[metllicamilitia]

I need some headphones to use on my practice amp while playing at night and in my hotel. I play metal, drop and lower tunings mostly but I also play some clean stuff. I'm using a Peavey Vypyr 30. Currently I'm using my SR80's but there's a good difference in sound with the headphones compared to playing it without the headphones. So I'm looking to find some headphones that will either not have a sound difference or not have such a drastic change in sound. I'm not worried about budget at this point, just sound. If I need to save up I'll save up. Anyone have any recommendations?


Blazin' tappity tap tap 2 you!

 

[GREQ]

The problem here is that the guitar combo's own loudspeaker is already tuned and 'coloured' to sound excellent with two things in mind - electric guitar + volume.
Headphones, even the coloured Grados are designed to produce all sounds equally well and as such are tuned or voiced differently and generally for low/comfortable volumes.
 
The best thing to do is find a shop that sells your amp and a range of headphones, or bring your amp to a headphone shop (maybe phone in advance to see if it's OK) and try out what they have.
Even neutral headphones that try to reproduce the electronic signal in it's purest form will not sound like your amp because the headphone out circuit ends much sooner than the amplified signal the combo's speaker receives. Then throw in the combo's wooden enclosure and the room you're hearing it in into the mix, and you're going to get a very different sound presentation.
 
If you can't do auditions, it's best to first try out a neutral headphone like the Beyerdynamic DT880 - then at least you'll be able to understand better the differences between an almost un-altered signal, and the way the combo amp presents sound. 

 

[GirgleMirt]

Yep Greq is correct, your guitar cabinet and woofer have a sound of their own, so even with perfect headphones you'd never get the same output as your amp's. But is that really an issue? If so why?

 

[jmsaxon69]

I've tried to use my SR80i to play guitar on my POD or iPad apps and they don't sound very good.  My Shure SRH440 sound fantastic, both are $99 headphones.  Maybe just the difference between open and closed design?

 

[metllicamilitia]

The problem here is that the guitar combo's own loudspeaker is already tuned and 'coloured' to sound excellent with two things in mind - electric guitar + volume.
Headphones, even the coloured Grados are designed to produce all sounds equally well and as such are tuned or voiced differently and generally for low/comfortable volumes.
 
The best thing to do is find a shop that sells your amp and a range of headphones, or bring your amp to a headphone shop (maybe phone in advance to see if it's OK) and try out what they have.
Even neutral headphones that try to reproduce the electronic signal in it's purest form will not sound like your amp because the headphone out circuit ends much sooner than the amplified signal the combo's speaker receives. Then throw in the combo's wooden enclosure and the room you're hearing it in into the mix, and you're going to get a very different sound presentation.
 
If you can't do auditions, it's best to first try out a neutral headphone like the Beyerdynamic DT880 - then at least you'll be able to understand better the differences between an almost un-altered signal, and the way the combo amp presents sound. 

Thanks for the info, I did not know most of that.

Yep Greq is correct, your guitar cabinet and woofer have a sound of their own, so even with perfect headphones you'd never get the same output as your amp's. But is that really an issue? If so why?

The same sound is so I can tweak the sound even with headphones on. I don't want to tweak for headphones I want to tweak for playing without them. And sometimes it sounds great without headphones and becomes a muddled flat tone of nothing anyone wants to hear with headphones on.


Blazin' tappity tap tap 2 you!