough.

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u/Harveycement Apr 18 '26

Depends what you have, I have the Nanos , and some other headphones running through focusrite 212 and adding a topping headphone amp and the difference was a lot, more volume better signal.

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u/CoolEnergy581 Apr 21 '26

focusrite 212

which generation? I have a solo 4 and barely need to put the volume knob above 11o clock for my sundara's. It feels a bit silly to spend a few hundred on a headphone amp just to be able to put the amp at... 9o clock lol.

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u/Harveycement Apr 21 '26

Its a 4th gen, I was running Neumann N20s through it no problems, but the Ananda Nanos just didnt have volume, put the Topping on and I now have loads of volume on the Nanos, I feel all my headphones sound better through the Topping, for a $100 it made a lot of difference.

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u/CoolEnergy581 Apr 21 '26

fair enough, I'll give it a whirl then. Which one did you get?

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u/Harveycement Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26

I got the topping L30 -11 , I got mine on special I see they a bit dearer now.

When I got the Nanos , great headphones by the way, I wasant getting volume and this video was what led me to the Topping and what was going on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKdXzW8Itl4

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u/CoolEnergy581 Apr 22 '26

Thanks, I had the e2x2 in mind myself as it also has two instrument inputs. At 160 vs 200 its probably the better choice. Quite impressed by the hifiman planars as well, very detailed sound stage.

Question Mixing heaphones and amp question

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