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What are the differences between the various types of "professional" headphones?

post #1 of 3
9/29/11 at 10:24pm
Thread Starter 
I've noticed that a lot of headphone companies advertise headphones that are meant to be used for certain "professional" users:

Monitoring headphones

Studio headphones

DJ headphones

Reference headphones

Headphones good for mixing

Headphones good for mastering




What are the differences between these types of headphones?

Based on what people say from these forums, I think that DJ headphones tend to have a V-shaped sound signature, have a sturdy build quality, and often have swivel or foldable earcups.
Edited by miceblue - 9/29/11 at 10:33pm
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post #2 of 3
9/29/11 at 11:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by miceblue View Post

I've noticed that a lot of headphone companies advertise headphones that are meant to be used for certain "professional" users:
Monitoring headphones
Studio headphones
DJ headphones
Reference headphones
Headphones good for mixing
Headphones good for mastering
What are the differences between these types of headphones?
Based on what people say from these forums, I think that DJ headphones tend to have a V-shaped sound signature, have a sturdy build quality, and often have swivel or foldable earcups.


IN THEORY........

 

Monitoring headphones are for ones that when performers need to hear themselves during a performance (Live, recording session, etc). Isolation is crucial, and because of that, IEMs are generally popular (traditional headphones are really bulky and does not provide isolation as good as IEMs).

 

Studio headphones (also for mixing/mastering) are for used at music studio by audio engineers. Ideally they have to be as much as neutral as possible (thus AKG closed phones, Sony studio headphones and other well-known studio headphones have 'boring' sound.)

 

DJ headphones are really weird things appeared recently. They may label as "DJ" for the sake of advertisement (I mean, it's 'cool' to be DJ, right?) while others are actually designed for professional DJs. They usually have detached cable, flexible earcups, and most of the time support dual mono mode for one-ear listening while providing good isolation.

 

Reference headphones are... well consumer-listener-oriented high-end headphones. Focus is on sound quality and comfort, thus most of the time looks and isolation are afterthoughts.

 

 

 

BUT, in practice, so many headphones fail at what they are advertised, while others can do other areas (like Audio-Technica M50 'studio' headphones are the choice for closed-headphones in general.)..... with some exceptions, all are nothing more than marketing talk.

 

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post #3 of 3
9/30/11 at 2:46pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by wnmnkh View Post

IN THEORY........

 

Monitoring headphones are for ones that when performers need to hear themselves during a performance (Live, recording session, etc). Isolation is crucial, and because of that, IEMs are generally popular (traditional headphones are really bulky and does not provide isolation as good as IEMs).

 

Studio headphones (also for mixing/mastering) are for used at music studio by audio engineers. Ideally they have to be as much as neutral as possible (thus AKG closed phones, Sony studio headphones and other well-known studio headphones have 'boring' sound.)

 

DJ headphones are really weird things appeared recently. They may label as "DJ" for the sake of advertisement (I mean, it's 'cool' to be DJ, right?) while others are actually designed for professional DJs. They usually have detached cable, flexible earcups, and most of the time support dual mono mode for one-ear listening while providing good isolation.

 

Reference headphones are... well consumer-listener-oriented high-end headphones. Focus is on sound quality and comfort, thus most of the time looks and isolation are afterthoughts.

 

 

 

BUT, in practice, so many headphones fail at what they are advertised, while others can do other areas (like Audio-Technica M50 'studio' headphones are the choice for closed-headphones in general.)..... with some exceptions, all are nothing more than marketing talk.

 


Wow, I see. Yeah I've noticed that a lot of companies do it for marketing purposes. What teenager doesn't want to be a cool DJ, right? ;)

 

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