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When I first started in music production over twenty years ago, the prevailing wisdom was that closed-back headphones could be used for monitoring during tracking and any type of headphones could be used for certain editing tasks. I found myself in a position where, if I wanted to work in my home studio while the baby was sleeping, headphones were my only option for monitoring. But can we rely on headphones for music production tasks like editing, mixing and even mastering? I went down this rabbit hole a few years ago when I became a new father. Cans are an attractive option for those who don’t want to disturb the neighboring apartments late at night or wake up the sleeping roommates. Living in an illusion about headphone quality is lethal to the illusion of spatial audio and translation of the resulting material.Anyone who’s attempted to regularly produce music in a space shared with others who may not be particularly appreciative of being exposed to studio monitors blaring at 85+ dB for hours and hours on end has likely thought of using headphones as a monitoring alternative. Or the shameless plug – apply calibration… 3D audio in no way protects one from inaccurate monitoring, regardless if it’s on headphones or a cyberpunk-looking sphere of three dozen studio monitors. Or at least know the limitations of your monitoring system. Choosing a pair can be a nightmare as consistency in tonal balance is rarely found even within the stable of the same manufacturer! Compare the Sennheiser HD600 (red) to HD800 (turquoise) which come from the same designer… for some reason the higher end headphone has a massive treble spike.

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The “trick” of creating an illusion of a listening environment on headphones is undoubtedly exciting to behold, however the pro audio community would do wise to remember that unlike speakers, headphones aren’t a mature technology.

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The problem is that frequency response of professional headphones (if there is such a thing) is all over the place… Naturally the effectiveness depends on how close the headphones are to the implied target curve of the HRTF emulation solution. All HRTF emulation relies on tonal precision to deliver the right kind of tonal alteration to the original signal, which is why it usually works on some headphones and misses the mark on others. In all feature pitches for HRTF emulation one stage of the process is conveniently left out – the headphones themselves. So, it sounds like we have this HRTF thing in the bag? Not quite. Products like Waves NX add the final touch – continuous head tracking, which is essential for sound source elevation perception.

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The Finns promise to calculate one’s head related transfer function (HRTF) from a 3D model which in turn is created from a series of 2D image the engineer takes on their own with a smartphone. Genelec has gone even further with their new Aural ID tech. What these numbers should be can be calculated from real world measurements of a person’s head. The next level is achieved by adjusting the timing of crossfed signals, after all – if a sound hits you from the left side, it takes some time for it to wrap around your head and get into your right ear.

There’s the simple option of offering a frequency dependent channel bleed, called crossfeed. Taking care of the specific imaging a headphone offers is less straightforward.

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Some of our clients have actually learned how to mix bass on them.

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Still, the two Achilles heels of headphones remain – the in-your-head sonic image and the lack of a physical full body sound experience.Ĭombating the lack of visceral impact in headphones can be attempted with bass shakers like the one from Subpac. In the last 30 or so years headphone listening has taken off, as has headphone use for critical audio monitoring previously relegated exclusively to speakers. A necessary peripheral to be used when speaker listen is impossible or unfeasible. Traditionally headphones have been thought of as an audio accessory.