I'm getting good mixes on my HD58X. Would love to get 600. I really like the smooth bass drop off on the 58X, though.

I prefer 600 to 650, myselfe..

SENN 650s ... with the new REALPhone software.

For main Headphone work ... Slate VSX.

REALPhone, ooh something new to me

it's by dSONIQ.

I've been working mixes with my HD58x. Good for mids and lows but the highs aren't working out for me.

good thread

same hd58x for me. i use morphit with it. seems good so far. i also use the ****tiest earbuds i could find with no bass.

I like the HD600. I use them with the Goodhertz CanOpener3 and a corrective EQ curve.

Here's the preset (TDR's Slick EQ M) that I picked up from Gregg Janman to get them flat. I recommend also turning the output of the EQ down 7-8 dB if you have a lot of VERY low cycle signal.

<TDRSlickEQM bandOn1="On" bandShape1="Bell" bandFreq1="35" bandGain1="7.9" bandQ1="Normal" bandStereoWidth1="0.0" bandStereoBalance2="0.0" bandOn2="On" bandShape2="Bell" bandFreq2="180" bandGain2="-1.3" bandQ2="Normal" bandStereoWidth2="0.0" bandOn3="On" bandShape3="Bell" bandFreq3="775" bandGain3="1.4" bandQ3="Steep II" bandStereoWidth3="0.0" bandStereoBalance3="0.0" bandOn4="On" bandShape4="Bell" bandFreq4="1350" bandGain4="-1.3" bandQ4="Steep II" bandStereoWidth4="0.0" bandStereoBalance4="0.0" bandOn5="On" bandShape5="Bell" bandFreq5="2200" bandGain5="3.7" bandQ5="Steep II" bandStereoWidth5="0.0" bandStereoBalance5="0.0" bandOn6="On" bandShape6="Bell" bandFreq6="5200" bandGain6="-2.6" bandQ6="Steep II" bandStereoWidth6="0.0" bandStereoBalance6="0.0" highPassOn="Off" highPassQ="6dB/oct" hpFreqParam="10" lfElliptical="Off" lfEllipticalFreq="61" lpBypassParam="Off" lowPassQ="6dB/oct" lowPassFreq="60000" centerFilterOn="Off" centerFilterType="EL Curve" centerFilterAmount="0.0" nonlinearityLowOn="Off" nonlinearityLowAmount="0.0" nonlinearityHighOn="Off" nonlinearityHighAmount="0.0" outGainParam="0.0" outWidthParam="0.0" outBalanceParam="0.0" parameterRange="100" parameterRangeMode="Full" autoGainParam="Off" bypassParam="Off" qualityParam="Insane" displayScaleParam="Scale: +- 9 dB" showFreqMagnitudeParam="On" showFFTAnalyzerParam="Analyzer: Off"/>

Original thread

False, lots of people mix professionally on headphones.

You’re taking one sentence out of the context of my full post from 4 years ago.

I recently mixed this one using mostly HD600, checking in the car and checking on other HD including Neumann NDH20 to check the low end.
https://michaelclearyband.com/album/...t-man-standing

I won't be able to listen until later, but as an HD600 user who's thinking about buying NDH20's, I'm curious about how you find mixing on both. I seem to struggle with the HD600, and from what I've read I was thinking the Neumanns might be more usable for mixing. Do you prefer mixing with the HD600's?

I’m curious about this as well - looking for a closed back can as there’s a lot of ambient noise I am dealing with at home

I love it when people attempt to critique critical listening with internet streaming.

I guess I'm just used to the HD600, I do check the low end on the NDH20s as they seem to have better/different low end extension (probably because of the closed design.) But the NDH20 are slightly darker, flatter perhaps so you may prefer them. I love tracking with the NDH20, they can get really loud without breaking up.

About to order a pair of 600 from SW. My 58X is too bassy and when I mix, I have to get the low end uncomfortably loud in order to get it right, and references sound compressed. Bassy headphones make it difficult to get my perspective right because of ear sound pressure compression.

The only place I can trust mixing in is in my car.

Schiit Asgard 3

I just ordered the 660s headphones. It will be interesting to see how they compare to my 1990's

Does anyone notice sometimes the sound isn't balanced. I hear it more in the right side and have to adjust them. Mess around on my head and they then feel more centered? Does anyone notice as well? Should I return them?

HD6XX is all I use - Sonarworks calibration fixes the small stuff but they are fine out of the box. You'll find that Sonarworks hails the HD600/6XX as fine out of the box and the most neutral. Head over to Audio Science Review for detailed tests from Amir with the same conclusion.

What I also like is the weight

What model are your Grados?

FWIW- I bought the 600's on the reference of Bob Katz's mastering book and never looked back- I have so many other things to worry about. Meanwhile thanks to someone's post about using the 650 cord which is more robust, that cord still works after my wife vacuumed it up lol. Had some road rash but that's it. Last namm I went to heard some great cans- beyer 1990's, focal and audeze, great stuff. I also demoed the then new Neumann's and sadly their track MP3 's did not justice to them. I blame that on salespeople not minding their product. I say that that because I worked as a product specialist with sales guys for a company. I am sure they are good enough to carry the name. My 600's go through a Lynx Aurora N and sound great - the Aurora N has a great headphone amp.

I mix on focal Alpha 60s and SPL Phonitor 2 powering 600s.

I'm not convinced that the Phonitor/600s reveal the mids correctly...even with Sonarworks.

Reason being, I tried the cans with a nice tube headphone amp built from the ground up for their impedance and the mids are all there.

The Phonitor seems to be flattering with a smile a bit

I mix with HD600's, with/ without SoundID and Canopener...on Yamaha HS8, Mixcubes, Sonys, Beyers and VSX...I check my mix in a car, on a phone, earbuds, on a laptop and several different headphones as well as this bluetooth cylindrical speaker thing I've got and a set of nearly 20yo M-Audio 5 inch studio speakers...which I'm sure have a bad tweeter on the right speaker because my mixes traditionally sound squeally or weird in whatever frequency induces that bad tweeter to behave truculently but I'll get to that later. Notably however, pro mixes do not excite that truculent right tweeter at all. Only my mixes do.

Here's the rundown:

I've reached a level of skill that I can mix stuff so it sounds pretty accurate on a phone listen. It wasn't always this way. Far from it. Generally, what I hear in a best case scenario/ studio listen I can basically get a fair reflection of that on a phone. But I've learned not to put much reliance on a phone even for helping detect issues. I think it'll show quite bad issues. But even a pretty subpar mix can tend to sound ok on a phone is my experience. The car listen will reveal a kick drum and or bass guitar that basically want me dead. They thump prodigiously. Having said that, plenty of pro mixes also exhibit outrageous bass and kick in the car. So, I don't lose too much sleep. The laptop listen is a weird one. Often quite similar to the phone listen...not too bad, maybe even a little fancier or fuller than the phone. But, there's a catch. Often, when I try to turn my mixes up in VLC or something on the laptop I can hear the snare getting assassinated. The mix then seems to become thin and unattractive. The cylindrical bluetooth speakers sound like I low passed the entire mix. With only a little exaggeration, all you can really hear is massive, tubby low end. I think the makers of these bluetooth speakers must spend a lot of time "wowing" customers with their epic bass. Epic bass response must sell well. Whatever. My mixes sound epically bad on such speakers. Pro mixes hang better. But its still bass town. The earbud listen...not bad. Typical of earbuds I suppose...those bluetooth earbud things...that sonic footprint they have can tend to be tinny...maybe a limited kind of one frequency area bass response. But my mixes can hang ok I suppose. Then there's the old 5 inch M-Audio speakers...I bought them way back in the day because you needed high quality pro speakers to do music. Anyway, I guess they are pretty real world...they sit on the floor, run from a laptop. Pro stuff sounds fine as on them. A pretty good listen. My mixes sound, with only some exaggeration, like I may have been drunk when I mixed or perhaps I was underwater or something. All the instruments sound disparate and a bit odd and then the right speaker with that tweeter issue just squeals on certain parts. Must be to do with some frequency range that just doesn't make it through this bad tweeter...while pro mixes make it no probs.

So, still trying to just make basic mixes that nicely fill whatever frequency footprint XYZ or WSV speakers, pods, buds, stereos, speakers, phones etc etc might have. Just one mix to rule them all...that hangs in whatever playback scenario it finds itself in. Not easy.

Now surpassed by HD 490 Pro, and they work great with SoundID & CanOpener! They also come with a custom copy DearVR Mix for a different view of your mix.

The amp on an M1 MacBook Pro sounds better than the amp on my Apollo x8. I could totally get by on that for mixing, no complaints.

I suspect it's because the HD600 are high impedance cans, and the MacBook Pro headphone amp has some kind of auto-switching impedance matching, while the Apollo doesn't.

My daily drivers are HD650s connected to a MT48 - (Monitor Mission) - 10 band Oratory EQ settings (adjusted to taste), 21% L-R crossfeed.

I don't primarily mix in headphones, but I confidently can with this setup and things translate great when I do. This is also what I primarily use when the need for self-mastering arises.

HD600/650/490 all take EQ correction very well, meaning you can really boost things without having to compromise with audible distortion. If you are working in a smaller room and/or don't have access to a set of big mains/mastering reference speakers, then a proper set of reference-grade headphones is pretty invaluable.

I would suggest this combo as a great, relatively low-cost/low barrier to entry setup to consider if you aren't ready to drop $1500+ on a pair of cans.