Reticuli2
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2007
- Posts
- 530
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- 14
Currently, when I DJ at home, I'm using either IEMs or open headphones, both hi-fi audiophile stuff, IMO. The former sometimes hurt my ears and, besides, are inconvenient to put in an take out when necessary, and the latter are slightly obscured by noise from traffic, dogs, and AC & computer fans.
So, what's the best closed utility can for headphone-only DJ mixing at home?
By utility, I mean not necessarily pleasure headphones, but rather the ability to separate the individual sounds and layers with minimal blur & (I assume) distortion. Hard-sounding, slight non-neutrality, or not super spatial-sounding all might be ok, as is not having the best isolation, as long it's better isolation than any open headphones out there of similar sonic capabilities and has great resolution, separation, etc, allowing it to excel in this functional application.
Unlike studio production, sound-design, multi-track mixing, and mastering where perfect neutrality might be most important, IMO there's also no pudding (for the proof, as it were) really in those applications, which are rather subjective, comparatively to headphone-only DJing. When DJing by-ear, you have to do something with the headphone objectively, like trying to hear faint voices in some communications intelligence application or the old school dude on a submarine with the headphones. While people aren't going to die in this case, it's a similar critical listening situation and has measurable outcomes for me, since I don't use visual aids or BPM counters.
Price should be no concern, though if people recommend two similarly-capable headphones for this task, I'm liable to choose the cheaper of the two, unless the more expensive one just so happens to also be more pleasing-sounding, I suppose. I'm not *against* the headphone secondarily having a recreational purpose.
Thanks.
P.S. Headphone-only by-ear DJing without using speakers. Oh, and the headphone should be capable of doing this job at moderate volumes without needing to be cranked way up to 'hear into the mix', as it were. Being able to get cranked up and still sound good is a bonus, but I try to keep my volumes as modest as possible and still DJ.
So, what's the best closed utility can for headphone-only DJ mixing at home?
By utility, I mean not necessarily pleasure headphones, but rather the ability to separate the individual sounds and layers with minimal blur & (I assume) distortion. Hard-sounding, slight non-neutrality, or not super spatial-sounding all might be ok, as is not having the best isolation, as long it's better isolation than any open headphones out there of similar sonic capabilities and has great resolution, separation, etc, allowing it to excel in this functional application.
Unlike studio production, sound-design, multi-track mixing, and mastering where perfect neutrality might be most important, IMO there's also no pudding (for the proof, as it were) really in those applications, which are rather subjective, comparatively to headphone-only DJing. When DJing by-ear, you have to do something with the headphone objectively, like trying to hear faint voices in some communications intelligence application or the old school dude on a submarine with the headphones. While people aren't going to die in this case, it's a similar critical listening situation and has measurable outcomes for me, since I don't use visual aids or BPM counters.
Price should be no concern, though if people recommend two similarly-capable headphones for this task, I'm liable to choose the cheaper of the two, unless the more expensive one just so happens to also be more pleasing-sounding, I suppose. I'm not *against* the headphone secondarily having a recreational purpose.
Thanks.
P.S. Headphone-only by-ear DJing without using speakers. Oh, and the headphone should be capable of doing this job at moderate volumes without needing to be cranked way up to 'hear into the mix', as it were. Being able to get cranked up and still sound good is a bonus, but I try to keep my volumes as modest as possible and still DJ.
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