For a few months I worked in a small UK recording studio in the early 1970‘s, Unfortunately headphones were never used for any form of critical monitoring or sound balancing. This was done at ear shattering levels by large loudspeaker systems capable of taking constant abuse. High sensitivity, consistency and to a somewhat lesser extent ‘good sound‘ (or impressive sound for the paying customers) were the order of the day. In the UK some form of Tannoy dual concentric drive unit in Lockwood cabinets would often be used, and in the States various combinations of JBL drive units would be bolted to similar large scale boxes. Neither of these approaches produced very accurate results, and because of their over-the-top bass and peaky horn loaded treble sometimes produced unbalanced and bass-light records. Not until the arrival of the BBC influenced Spendor BC1 (in the UK at any rate) did the industry start to realise how bad and coloured the monitoring had previously been. Later a de facto rock studio started to emerge in the USA with the arrival of the ‘Eastlake studio Package’ with it’s Kino****a (spelling?) monitoring system. This was even louder and used four or more 15-Inch JBL bass units and a pair of large and complex wooden horn-loaded treble units.
To get an idea how the mix would sound on a home system various cheap and cheerful little boxes would be perched on top of the mixer’s metering bridge. These would be switched on from time, usually during the mix down or reduction as we called it, no headphones were used though.
Of course headphones were used in the studio mostly to enable musicians to play along to previously laid down tracks, and also to get an acceptable individual sound balance. This was known as ‘fold back’, but there again the headphones used were only something that would be reliable and easily serviced (Beyer DT100’s) or else something cheap and disposable. Quality was not the first consideration, we used Airlights which I believe were usually to be found in aircraft cockpits!
Now to replicate the sort of sound that would be found sitting at a 1970’s mixing desk all you need is something vintage from the likes of JBL or Tannoy and a big amplifier (and some ear plugs). To do it with headphones I suppose something from the lower end of the Grado range (surprise surprise) would do the trick, something not too smooth or refined. I have a pair of SR125s which remind me a lot of my Tannoy Monitor Gold, which once could be found in many rock recording studios of the early 70’s.
