A pair of headphones is a pair of headphones, right? If you are looking at buying a nice pair of headphones for your studio, this is probably something you have contemplated yourself. But then, when you study the alternatives offered to you, you will start to realise that some headphones contain the term studio somewhere in the description. This may bring up an excellent concern, precisely what are the variations between standard headphones and studio headphones?
Below we look at the differences between headphones and studio headphones.
Design and Manufacturing
The design quality of studio headphones is far superior to consumer headphones. Many businesses are comfortable offering warranties on studio headphones; the design is that good. Studio headphones at guitarguitar.co.uk come with a 36-month warranty. That’s how confident some retailers are about the build quality of studio headphones.
Industry Scrutiny
Because studio headphones are sold to more sophisticated buyers, manufacturers’ standards are a lot higher than typical consumer models.
Studio headphones that are manufactured well, satisfy design aims, and are fair value, should gain acceptance in the music production sector. If enough professionals appreciate and utilise it, it will likely become an industry standard.
The professional audio industry is still full of equipment built decades ago, like the Sony MDR-7506, that has a recognised and approved sound. Because that’s not their purpose, these headphones don’t always sound great. If you are currently researching studio gear, you may want to go for proven brands instead of what’s trending currently.
Neutral Sound Signature
Because of the laws of physics, no headphones can ever be considered totally neutral in terms of sound. On the other hand, studio headphones often have tunings aimed at reproducing the source audio as accurately as possible. The benefit to this is that studio headphones are frequently sharper and more detailed than consumer-oriented sets.
This has the drawback of bringing out all of the kinks in the recording process from start to finish. Once you start hearing these errors, you’ll have difficulty stopping. Distortion, background noise, and poor trims will all start to stand out to you.
It takes a lot of skill to mix audio for consumer-style technology, which is why most mainstream music has a distinct sound. Studio gear doesn’t always sound like consumer-grade sound. Audio mixing is also not often the highest-budgeted element of record production, so even well-produced albums might have tiny flaws.
This is all part of the enjoyment. Being a more critical listener is a lot of fun in the audio industry, and it’s a lot simpler to accomplish if you have at least one set of relatively neutral studio headphones.
Frequency range
Because conventional headphones don’t have much range, they may not be able to detect undesirable sounds occurring at extremely high or low frequencies. Such sounds may be picked up by specific peoples’ ears or amplified by certain instruments.
Price to Performance
Studio headphones are rarely promoted or publicised outside of specialised online circles, and they are typically based on previous versions that have already paid back their development expenses. As a result, they’re more affordable than other similar pairs while also offering greater sound quality for the money.
Most of what you’re paying for in consumer audio is the R & D and marketing costs. Companies can afford to earn less money per unit sold since many of the older studio designs have been profitable for years.
Studio headphones are subject to substantial price swings, while most consumer headphones are pretty steady in price.
The greatest headphones may be quite pricey, but there are many excellent alternatives that aren’t as expensive.
Some of the most regularly used headphones in the audio industry may cost half as much as Beats “studio” headphones. Audio-Technica’s ATH-M40x and Sony’s MDR-7506 both have plenty of satisfied professional customers.
