What about the supposed bass roll-off ?

And has anyone managed to compare them side by side with the Beyer DT 770's ?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nope - I use the hd650s (:

The 600s are good phones. I use them to supplement mixing on monitors.

Nope, I use speakers in a treated room.

When I lived in a place where I couldn't set up monitors, I used Senn 650s....not optimal, and had to do a lot of cross-checking of mixes, but it worked! As for the bass....it doesn't whack you in the face but if you listen it's there.

They sound pretty natural through the midrange but do have a bit of bass roll off. I use them with the Sonarworks headphone correction plugin which fixes this issue and get great results that way. Haven't heard 770s but I bet Sonarworks would help them out too.

They're a good tool but you need your speakers and room right too. I always check mixes on cans though. Theyre also great if you travel a lot.

Nope use HD800s. But the 600s should work very very well too.

Yes, and I'm in love with them.

However, I don't have a pair of monitors or a treated room. I just check mixes in my car, cheap stereo, and so on. I should probably get around to changing that, but I'd bother the neighbors and be dumping money into a room I might leave in a year or two.

Also, these are cans that really need a good, powerful, amp to realize their potential. 600 ohms, I think.

I've used the HD-600 for years, before upgrading to the HD-800, and owned the 250-ohm version of the DT-770.
None of the Beyers sound anything like a Sennheiser. The mids on a 600 are much more forward than any of the Beyers.
The high end is totally different with the Senn being more tonally accurate, and detailed.
The lows on the 770 are more inflated.
To reference a mix, I prefer the Sennheiser.

I've owned a few, and to me, the best match for the 600/800 is the Qes Labs HPBA-2 S.
An absolutely uncoloured amp, ruler flat frequency and phase response, vary fast and correct transient reproduction, hyper detailed. Exactly what you need for critical listening.
Just choose a good balanced cable.

I can't seem to find a price on this since it's a custom job; I'm afraid to ask.

Great no doubt, though even on Urie 813C's I used headphones to clean up and detect any erroneous or extraneous noise, burbles and mouse farts etc?

Ultimately being able to monitor on Headphones and know them backwards in 2016 can only be an advantage, as you never, ever know what could slip through to the Keeper and so one Man's Headphone choice and continual use thereof I would not question lightly!

I mean just about every kid I meet has Quested's and a Burl with Avocet in their Bedroom, they save those "DR. Dre Beats"........beats headphone things for "Sunday Best" and to Not disturb others etc? Erm....or is that just me, Again?

Is anyone getting by with a more modest headphone amp ? Or none at all ?

I'm using a Bottlehead Crack, which I really like.

i just plug mine into my scarlett 2i4.....any regular professional audio soundcard it more than enough you dont need another amp....i do use hd600 for mixing, but need to have monitors also...cant just mix on headphones...

No one is "really" mixing or mastering on headphones.

Use nice speakers in a well-treated room. Also check on crappy speakers. Also check in car. Also check on nice headphones. Also check on crappy headphones.

Although we love to obsess about it here, brand and model mostly does not matter as much as your familiarity with them does.

I will say that at one point I was forced to mix on headphones and used a nice set of grados. The mix turned out really well but I still had to do several adjustments when I got the chance to play it on speakers.

I still use grados, sennheisers, and AKG's in my studio.

Sennheiser, grado, blue, beyer, ... All are good at certain things. Choose the one that you are automatically comfortable with and then become familiar with them.

All of our heads are different. Choose what works best for you!

Of course you can use a budget amp, the 600s are fairly easy to drive.
However I think we are talking about driving them to their dynamic and reproduction limits.
Great results, with high-end dedicated amps, can be achieved through the Violectric V281.
Though Hpba-2s->Hd-600 give the best results imho, for serious critical listening.

If you don't have a well treated room don't let that stop you from making music.

As it happens my preferred headphones are 600s, we have 770s as tracking cans. I love the 770s for tracking, but I can't mix on them - far too claustrophobic.

The room I mix in is one of the best rooms I've ever used (and I've used some of the best in London) and I still check and tweak in headphones.

I run off the studios cue amps (qsc). Our cue system is now hearback.

When I first moved to Aus, I had no control room. I mixed a couple of EPs mainly in cans, and they're some of my favourite mixes! Yes I did check and make notes in a good room, but all the on the spot mixing was done on cans. It's just harder

I mixed this on HD600 due to mixing mostly late at night with family sleeping, occasionally checking on monitors, always playing back in a car and also sending refs to mastering engineer for feedback.
Michael Cleary Band | MCB | Music : Uplift

Yes I love the 600s, but as noted above, they are very difficult to drive properly. They are very clear and balanced. I also use a second pair as my main "recreational" listening headphones, so I am very familiar with how they sound with tons of other source material. I mostly mix on speakers, but I do check my mixes on 600s and often I can see something I missed on the speakers.

Thanks for all of the responses.

Sometimes people resort to headphones not because they are ideal, but because roommates, neighbours and family members would be disturbed otherwise. Also, they can function a bit like a magnifying glass in some cases - shedding light on some previously unnoticed details or just giving a different perspective.

Btw, if anyone can think of headphones as good or better (for neutral reference) than the HD 600's and under $500, please feel free to mention them.

HD650's

My personal view, headphones are an important tool we can use as additional reference.

I would not want to use them exclusively for mixing/mastering. But they can help highlight an issue that may
need attention.

It would be so nice if I COULD do all monitoring through headphones ... and I've tried from time to time. The final result
never got to the sonic goal intended.

2b

I find them very trustworthy, i jave started work in a new studio where im totally unfamiliar with the rooms sound even with my own monitors, the hd600s are invaluable.

I think neutral reference in that price range will be tough. Looking at the 650's and 600's you can see a nice gentle bass bump and a bit of high frequency roll-off. I checked those curves against my Ultrasone PRO 900's as they are all around that that price point....pretty similar.

Then you look at Audeze ($$$) which is almost flat up to around 3K.....

Since I mix almost solely with cans I look for comfort and a good soundstage representation. I like the subtle bass bump and slight high end bump as they help me manage those crucial areas with my aging ears.

I used the HD 600 for mixing , and it turn out great.

Love the 770's, but the HD600 smoke them for neutrality in the mids and lack of hype, imo. I drive mine with a Purple Audio Cans II and it has no problem driving them loud and clear with headroom to spare. Can't recommend them for mixing enough.