Headphone Recommendations

I use the sony 7506 cans, I also have the DJ700 which has the same drivers but is larger and around half the price. I have used sonys for over 20 years and find them very comfortable and good sounding.

In TV I used DT100's but that was mainly for talback and not critical listening.

Thanks Gary, we'll consider the Sony's as well.

Of great importance is wearer comfort as the primary use will be for 8hrs a day.
Some of the HD 280 reviews I've read suggested comfortable but they grip too tight for more than an hours comfortable use.

How do the DT100 and 7506 compare?

7506 is far more comfortable than the DT100 as they are lighter and the earpads are softer.

As for sound the DT100's are nowhere near the quality of the sonys and they also go very loud without breaking up.

The sonys also fold up so are good for location carrying and they have a 1/8" jack and a 1/4" adaptor, the DT100's are modular but for what they cost you can get a new set of sonys every few years. I have had my current ones 15 years and have only had to replace the ear pads which I got for £10 delivered from the USA.

The DJ700's are bigger and I tend to use them backhome for studio recording and monitoring.

I use beyer 770's

there is a version that cuts out more noise - intended for drummers etc.

cost aprox £100

http://www.studiospares.com/Headphones-Studio/Beyer-DT770-Pro-Headphones-250-Ohms/invt/410830

Personally I use the HD 25-1 for my closed mobile cans.

You could also look at the new HD 380 Pro as an alternative to the HD 280 Pro. They fold flat and come complete with a transport case (like the PXC 350).

[IMG]http://www.sennheiser.com/sennheiser/products.nsf/resources/HD380_ZoomImage_.png/$File/HD380_ZoomImage_.png[/IMG]

Gents thanks for the additional suggestions.

I've spend a chunk of time searching for additional reviews and decided to plump for the Sony MDR 7506's initially (£80 Amazon).

Next time we'll try and trial all the suggestions (the 380's in particular). This time round we need them for Thursday so it's a snap decision and fingers-crossed! :)

I'm now in a similar boat after breaking my old headphones at the weekend they were bought originaly just to listen to my hi fi but I know they werent really right for "monitoring" but they were better than earphones or nothing at all.

so in short I need some headphones so that I can monitor the sound being recorded to my Z1 during weddings etc.

Prepared to pay between £50 to £100. Any recomendations?

Not in the budget allocated but I bought a set of Bose Noise Cancelling ones in Duty Free last year & they are awsome.

Sennheiser HD 25 <- reliable, affordable and best of all loud with closed backs so you can always hear them against pretty much any background noise.

they are modular too so if / when you break something you can get a replacement part instead of needing a whole new set.

HD25 are probably the closest you'll find to an industry standard headphone.

Since you are only monitoring for presence or absence of signal and any possible interferance, then high quality in headphones is irrelevent. When I used to do weddings, I wore lightweight earpieces which could be carried in my shirt pocket. They also mean you are not so 'isolated ' from your surroundings and they don't get in the way of a shoulder-mounted camera.

Ray L

The Z1 headphone output is VERY low - almost incapable of driving a pair of DT100s.

Are the HD25s "loud" on a Z1?

We've had the Sony MDR 7506's out on one event so far although we've used them at home as well.

Both of us found them comfortable (we've very different sized heads), well insulating and the audio quality was fabulously clear.
Granted we had a direct audio feed from a mixing desk so it as good as it's likely to get but all the same we're both very impressed.

the current standard HD25 spec has an impedance of 60 ohms, this is pretty low and results in a loud output even from fairly low output devices such as the Z1.

Dt100s come in 2 versions, it sounds like you probably have the 400 ohm ones. They do a 16 ohm version too which should be earbleedingly loud.

I much prefer HD25s as i like to have just one ear covered so i can hear what people off mic are saying too. They also look a bit less Radio Caroline than the DT100, not that i'm overly bothered about it...

I've got plenty of DT100s, 108s and 109s here and while they can be 'earbleedingly' loud without any issues, they are one of the most watt suckingly insensitive headphones. They need driving properly, and I doubt any camcorders I have ever come across have headphone outputs remotely loud enough, although their ability to cut out outside noise does help. I'd never tried them on camcorders, but I've dug out an adaptor and tried them in 4 cameras - A JVC 5000, A Sony BVW300, an ancient TRsomething 8mm handycam and a JVC 500. None of these could produce usable levels. It isn't the headphones fault - they just need treating like small loudspeakers, not headphones.

I used Dt100's in most of my broadcast career and whilst they are robust and you can replace any parts they generally sound dreadful for quality control purposes, we used them as talkback cans so I am now very happy with the sony 7506 that I have used in some form for over 20 years. The DJ version 700's are also very good and ideal for use in my home studio.

Sounds like they are all the 400 ohm versions - 400 ohms is a compromise between the 2 standard impedance levels for headphones :- low impedance is the standard output found on domestic equipment, these outputs are fairly low power and are designed to drive headphones with an impedance between around 75-150 ohms.
High Impedance headphones are normally around 600 ohms. They are designed for talkback and studio applications where many sets of headphones may be connected in parallel. High impedance headphones require a higher input level to create the same volume as a lower impedance headphone.

So low impedance DT100s will be very loud on the Z1. High impedance DT100s will be barely audible. Most of the DT100s i've seen have been the high impedance version.

All this holds true for any set of headphones - the impedance is an indication of how loud they will be for a given input level. If you find you always have your volume turned right up then you should look for some lower impedance headphones.

I seem to recall that the DT100's we used at Tyne Tees Tv were 2k impedance, the reason being that you could plug lots of sets into the line amps without blowing them up.

That may be why they sounded dreadful too, the location recordist guys tended to use beyer DT48's the modern favorite seems to be the DT25 as stated.

The HD 25-1 II has an impedance of 70-Ohms.

It's also 120dB efficient which means that it will give you a good monitoring level from even the weakest of battery portable equipment.

It is the industry standard nowadays.

What johns didn't say is that apart from decent quality, they are also amazingly tough! They are often still perfect, audio wise when the appearance suggests they've really been abused - which they often have!

Yeah they are pretty indestructible - i used to have a pair which had been driven over which still worked fine. The only real drawback with the HD25 is they are popular with DJs and thus seem to get stolen more than any other camera accessory.

Driven over, or overdriven? ...or both? :)

both most likely...

Driven over by a land rover, over driven by a loud raver.

sadly now also lost / stolen - bloody DJs!