Mixing on Headphones is BETTER than Studio Monitors?! | Blind Shootout Results

Thank you - very useful for users from Ukraine, like me. You never know here if it is worth to invest into monitors if your home can be destroyed or you will need to move somewhere not being able to take monitors with you.

It's really not that hard to make some decent room acoustic panels of course your gonna have some downfalls but I can't stand wearing headphones for more then 15 minutes I couldn't imagine doing everything in headphones .. remember you only got to make acoustic panels once and if you do it right they will last you a lifetime

Lots of good information packed in here.

I wish you could do this again on another genres of music. Trouble is your convenience causes a choice hard to convince and take a task to measure meaningful facts. Please use a new genre and point fact statement.

Ridiculous song to use as an example. Full of distortion and no clean stuff to pull a quality mix from, unless of course you just trying to produce head squeeze. Your mother could mix this and Noone would know the differance.

Probably even better if your headphones were individually calibrated by Sonarworks. I have a pair of Hifiman Sundara with planar magnetic drivers individually calibrated by Sonarworks and Waves NX. I combine the two so that Sonarworks provide the frequency calibration and NX provides the spatial modeling. Think that sounds very much like my monitors in a well treated room. However, I prefer working with my monitors. Think imaging is better and it feels more relaxed not having the sound right into my ears.

I'd love to see what would happen if you used the Slate VSX.

I think the undefeatable flaw in this test is that once you mastered a song the first time, you already learned what the main problems are. They can be things you wouldn't notice, or would perceive differently, if you were using headphones from the get go, but now that you already mastered it before, you can't help but work on the song kind of the same way again. And if, realizing this, you force yourself to do it different, then you would be just faking.

This was a great comparison. I’m curious if you did the same test using VSX. I use 7506 many years and am thinking of getting HD600 or VSX. I have Waves CLA also.

Do you prefer your 650’s over the VSX which I believe you tested once?

Great video man,I appreciate it 👍

good test..for me the speakers ..were the clear winner

This is a great idea, thanks for doing this. The results are actually what i expected. The headphone mix without correction sounded just like the default frequency balance of the Senn HD650s. The Sonarworks correction brought the result closer to your monitors. So, assuming your mastering studio is close to flat, it means that Sonarworks did indeed flatten the response of the Senn HD650s. I could hear a little bit less detail and presence with the Sonarworks compared to the studio monitors mix, but it was close and much much better than the other software.
Would like to hear this done with a song that has more room for spatialisation, reverb etc, so we can hear how well spatialisation decisions translate when using headphones, compared to the studio monitors. Cheers :)

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I know that this video is about 5 months ago for Mixing on Headphones, but did you use or know about the Waves NX Head tracker? The tracker is used in conjunction with the Waves NX Studio plugins to simulate the studio models. It helps me to do an A - headphones and B- from my monitors in my room. Maybe a Mixing with Waves NX revisited video?

All my songs on my channel are mixed and mastered in headphones sometimes earbuds

I would love to see what you think of vsx compared to all these other methods.

I use HD 650 headphones with sonarworks combined with CLA nx (without correction)

That song isn't awesome...ITS AWFUL!

Hey Bobby! thank you for your sincere effort to present this possibility to all colleagues in these difficult times...
I'm a senior mixing and mastering engineer for about 45 years now, of which I have used headphones as my main listening system for almost 25 years, in a proportion of about 80% to 20% versus speakers.
I have used the HD 650s since they came on the market, circa 2004, and currently my headphone balancing software is Realphones (after being a long time user of Sonar Works...)
I want to support your idea by saying that I have had a successful and still current career in my region, achieved almost exclusively using headphones.
You can certainly work professionally on headphones!

HD600 (selected in nx) and 650 (actually used) are quite different sounding headphones - possibly the mismatch introduced something that influenced your work in a positive way? I use 650s with the Abbey Road S3 nx (doesn't have the ambience control that CLA has) with no headphone correction, followed by Sonarworks in the Cubase control Room and it's pretty much become my go-to work environment. Perhaps give that a try? Nice vid, enjoy what you do.

If you really want to put this theory to the test you should try recording, mixing and mastering a song from start to finish with these plugins using headphones. I bet the result will be very undesirable. 😂

Great video, Bobby. Really interesting and suprising results. Thank you for doing the deep analysis A/B testing and sharing your findings. Much appreciated.

With Realphones, you perhaps shouldn't have had any of the room/monitor simulation enabled - only the HRTF (crossfeed) and headphone correction should have been applied. The simulation stuff is just a gimmicky method of checking how your mix might translate to other equipment/spaces. You would also have to be very careful with the Density setting, because it would be too easy to add rich bass frequencies to your monitoring, which would make the master sound weaker when you disable Realphones later. I suggest trialling it properly for a month, using it very judiciously and subtly, before making a decision. I don't have any Waves plugins because I don't like the company. Personally I like Realphones compared to a couple of other crossfeed plugins though, and it does improve my headphone mixes. I'm only a hobbyist though.

Studio Monitors are still the best, although very marginally as compared with the SW, and RPH

This is fantastic. Great scientific test. Highly useful!

Interesting find. When listening to the versions, I thought the Sonarworks sounded the closest to your speakers. It would really be interesting if you made the same moves when mastering through headphones that you would with your speakers. So starting fresh with Sonarworks and then A/B to see which one sounds better. That does take some time and I understand that but that would be the ultimate test to see if you would even do the same things unless you already have a chain you always go through. If that is the case, then this test would be fine. Great Video!

Idk, man. I tried waves nx, just didn’t work with my hd600s. Funny enough, realphones worked the best for me. Although, I didn’t use easy mode, and spent a couple of hours tweaking (which was kind of annoying) and it was also after their v1.8 update which enhanced a lot of things. Nx just dulled the transients too much. Feel like it’d be hard to set a comp right with it. Just my 2 cents.

Maybe you could try embody virtual studio and tell us what u think too.

Great, never found a video as yours on this subject ! A massive work! If in the future you will want to repeat it would be great compare Waves Nx with Tonebooster Isone (free legacy version), Acustica Audio Sienna, iK Multimedia Morphit and Focusrite VRM Box. I use these tools in my "prosumer" bedroom studio (mainly Sienna and VRM, this also 'cause VRM is a good headphones amp) and in a 50% proportion alternating my Monoprice M1070 with my studio monitors iK Micromonitor, these with room correction by ARC of iK Multimedia. Very good results, this people say to me :-) , CIAO

Appreciate your hard works! This is really interesting and good comparison. May I know what audio interface you are using? And any headphone amplifier for your HD650?

Toneboosters Isone works well for me

Interesting!

years ago my monitors gave out, got some good headphones, recorded, 100's of great songs with only headphones.
it works, also my wife is deathly ill and i can not play anything out loud so now i must use them.
true, can the monitors i was looking at. i would like to hear all these songs on some good speakers, oh well, saves me from cash on making my room acoustic treatment.

i have my dt 700 pro x and i make just beats and a little bit of vocal mixing how important are these programms like sonarworks ... im not sure if i wanna spend that much and if its gonna help me a lot

I mix exclusively in headphones. You just have to know what good music SHOULD sound like in them and then it's fine. I mix in a nice pair of open-backed studio headphones (Sennheiser HD 650). Then I check the mix in a different, cheaper pair of headphones. They're close-backed and have hyped-up low end. Once I have the mix sounding good in both headphones, it seems to translate fine. I'm not saying my mixes are amazing. They have issues with them, and I'm still learning. However, I'm rarely surprised by anything when I finally listen in speakers. I've tried the corrective software and I don't find it helpful.

On my ADAM i also picked the one from CLA Nx... Good i found your channel few days ago, this afternoon i was trying Sienna from Acustica (it is the only plugin that have my shitty headphones....). I will dig in a bit more as those plugins are a real game changer (for the worst and the best) and it needs your ears to get used to it.

SUB, This is my new favorite mixing channel!

I use Sonarworks for my monitors, but I find it horrible for headphones. Tone boosters Morphit is my favourite headphone correction plugin. Nice test 👍🏾

Right on time. I was feeling a bit down after pricing some Focal monitors today. But then I watch your video and felt a less bad thanks a lot.

Plugin guide link DOESN'T WORK. Harvests your email for spam but provides no information ???

I totally agree with you. You can have a GREAT mix or Master from Headphones.... I personally think you will do more adjusting on headphones than monitors... BUT I use both.. headphones 1st then check on monitors to adjust...Dope Video I needed to hear it...Salute

I don’t want flat. I want my monitors to playback whatever sounds best to my ears. Flat response doesn’t have enough bass. It’s sterile and boring. I set my speakers in a spot that gives me way more bass that way I can mix with a lot of bass, how I will like it, and it will translate. Flat is an odd obsession

Great work Sir!! I’ve been a headphone user for everything for over 20 years. Tho I recently got monitors, I still find myself deep in the phones. I tried real phones and didn’t like it at all. I own the CLA and Ocean Way NX’s and for “a dumb plugin” they are bomb!!
Using my JLAB earbuds to listen to the audio of this video, my picks for favorite master are, 1 the version done with the CLA; 2 your original master; 3 the sonar works version. And as a diehard headphones user, this just adds to my point, you can mix and master great music with headphones!

Very interesting- thanks

Great job, bro!

Your mixes are crazy good.

It was surprising & encouraging to see (hear) the NX sound as close to the monitors as they did.

(I'm on headphones, though...)

Interesting video. So much for treating a room, which is the only thing I have not done yet, BUT maybe now, for at least now, I won't! I have Sonar Works and have calibrated both of my Beyerdynamic 770s and 880s, the 2nd one I use for mixing and mastering, since they are semi-open backed, and 250 ohms. I will calibrate both pairs of monitors soon. Waves has a few types of NX plugins, and CLA is the most aggressive, and fits the style of CLA in his own work, which is different from mine. He's always "pushing the envelope" so the song you used fits that plugin. I also have the Ocean Way Nashville NX and prefer those for what I do.

What a cool shootout man. Thanks for doing this!!

Great video ,this is something I have been wondering about ,I mixed my album with tascam studio monitor headphones and then remixed all the songs through Kali monitors ,the mixes with monitors were way better than my headphones ,I will be buying the waves one you tested with because I would like to be able to trust my headphone mixes ,I mainly record and mix late at night so this will be very helpful