Studio Monitoring Headphones

[DreamwaveMusic]

What are your opinions on monitoring headphones? AKG K240s sounds nice, but they arent very loud. Is the loudness determined by the impedance? What is a recommended set of cans for monitoring in the same room as a drummer with good isolation? Anyone try the Fostex T20 or T50?

[Whoopysnorp]

I usually put in earplugs and then crank up my MDR-7506s way loud. I've been doing that on them for years now and it hasn't seemed to damage them any.

[Nubus]

The impedance of the headphones and the amp will matter but that stuff to me gets fairly complicated. I think that the headphone out on my board is unusually high at 600 ohms, it seems to get seriously loud if it needs to. Also I have these E2 headphones that the box says 16 ohms on, which seems lo, and I've noticed those need the ipod cranked higher than the apple buds. This manufacturer :
http://www.gradolabs.com/
Has headphones rated at 32 and their amp is rated the same. THey also make a high gain amp for headphones over 100 ohms, and for editing or refrence these headphones cant be beat in my book.

For drums recording I would recommend staying away from the RP seies as they tend to slide off of heads easily. You could always get a nice Walter Payton "Roos" sweatband to keep them on though.

[DreamwaveMusic]

well, those headphones sound real nice Nubus, but I wonder if they are practical for session use. I think my problem might be more of impedance mismatching. I have been using the Aux outs of a Mackie Onyx which are 300 Ohms. The ART headphone amp I am using has an input impedance of 10K Ohms. It outputs at 10 Ohms. i tried K240s which I believe are 55 ohms, and they distort pretty bad at the level i would like to monitor with.

is there a mismatch happening?

[Nubus]

I think you might have the exact same headamp as I. Is it the 5 channel one? I had a bad distortion sound when I was connecting my mixer outputs to it's 1/4 " inputs, I guess they are not designed to see a +4 signal. I thought of it when i noticed the overloading sound at a low level. so i had to switch my setup around a bit (a pain in my ass) and use the rca outputs on my digi 002. Now it sounds great, and I actually love the indents and the pots on it cause they feel sturdy and don't accidentally move on me.

[Nubus]

oh and yes, the grados are super nice but i can't use them on overdubs or when I'm tracking.

[DreamwaveMusic]

yes ive got the 5 channel, same as you. I will have to try the RCA outs or headphone out on the mixer. I was using the aux sends to have control over seperate can mixes.

[Nubus]

The headphones I use say their nominal impedance is 24 ohms and I end up running the headamp right at or just below the detents. I assume a higher resistance requires a bit more gain to match levels. Just something to note.