Headphones while shooting - which ones?
 

Wanted to know which is a better way to go for monitoring audio while shooting - in ear noise isolation or over the ear headphones.

I'm leaning more towards in ear as they are small and easy to travel with. But I'm not sure if they are the proper/best solution for monitoring audio while shooting. I've used over the ear headphones - specifically the AKG K44's and they seem like a decent set of cans, but the size is difficult to work with when needing to transport them since I work as a one person production crew.

My budget is pretty tapped after my recent purchases of a Sennheiser G2 wireless Lav and new Shotgun mic so I can't go for the upper crust cans - Any recommendations for a moderately priced monitoring solution while shooting???

Sony 7506-had the same set for 7 or 8 years and they work great. Small enough to fit into a small bag crammed with all kinds of gear -comfy enough to wear for hours.
About $100 IIRC.

Don

I'll second the Sony 7506s. I think I paid around $90 for mine, been a while though. Good cans, fold up nice in the pack.

Ear muffs are the way to go for really monitoring your audio. I do keep a pair of ear buds in my camerabag as emergency spares, and if I'm in a situation where I need to hear 'outside' the camera's audio for safety reasons.

Third call for Sony MDR-7506's. Shot a documentary of the Doolittle Raiders symposium at the local flight museum. The sound crew had 'em. I had a pair. Seems everywhere I look, the sound guy has a pair clamped on their head. Currently running about $99 USD. They seem to be a common denominator in the audio world. Plus, they give a good, loud sound from a low level drive.

Martin

I just bought a pair of Sennheiser HD25 mk IIs three weeks ago after a lot of research. They are compact comfortable and isolate the audio very well, but I don't know if there are outwith your budget.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc..._25_1_II_.html

Just to expand this, there are a couple of good REASONS that the large numbers of shooters use Sony MDR-7506 headphones. And neither of them are about how great they are as general purpose musical headphones.

The first reason, as others have noted is their efficiency. It doesn't take a lot of juice to drive them to a very useful monitoring level. So they work great when being driven by a relatively anemic camera amps. (neither camcorders NOR pro cameras have even close to 100 plus watt home stereo system style power amps - so efficiency is mission critical)

Secondly, they are NOT the most accurate cans available and you don't WANT them to be.

The Sony's have a pretty pronounced "presence peak" right around the general frequency areas of human speech. This makes them pretty mediocre for listening to your stereo (unless you perversely enjoy brittle mid-range cellos and somewhat harsh horns, anyway.)

But PERFECT for monitoring dialog. It's the DIALOG that drives most field production. So you've GOT to hear that properly. If a talent slurs a word or mumbles, or reads a critical line wrong, it's just no good to discover that back in the edit suite. You need to hear it IN THE FIELD, so you can call for another take.

7506s are designed to let you monitor human speech well.

So you want to listen to music? Great - go buy yourself some full spectrum, balanced and very "musical" headphones and enjoy them. You want to listen to field recorded dialog to make sure you're not screwing up your recordings? Consider tools designed to do that well.

And one of those tools proven over time by countless professionals are Sony 7506 headphones.

My 2 cents, for what it's worth.

Right Cliff, the Sony 7506 is THE standard enjoyed by most filmmakers. Actually, I love to use my Sennheiser CX-300 earbuds for non-critical, casual work and wear them hours each day with my iPod or simple audio/video shooting:

http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-CX3.../dp/B000E6G9RI

But you needs a set of cans to isolate ambient noise and ensure you're only hearing true audio from the headset without leakage from a set of earbuds.

BTW, when you get your Sony 7506 headphone, get a Garfield softie - your ears will be very happy you bought these:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...C=GAHSBK&Q=&O=

Good luck, Michael

Like Colin, I use the Sennheiser HD-25 headphones. I prefer these over the Sony 7506's, but you have to search around to find good deals on them, even then they are usually double the price of the 7506 headphones. I find these headphones much more comfortable to wear for extended periods of time (and I wear them a lot). Here in the US, the Sony headphones tend to be worn more often, but it seems that in Europe the Sennheiser's are preferred by many of the mixers over the Sony's.

Regardless of what headphone you use, avoid earphones. They are too cumbersome to put in and unless you get a great seal, you don't get the frequency response you need.

Wayne

Sony 7506 for me too, I also have two sets of the MDR-V700 DJ cans which have the same drivers, I use them and are used for editing if I need to be quiet.

Sony MDR 7506 for me too. They're excellent.

Paul.

Would this Audo Technica cheaper one perform the same? Or is it not so good in some aspect?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...Headphone.html

I second the Sennheiser HD-25. Especially the rotatable left capsule for single ear monitoring is a handy feature. Superb quality and very high sensitivity.

Sony MDR 7506 too.
Comfortable, good isolation and good volume.
The downside is that i paid more than twice the US price here in europe.

There are plenty of ways to buy them from the USA and even with import duty and vat here in the Uk they are still a bargain.

I looked into that too, but for the Netherlands it didn't matter that much. The price doubled also on shipping/import/vat.

I'm also using the Sennheiser HD 25-1 II. Here in Europe these are the standard headphones used by soundmen. Very comfortable to wear, even for longer periods. Expensiver then Sony, but worth every penny.

I was using the Senheisser HD-25's for years but then switched to the Shure E5's. Today I use the Shure SE530's which are just great. So small, and completely isolated sound (what you hear is what you get). I just feel that if you are there for work, the only thing that matters is what you are capturing. I can't compromise audio for my work, so knowing what I'm getting in real time is the end of the conversation.

Sennheiser HD 25-1 II for me. They are expensive but truly AMAZING!

for the _same_ prices as the 7506's are senn HD280's. vastly better because they have 30db of isoloation from outside sound so you can keep them at normal levels and hear everything ok. without good isolation, you have to turn the headphones up too high, and that leads to hearing loss eventually.

the HD280's for the price are excellent. in fact you can pick them up on amazon for $89 sometimes.

The HD 25-1 is the industry standard in the UK.

The sensitivity is 120dB which makes them very easy to drive with battery equipment.

Hello Pietro,

Kick it up a bit farther to the Audio Technica ATH-M50. Don't believe me?

Audio-Technica

Regards,

Ty Ford

I was recommended to buy Beyerdynamic DT 250s which I did.

But these don't cancel out background noise at all (I did read around the subject but didn't realise that headphones should exclude all external sound as some of these posts seem to be saying).

Have I made a poor buy? Should I change my headphones?

Closed headphones can never exclude all external sound - that's impossible.

They can and do, however, reduce high frequency noise a lot - often 20-25dB above about 1 or 2 kHz. To reduce low frequency noise you need active noise reduction headphones.

Thanks John
The DT 250s are described as monitoring headphones but they don't seem to give the same degree of isolation as most of the headphones mentioned in this thread do.
Here's their spec:
Frequency response 10 - 30,000 Hz
Nominal impedance 80 ohm
Nominal SPL 100 dB
Nominal power rating 100 mW
Ambient noise insulation approx. 16 dBA
Cable length 3 m
So maybe I should be looking for a headphone that gives more isolation.
The greater the isolation the less damage I am going to do to my hearing because I don't have to turn volume up so much in order to monitor the sound corrrectly. Is that correct?

Frequency response does not mean anything at all without tolerance figures.

The HD 25 is 16Hz to 22,000Hz -3dB - that's a +/- tolerance of only 1.5dB.

Efficiency is 120dB as opposed to 100dB - that's 20dB more sensitive.

Impedance is about the same, slightly less at 70-Ohms.

So the HD 25 at the same volume setting will be much louder.

There are different versions with different cable lengths - the -1 version is about 1.2m.

I am not familiar with the DT250 so I won't comment on quality.

Isolation - 16dB is so so - The HD 25 have a maximum attanuation of about 35dB at 10kHz. Nothing below 300Hz, about 20dB at 1kHz, about 35dB at 10kHz and a couple of dB less at 20kHz.

The same capsule is used on the HME 25 airline headset and the attenuation grah is on page 15 of THIS pdf brochure.

I have had my HD25s for 19 years and still do be fine - just got through about 3 pairs of earpads over the years.


Basically, yes.

Many thanks John
That's very helpful. I think I may buy a new pair of headphones.