I also recommend the open back 770s, best headphones I’ve ever used, and as someone else said, if you go for them choose impedance wisely
What is your opinion on Sennhesier HD 600’s compred to the 3 you guys are talking about?
I got focal spirit ones
They are awesome but a little more expensive than the audio technicas and beyers. Honestly though in terms of being genuinely flat In frequency response and the detail you hear they are worth it.
I got mine for 160
Focal Spirit Pro’s are easily the best headphones I’ve used. Don’t get how they got them so flat
with a closed design and low impedance. I don’t think I have ever used the One’s, but I
imagine those are good too. Think you should be able to get them for the same price as
AT’s or 770’s now.
They are closed and quite a bit tighter than Beyer’s to provide even more isolation, so
maybe not as comfortable. I would have gone for the Pro’s (or the One’s) if I knew about them
back in 2013 though.
Do you mean 990’s by that? I’ve used those as well and also liked them better than my 770’s
in terms of response, but I didn’t want an open design. If you really don’t have to worry about extraneous noise, I’d go for those over the 770’s.
yeah possibly I meant 990’s can’t actually remember what ones i’ve got lol, at work so can’t check
Sennheiser HD 600 Open Back are amazing, they’re the next on my list, and possibly the last pair I buy for a long long time.
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I’d hate to recommend headphones and not stress the importance of an audio interface/headphone amp. Running even these low impedance headphones from the 1/8th headphone output on the side of your laptop is going to render a decent amount of the potential useless due to the lack of sound quality. Just thinking about the noise level alone of the 1/8th headphone output on computers is enough to make me cringe.
A quality audio interface can help not only with sound quality, but if you check the specs it can help with power (rendering the need for a separate headphone amp useless for some higher impedance headphones).
For example, a Presonus audio interface’s headphone output has a nice Maximum Output Level of 175 mW/channel, about 5x the power of the Scarlett 2i2. The Presonus would eliminate the need for a separate headphone amp if your headphones had around 100 ohms of impedance or less (generally speaking). Nothing better than when you are at your preferred reference volume and the headphone volume knob is only at like 33%…nice clean power with lots of headroom.
If you already have an audio interface with a low powered headphone output then you’d want to purchase a separate headphone amp to drive any cans rated with a high impedance (like the HD 600’s rated @ 300 ohms).
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Not sure i understand all that (ohms impedance etc) but the idea is to hook my laptop up to my amp and then the headphones into the amp headphone socket… so I can have the sound at a good level in my cans but still have plenty of volume headroom.
Atm I’m running headphones into my laptop which is at 100% volume and I’m having to boost the volume in my daw above 0db which is not ideal at all!!
That would likely take care of the volume side of things with high resistance headphones. It might also color the sound quite a bit though, especially when you need a lot of gain from the amp. Same with cheaper mixers or dj mixers. You’d still be dealing with mediocre conversion too.
Honestly, I’d suggest to just get the headphones and start working with them.
You can always upgrade to an interface with some proper converters later on.
Aren’t you looking at Audio Technica’s though? They have super low resistance afaik, you don’t
need an amp for those.
not sure of the specs on the quadcapture, they headphone out info isn’t listed anywhere that I could find. You’ll have to email the manufacturer and ask them the specs. As long as your cans aren’t like 100ohms or more you should be fine with the headphone output of the quadcapture.
sleepwal_1980, I agree w AxeD. If you’re running cans with an imedance of like 100ohms or lower then pretty much any headphone output will run the drivers well enough.
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I have the HD600 and Roland Quad.
Bought them years ago but have hardly used them.
Use the Quad all the time with my monitors though but i’m guessing i might need an amp to get the best out of the HD600s
yeah, the hd600’s are 300ohms (which is quite high) so you’d want a small headphone amplifier to get the true potential out of your cans. You probably notice that you need to have the headphone level at 100% and it still may not be as loud as you’d expect. When they’re under powered like that distortion and clipping in the signal become a huge issue, I’m very familiar with this from my car-audio background.
if you’re producing w them, the difference may not be enough to merit a headphone amp in your case, as they recommend mixing down in headphones at a moderate volume level for best results. Although, when under powered, even at low volumes the headphone may not retain the frequency range reference profile it was designed to have (weak bass response, emphasized mids, etc).
this may sound contrary to my advice above, but the difference you may personally perceive if you purchased a headphone amp may be nominal. I typically use spectral analyzers in the DAW to tell me what’s going on during the mixdown process anyway. Some of my favorite producers that I’m friends with don’t use any quality audio references, just know-how and visual representation from the DAW. So in the real world, it may not be worth it if all you’re doing is producing in them at night when you can’t use your speakers.
If you’re some audiophile and using them for critical reference and mastering and stuff like that then yes, get the headphone amp. Personally, I have yet to purchase the 600s bc I’d never want to run them without a proper headphone amp, and i know that market gets pricey so I’m holding off on taking that plunge. Grats on your 600s!
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Yeah i’m not producing, purely for listening atm.
Want to get into it someday though.
Will look into getting an amp!
Is it worth buying an amp that is only around £100 mark? Or do you need to spend big bucks to really bother with it?
I’m in no way some audiophile but i’m probably entry level where i will prefer lossless format with decent speakers/headphones etc.
Isn’t it like you can get 90% perfect quality by spending a certain reasonable amount say upto £3000 then after that you’re gonna need to spend £30,000 and up to gain that 10%?
I’m happy to get to that 90% threshold, anything more than that then i think i would be mugging myself off lol.
I reckon most ppl who have these 30 grand setups have no wife, kids and are that old that their ears can’t even pickup on all the details that they have paid that extra 27 grand for.
Would be nice to listen to a setup like that though, i would pay money to just use it for an hour and listen to a load of different stuff, wonder if anywhere does that kind of thing?
I rock some audio technica and they sounds pretty good!
Anyone have experience w these? Get high marks for cheapies.
EDIT:
Lost my iTurds a couple weeks ago and wanted an all purpose upgrade (casual listening + jamming on iOS apps.) Found these via Gearslutz iirc.
Ok, for the money? Holy Sheepshit. Usable frequency response down to 32Hz. (Low Frequency Harmonic Distortion Subwoofer Sound Test)
Kind of a funky design but 
the sound…
Had suspected for a long time that using the iTurds was negatively coloring a lot of my musical experience - this confirms it. Besides being capably louder, way more clear with way better stereo separation, and just more balanced overall, I actually get goosebumps again from tracks I know.
Feels like there’s a frequency drop in mid-highs a bit but haven’t broken them in fully yet either.
For $22 USD tho, this is a winner. 
They look a but ott and you’re probably paying mainly for the bit that sits in your ear at that price.
Better off getting dome Sennheisers imo also wtf you doing with Apple earphones lol
Yeah, the stock Apple crap was just convenience.
But tbh I’d be really curious to hear a comparison of comparable Senns. These sound really good.
(Mind you I lost hearing above 12k a long time ago but…)
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