What are the advantages-- and disadvantages--- of headphones listening?

[rasputin1963]

Headphones can be amazing things... they are immersive, they exclude outer sounds, they let you hear fine details and stereo placements. Whatever "spatial" illusions the producer was trying to create... is all in your head, so to speak.

 

Then again, listening to recorded music on speakers-- especially if played loud and in a big architectural environment--- is a whole 'nother experience, too.

 

There was a nightclub I used to go to where they played all 60's and 70's hits on a huge, high quality sound system in a cavernous room, a live DJ very thoughtfully spinning and blending the records. I was in my 30's by that time, listening to the songs of my childhood, and it was almost like hearing these songs for the first time. Some recordings "bloom" in a big space in a way that you'll just never appreciate from listening with headphones.

 

So: What are the advantages and disadvantages of listening with headphones...? Including, I must add, the very real stress and potential damage done to your ear apparatus?

 

 

[Mark L]

When I listen to music I like to give it (out of respect to the artist/band) my full attention. The only way I can do this is by using headphones or earphones. There are no distractions. That's how I like it

 

I mix with headphones, too. Always have done, for good or ill

 

The only time I listen to music through speakers is when I'm driving

 

 

[MikeRivers]

Advantage: Nobody has to know what you're listening to

 

Disadvantage: (at least for me) discomfort after a while. I have a pointy head - headphones don't fit and my mother told me not to put beans in my ears.

 

I only listen on headphones when I can't use loudspeakers.

[Notes_Norton]

For me, it depends on what I'm listening to and why I'm doing the listening.

 

Advantage is total concentration on the music.

 

Disadvantages (1) too easy to blow out your ears [of course you can do this with speakers, too, but with a sound level meter at least you know you are doing it] (2) without room acoustics (reflections and whatever) it can sometimes sound too sterile.

 

There is a time for each.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

[Anderton]

From a professional standpoint, headphones for editing while mixing and reality checks while mastering, speakers for final judgement. I've found that a mix that sounds great on headphones may or may not sound great on speakers, but a mix that sounds great on speakers always sounds good on headphones.

 

For fun listening, it depends...I like headphones for the immersion aspect, but cranking my 8" Les Paul monitors provides a certain level of sonic satisfaction. For some reason I'm very partial to listening to classical music over speakers, it just doesn't sound right on headphones.

[Mandolin Picker]

Advantages - I can listen to the tracks I working on over and over and over again, without my wife screaming "Play something else, will ya!!!":music005:

 

 

[WRGKMC]

Advantages - is it prevents feedback if you're recording vocals or it lets you inspect the material closely like an microscope is to the eyes.

 

Disadvantages. You have no crosstalk/feed like you have with speakers in an open room where the right ear hears some of the left and the left some of the right being delayed slightly in one or the other ear.

 

 

Because of this the ears cannot triangulate depth or distance properly and the center of the image is inside your skull, not in front of you. Add to that the outer ear lobe tunnels and colors the sound a bit. It creates a notch in the upper mids when you have headphones directly on the outer ear. The other is of course ear fatigue.

 

I used headphones for about 15 years mixing when I lived in apartments and had small kids. I can say I was lucky to get one out of 10 mixes optimal and all could have been vastly improved using open air studio monitors.

 

If you do use them for mixing they make several hardware and software plugins that add cross feed and give you some depth perception back. I wouldn't attempt to mix with headphones without it, especially if you have no monitors to A/B compare the mixes.

 

The crosstalk has to be delayed by an appropriate amount and be spectrally shaped to reflect the natural acoustic artefacts introduced when sounds pass around the human head.

 

I've used free plugins with some mild success. I avoid using headphones whenever possibly however. I have to use them for Tracking vocals but even there I'm thinking about adding a phase switch for my Monitors so I can place the mic at the null point directly between the monitors and just use the monitors for tracking.

 

 

There are a few free plugins you can use.

 

www.beyerdynamic.de/downloadbvs

http://vellocet.com/software/VNoPhones.html

http://www.midnightwalrus.com/Canz3D/

 

This one should work with your newer medial players or DAW.

http://www.yohng.com/software/headphones.html

 

This paid version is supposed to be one of the better ones available.

http://www.toneboosters.com/tb-isone/

 

Of course if you want to go to the higher end.

http://wavearts.com/products/plugins/panorama/

 

I've tried them out a little by sticking the plugin in the mains buss mixing, but like I said I don't use headphones allot.

 

There are some hardware versions too you can Google up. Some can pinch your wallet quite a bit but I suppose you get what you pay for. I think they might do a better job being placed between an interface and headphone amp.

 

 

I have yet to see any plugin like these added to a DAW package. You'd figure with all the home studios out there with people mixing on headphones this would be one of the most useful tools a DAW manufacture would be asked to add to their tool box.

 

Maybe Craig could put this in Cakewalks suggestion box.

 

[Ernest Buckley]

I pretty much listen to music every day whether driving, in the gym, at home, in the studio, etc…

 

I listen to music on both cans and speakers depending on the environment I`m in.

 

If I really want to zone out or zone into the music, cans are the only way to do that for me. As much as I like to listen to music on my studio monitors or Bose speakers, I find that I really get distracted… so I prefer headphones.

 

Even while mixing… I find that most of the fine tuning I do gets done with the cans on. And I mix at very low levels.

[philboking]

Head phones are great in the studio for tracking and for fine tuning panning. Speakers are better for mixing and tweaking the depth of the sound stage. Elsewhere, if doing serious listening in a hostile (noisy) environment, phones or buds are great; especially the noise cancelling type. But being tied to a cable can be tough sometimes...

[Notes_Norton]

<...> For some reason I'm very partial to listening to classical music over speakers' date=' it just doesn't sound right on headphones.[/quote']

 

I wholeheartedly agree. And it sounds better live, in person in a nice acoustic auditorium. Especially symphonies from the Romantic era forward.

 

Doesn't everything? But I think more so with classical than with amplified or small group un-amped music.

 

Yes, if it sounds good in speakers, it will sound good in headphones. Let me add, if it sounds good in crummy speakers, it'll sound even better with good speakers.

 

I'm old-school in that I always test my mixes with a fairly low-fi system. In the old days, car speakers, today computer speakers.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

[nat whilk II]

I love headphones as they allow very focused listening to specific instruments and ambience - it's detail heaven. Great for electronic music where the soundspace can be highly worked in terms of placement, distance, movement, etc. It's like a big movie screen for sound - a bit hard to take in all at once, but the details are in all their full glory.

 

Bass, 'tho - to really be a thumping bass - the speakers need to move air. You need feel those big low frequencies physically in the gut and chest to get the bass experience in full. Obviously headphones can't do that.

 

And anytime the musical material is mixed to sound live, with lots of bleeding into each other's mics, all the sounds merging into one big musical punch - only speakers can do that to any extent. So yeah, symphonies are a good example.

 

For my money, I can listen to fairly cheap speakers without it bothering me all that much, but cheap headphones are truly horrible - like something p****ing in my ear.

 

nat whilk ii