im in this situation where i cant listen to my music loud cause of this old lady upstairs. i think the bass might kill her so i keep it down but it aint music without bass, or at least thats what i think. i nabbed some headphones from work, they are sennheiser hd280 pro and they are nice quality but im wondering if there are flat response headphones like monitors. or... are there any really good headphones that could be good enough to record my tracks with and ill worry about the mix later. im kinda tired of making beats with these headphones and then playing them in speakers and everything sounds really bad. like "woah, i made this piece of shit beat". anyone use headphones that have good quality.

wow fortunately you talk about those headphones, i was sabout think to buy them...have you got the "pro" model, hd 280 pro, i mean?
i hearded good thing about them, but finallaly if your experience is this how to blame you...
i would like to say that the fact that you combine headphones and monitors (what monitors, please?)is a good thing for the ears (and for the mix)...

anyway, other headphones for mixing/eq etc i heard nice things:

Senheiser HD 600 or 659 or 800
beyerdynamic dt 880 pro
beyerdynamic dt 770 pro
akg 240 monitor
akg k 240 mkII
AKG K240 MK2 STUDIO
audio technica ath-m50
audio technica ATH-M40fs

well i do have the hd 280 pro ones. they are nice and the best part is they block out alot of outside noise if you need something like that. and i dont have monitors so i wouldnt take my advice about headphones since im using punk ass logitech speakers. monitors are-a comin. i work for an animation studio so the sound guy recommended that the company buy the sennheisers but he uses the akg's. im not sure which one tho. it just sucks to not know what your music sounds like so i think im just gonna find a sound thats cozy and stick to that, and keep dreaming of one day making high quality music or at least standard quality music.

for the monitors:
i'm trying to search (and buy) the yamaha hs50m. i would like monitors that sound as flat as possible...well, at that price, i will not have the best result but, confronting the hs50 mix with shitty hifi monitors or car hifi stero or other should give you an idea of waht you are doing...
other tip: send your mp3 to someone you know (maybe in this forums too) which have monitors and ask him about the sound...

I can vouch for these. i picked up a pair a few months ago and i'm happy with them. they are pretty comfortable too for longer sessions.

that thing looks pretty comfortable!!! what is that padding? silk?

I allways have to use headphones aswell, is ish. not for long though. can't wait to get my new yard!! gonna treat myself to the white krk's.

anyway, i got those m-audio q40's, are nice except the cable is broken after 6months so im back to my old sony's. jus becarfull with headphones tho, as to much can really fck your hearing up!!

my mates loves the dt'S.

i ended up buying a pair of roland rh-300 after reading this review:

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f4/roland ... ns-453770/

there are some good links in the thread to frequency response graphs.

the rh-300 aren't exactly cheap (~$200), but they sound great, look great, and are exceptionally comfortable

i reckon there's only one real choice : sennheiser hd25's.

theyre pricey but they have totally flat response, no messing about, all replaceable parts. proper professional headphones. deep bass without having a 'bass boost'.

i sell headphones at work and i've tried alot of different dj/production headphones, and these are the best ones by a long way.

watch out for fakes though!

here are some of the frequency response charts i came across by way of the head-fi link posted above...

here's the direct link: http://www.geocities.jp/ryumatsuba/review.html

they've got just about every manufacturer & model out there... it is in japanese, and the translation gets a little fuzzy, but those frequency response charts really helped me to finalize a decision when i was shopping around

I dunno, it's almost like a really smooth, soft felt. I also dig the fact that they make zero contact with your ear, which for me is like half of the reason my ears get fatigued so quickly with headphones.

I've got a pair of AKG K-701 headphones, they don't give out much bass but they're about the best you can get for mixing, with an incredibly wide stereo image (which is where many headphones fail in comparison to monitors) and a detailed high end. The Beyerdinamic DT-770 and Sennheiser HD650 are excellent choices also, but I would choose the AKGs for mixing (although you can't really go wrong if the decision is between those three).

grab nice headphones if you must but still use even cheap monitors or regular hi-fi speakers for your mix. you can make the beat on your headphones and then mix using a combination of your headphones and speakers. never mix using strictly headphones.

Yeah, he's right. Even with near flat headphones, it'll influence the overall mix a lot. In many cases the headphones will cut off certain ranges of frequencies by default that a monitor wouldn't.

In my case it makes the mix WAY too bass heavy (in my headphones this sounds of course excellent).

Using my Edirol MA-D15 monitors, and knowing what a good mix sounds like on them, often times will give the best mastering / mixing result. I need to use a reasonably loud volume though if I want to get the lower end right as well. The monitors aren't lacking, they just need more volume for that to be noticeable.

So far these monitors are the most accurate I've come across for that price (at under 200$ a true bargain) and really useful for mastering / mixing.

I've yet to truly break my habit of using my headphones for mastering though. Its tempting to just rush that part and get done with it.

(Also, my headphones are very cheap Stanton DJ-2000s, not at all very accurate, but excellent for about 70$.)