I think we're getting lost in theory. Of course the best mixing
environment is a properly designed listening space with top class
loudspeakers with five zeroes in its cost, but if you put up a mic in
there, you will get some very odd results. The final mix is to be
listened to on a home system with no acoustic treatment and
indifferent speakers and will sound very different from the mixing
studio.
Compared with that, any good headphones are comparatively free of
resonances, multiple path lengths and the whole mess we listen to at
home, but this is the environment we are recording for.
As field recordists, we have no option but to use headphones. If we
have decisions to make about background sound, selecting objects to
highlight and balancing between these and other factors, we have to
train our ears so we can judge what our recordings will sound like on
a loudspeaker system.
Different headphones of course sound different, but we generally don't
have eq on the listening end while recording. We have to use our ears
to do the "equalisation" and this is where it important to know your
headphones. There are no "best" headphones, just ones which suit your
ears and temperament.
David
David Brinicombe
North Devon, UK
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum - Ambrose Bierce
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