paulf707
... Is it worth paying the extra to buy my new headphones from them to have the 'individual calibration'? I can see it might make a small difference, but I'm thinking that might be a 'step too far' for an average home musician?
 
You mention using Beyerdynamic 990Pro with a 2i2 interface - I assume you've not noticed any issues needing a headphone amplifier - that's very encouraging!

1.  I can't tell you whether or not it's worth it, but it wasn't worth it to me.  I went through the list of models they had analyzed, and then looked further into those models.  If you order directly from Sonarworks it seems to be more expensive overall, however they actually measure the exact set of headphones you're getting (as opposed to just another pair of the same model).
2.  It's loud enough for me.  When I'm listening to other recorded/purchased music, i never need the volume higher than 50% or so.  Working on Sonar projects, that might get to 70-80%...

Keep in mind that flat-sounding headphones alone will not give you the 3-D effect of listening to studio monitors (Important when mixing).
 
While Sonarworks or Toneboosters Morph-It makes your phones "flat"....
 
For the 3-D aspect, you'll need to add something like Waves NX, Focusrite VRM, or TB Isone.

Thanks all, my plan for this weekend is to trial the Sonarworks and/or Toneboosters software and see what effect that has on my headphones.
I don't think they will solve all my mixing problems (but you never know!) - but I can then make a decision on what headphones to look at.
At the moment I'm looking at comparisons between AKG K702 and Sennheiser HD558
 
Thanks for the thoughts about the 3-D aspect - I'm aware of the concept of this but I'm not really aware of this as a 'problem' (although I'm sure it is!). I may try some demos of those software apps as well to see what impact they have.
 
Really appreciate all the thoughts and suggestions - so helpful!

OK - first thoughts from a couple of hours testing.....
 
Sonarworks has a profile for my headphones (or certainly very similar) - that seems quite effective. I sort of knew there was a bass boost on them, but the way Sonarworks reduces that sounds much more natural than if I try and use EQ to do it.
I tried experimenting with the 'simulate' options in Sonarworks - there's only a few options in there (I assume that's because it's a demo?) but there are options for AKG701 and Sennheiser HD650... I'm not sure how accurate they are but (to my ears) what they are suggesting from the AKG 701 is quite an 'alteration' to the sound compared to 'flat'. The HD650 seems much closer to 'flat' (to me) - but I guess that is why they cost more. (This ties in with what Soundwise posted earlier about frequency graphs - thanks again for that).
Couple of things about the plugin itself - doesn't seem to respond too well to touch screens (not sure why - most buttons seem to need two 'taps' when a mouse is a 'single click'). Also, the plugin drops the volume considerably - this is quite annoying when trying to A-B test this against other plugins.
 
Also tried Morphit - doesn't have a preset for my Sennheisers - so harder to test. After hearing the 'proper' correction on Sonarworks I managed to find one on Morphit that was similar for testing purposes. Seems to do a similar basic job (and is cheaper). Doesn't have the option for simulating other headphones / speakers, but a) is cheaper and b) doesn't appear to cause a volume reduction.
 
Lastly looked at TB Isone (speaker / studio simulation). Really not sure about this.... Firstly, it is another one with a significant volume reduction - and to make this worse there doesn't appear to be a bypass option within the plugin (making A-B comparisons even harder). In terms of stereo imaging I can hear what it is doing - 'pulling in' extreme panning to a slightly more central bias. I already know that stereo image is more obvious on headphones, and I'm not sure that is a problem (for me) when I'm mixing on headphones. However, I'm less convinced about the 'room / speaker simulations' - all that seems to do is roll off some of the top end (to varying degrees) and make things more muffled? That's not my experience of moving audio from headphones to speakers - some may have slightly less treble, but others have more.
 
 
So conclusions from this?
I think I am convinced that headphones with (as close to possible) flat response are what I need. Sennheiser HD558 are a strong contender at the moment (but I'll be doing more research).
However, having a pair that are covered by Sonarworks / Morphit presets are vital to making use of those tools.
I'm currently leaning towards Morphit, due to the lower price and the better volume matching. And they have Sennheiser 558s on their list of presets....
The lack of 'simulation' may be an issue, but I think I'll look into that as a separate requirement - try to find something like Isone but with more useful sounding options....
 
 
Thanks once again everyone for you comments and suggestions - as always I've moved completely away from where I thought I wanted to go, but I feel I am now making a much more informed decision.
 
Cheers!

paulf707
I tried experimenting with the 'simulate' options in Sonarworks - there's only a few options in there (I assume that's because it's a demo?) but there are options for AKG701 and Sennheiser HD650... I'm not sure how accurate they are but (to my ears) what they are suggesting from the AKG 701 is quite an 'alteration' to the sound compared to 'flat'.

I don't believe in software mods that should make one headphone sound like another. I am pretty convinced that the real K701, which is after all a studio reference headphone with a build in neutral response, will sound different and much better then some software emu on a bass-boosty HiFi headphone.
 
 
 

I agree - the software emulation can only be an estimation.... But what I heard from the software seemed to agree with the frequency charts that Soundwise showed above - the Sennheiser's seem to be 'flatter' then the AKGs..
 
@Soundwise - where did you get those frequency charts from - is there a website that tests headphones and provides these??
 
Thanks all
Paul

http://graphs.headphone.com/
 

paulf707
....
Couple of things about the plugin itself - doesn't seem to respond too well to touch screens (not sure why - most buttons seem to need two 'taps' when a mouse is a 'single click'). Also, the plugin drops the volume considerably - this is quite annoying when trying to A-B test this against other plugins.
....

At least how I use Sonarworks, it's a "set it and forget it" app. The first time I used it, I selected my headphones from the dropdown and set this as default. Now, I just drop the VST in the Master buss FX bin. No extra clicks or setting-changes required. If you don't need to change the settings, I wouldn't worry about the touch compatibility (but that's just me).
As for the volume drop, I noticed that the faders on the right side of the GUI were originally set to lower the output by 3 or 6 Db. I pushed the faders back up to 0 and that solved the volume problem for me.
If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't. For me, Sonarworks has been a big help. When I listen on other sources now, there aren't nearly as many surprises in the mix.

But wait, I thought one of the "tricks" was to mix in mono. Once you get the balance right then you can pan things around. Not only that, but then I read that positioning of instruments via panning is very broad. It only makes sense to pan instruments at -90°, 0°, or +90° (and some may argue that ±45° is also useful). Anything else doesn't make much difference because our ears are not very good at interpreting localization cues. If true, then the "enhanced" 3D effect of headphones makes no difference. All you need is frequency response correction. Thoughts?

@BitFlipper - thanks for the link - very interesting reading.... Brings into perspective the relatively small differences between many of the high end headphones (compared to the relatively big difference to my current headphones! - looks like any of the ones I've been looking at will be a significant improvement!!)
 
I'll look again at the SonarWork controls again... I do remember seeing a level control on the right hand side - I though I pushed it as high as it would go, but again, it was struggling to respond to my touch screen, so that could be the answer....
 
Panning - my views are that I tend to mix most instruments within about 50% left / right, and only push 'special effects' type sounds out to the edges. I've not tried mixing in mono - I always find that with everything default to centre pan it's really hard to distinguish between some sounds, and even a small amount of panning tends to 'separate' them. So I tend to pan sounds early on - but maybe that's not a good idea??