You seem to be confusing two things here. Flat response still means they have a full range to respond to, including bass frequencies, but that in doing so they don't artificially colour the sound.

"Bassy" solutions are coloured to over emphasise the bass (such as KRK). Mixing on these will make the bass sound good only on these systems as once you put the mix through a system with 'normal' speakers or coloured differently to, say, KRK, then it won't sound the same. The reason for using flat response monitoring is to remove this customised 'colour' the manufacturer adds to their speakers. It doesn't mean you can't hear the bass or can't have a sub and so on so that you can hear and mix the bass, it just means the bass isn't falsely reproduced that will mislead your mix and allows you to hear it transparently without the 'colouring'.

And of course, you would reference your mix across other systems once you're happy with it, with car stereos being the old school go to, but you can obviously test on smartphone headphones, TVs, surround sound speakers, PC speakers etc. That is common practice and always has been, and you don't need special 'bassy' solutions to do this as most people won't have that. This is why solutions like Sonarworks, VRM box, plugin reference tools etc exist, i.e. to simulate these environments without physically needing to go to the car or put the mp3/wav of your track through various systems.

If you rely on the bassy speakers for your mix you will normally end up with a mix lacking bass and punch for most systems out there unless the listener has a bass heavy system using the same or similar colouration to whatever 'bassy' solution you have used to mix on. This is why you need to 100% always use flat response speakers and avoid coloured speakers, especially ones that are more "bassy".

 

Last edited: Apr 30, 2017

I use Audio-Technica ATH-M50 and they are great sounding cans. The low end response is very satisfying to my taste.
As usual, all this is very subjective to our own individual perception.

 

You dont want bassy headphones for mixing, it will fuck up your mix on other systems.
You need accurate bass. Grab the Akg 702 if you need real life bass, you get it right on those headphones it will translate well on other systems as well. Get sr850 samson if you are on a low budget, its almost a clone.

 

That's what you want:

 

I've wanted one of these for ages. Apparently Richie Hawtin uses one of these, but he is an absolute tech nerd beyond most!

http://subpac.com/supporters/richie-hawtin-plastikman/

 

Your post explains everything very well. But I quote this sentence, because I assume that linear response is the reason why so many bedroom producers make extremely bass heavy mixes. Most of them are just too bassy. Maybe for those some bass accented headphones would be the better mixing solution.
Btw., I always check a mix after I consider it done with my beloved Sony MDR-XD 100. It was super cheap ($20), but due to their true ferrite magnets they produce a powerful, balanced sound (with a nice warm bass!). Also, you can hear(!) without issues frequencies as low as 30 Hz, which helps you tracking those unneeded but energy-wasting ultra-low frequencies.

 

Possibly. Though, a lot of bedroom producers nowadays thinks bass + loud = better and lose all sense of dynamics by compressing and limiting the fuck out of everything. I think a lot of it is over representing the bass because they think that is what's "best".

My point was that if you use bass heavy speakers to mix on, you will end up with a mix fitting that speakers' colouring. If you then play on a sound system without colouring and a flatter response, the bass colouring is removed and you will notice that your mix lacks bass and punch as the bass was put into your mix by the speaker colouring rather than mixed in by yourself, if that makes sense? That was the point I was trying to make in that sentence.

I usually just copy a track to my Samsung Galaxy S7 and play through my cheap Sony and Sennheiser earbud headphones, through AUX on my lounge Sony speaker system and then plug it in to my car's Pioneer stereo via bluetooth (which naturally degrades the track quality). If it translates well across all, I know I am in the right ball park bar any refinements I pick up.

PS the range of human hearing is 20Hz to 20kHz, which is why this is the bandwidth displayed on most EQs etc. However, that is not to say you should cut off anything above or below that as you have harmonics that have a resonance and knock on to other frequencies in the hearing range that you will lose.

 

I bought the AT AT-M50's for about 100 bucks. They're pretty bassy for budget headphones. They're not super flat though. Pretty good, but definitely more colored. I bought some AKGs from Andrew several months after the AT's and they sounded funny to me until I realized they sound more like my monitors than the AT's.

 

I'd agree with this. I use the Audio Technica ATH-M50X Limited Edition headphones myself running through Sonarworks. Here is the Sonarworks curve for them:

 

Yeah this is pretty much how I "hear" them. Lots of lows, slight exaggeration in the mids, and a bit sibilant. Took me a little while to 'untrain' myself from thinking this is how stuff is supposed to sound. I'm still correcting (and sometimes over correcting) some mixing habits that I developed as a result.

That said, as long as you have a solid foundation in mixing and understand they're just one reference to be used with others, I think they're pretty good headphones

 

Yes, I know. But often times you end up with a muddy mix that you can correct in seconds by taking care of the low end. Also, human ears naturally lose high frequency hearing, the older you get. I am already down to 17k (natural for my age). Which means I have to guess from visual representations if the high frequencies are ok. That's something people also tend to forget about.

Yes, I totally understood. That's why I gave your post an "agree".

 

How would you compare the Akg 702 to the MDR-v6?

 

seriously dude... I think you want flat freq response...

besides... every damn pair of headphones these days has the bass boosted.

Honestly though, since many novice people have too much bass... than bass boosted phones might put you in the right spot in the end.

Also, A deep dubstep producer named Quest, started off mixing tracks with those Technics "turntable" headphones... which I can say have the bass boosted on 'em.

So if anyone is telling you to kill yourself instead of mix with headphones... you can tell em to wank off

 

It is very hard to know about bass on headphones.

Some will prefer really flat, but bass are going to be really LOW against a full mix.
Some will prefer the usual bass "bump", to compensate for "ears only" effect. At the risk of being wrong (boost freq and level).

There is NO perfect solution. But if you listen to several references mixes, calibrate using softwares and such, you can get a nice profit from headphones.
First being : there is no room ;)

 

I have no idea
@Andrew might know though.

 

Last edited by a moderator: May 1, 2017

If could get an answer here it would be great, rather than starting another headphone thread.

I know nothing about headphones and power requirements. I'm looking at some ATH-R70x for late night usage and I have no clue if my AI (audio interface) with a headphone output impedance of 30 Ohms will work with them or what to do about if it doesn't. I mean, how does a headphone amp, should I need one, work with an AI?


Specifications *If it helps*

Type Open-back reference

Driver Diameter 45 mm

Frequency Response 5 - 40,000 Hz

Maximum Input Power 1,000 mW at 1 kHz

Sensitivity 99 dB

Impedance 470 ohms

I've tried reading up on this stuff but it's way over head do to my terrible understanding of math and the terms being used. Can anyone help? Please dumb it down.

Hope op doesn't mind my asking in this thread.

 

Maybe some AKG K712 Pro? They have a 3db bass boost over the K701/702, IIRC. They're around 200€ new so maybe you can get a pair used for cheap. Remember all AKGs of this range require some juice to drive them properly.

 

Hi. 470 ohms needs a bunch more to get them up to possibly what you might want to get a suitable listening level depending on your AI. I don"t know what interface you are using as you have not said what it is, but if you wish Audio Technica why not go with the ATH M50X. Though they are not opened back and you might wish that for mixing, they don't need nearly the power to drive them, are tried and true for tracking all over in tons of studios, what I have, use and really have enjoyed for lots of years now.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 29, 2017

I hope the price of these does not scare you off , they actually good enough to master with them great value!
https://www.moon-audio.com/astell-kern-angie-ii-in-ear-monitors-universal-iem.html
https://www.jhaudio.com/
(i use for my portable rig homes)

 

audio technica ath-m40x for a real flat response.

audio technica ath-m20x for a funky bass response.