Best mixing headphones, budget max ~1600 $

[jonasbbech]

Do you guys have any suggestions?

I was looking at the Focal Clear Professional but I cant find a lot of info on people actually using them for mixing.
I tried the Audeze LCD-X at my local store and was not impressed, everything sounded super unnatural compared to my Beyerdynamic 1990 Pros.

[HREQ]

Slate VSX.

[JNS WRNHD]

Slate VSX.

Not that easy to come across these days. All of you, pls fill in what headphones you think are the best at the price that´s in the head lining.

[d-s-m]

Yeah just get the Slate VSX headphones and save yourself a bunch of money.

Slate VSX.

Not that easy to come across these days. All of you, pls fill in what headphones you think are the best at the price that´s in the head lining.

Slate VSX have only come to the market very recently, they are available at lots of sites.

[JNS WRNHD]

Yeah just get the Slate VSX headphones and save yourself a bunch of money.

Slate VSX.

Not that easy to come across these days. All of you, pls fill in what headphones you think are the best at the price that´s in the head lining.

Slate VSX have only come to the market very recently, they are available at lots of sites.

As a european i tend to look at Thomann and they don´t have them. They had something called VSX founders edition, but not anymore.

[strimme]

its too bad AKG doesn't make lower end headphones with detachable cables, cuz then you could get twenty cheap ones and still feel pretty good about your purchase.

[bmanic]

Definitely recommend Slate VSX if you are going to mix purely on headphones.

[lotus2035]

Slate VSX.

All of you, pls fill in what headphones you think are the best at the price that´s in the head lining.

Are you the OP's mum or something?

[AudioWalrus]

Sennheiser HD 650

[dark water]

1) Slate VSX.

2) If shops aren't currently selling Slate VSX near you, stick with your Beyerdynamic 1990 Pros until Slate VSX become available (which they will at some point in the next few weeks).
In many ways, you answered yourself in your opening post as you seem to like your Beyerdynamic 1990 Pros better than some more expensive but competing headphones.

[JNS WRNHD]

Slate VSX.

All of you, pls fill in what headphones you think are the best at the price that´s in the head lining.

Are you the OP's mum or something?

Jag förstår tyvärr inte vad du menar

[dionenoid]

Since you already have DT1990, i can recommend getting Realphones software to go with it. The maker of that software recommends DT1990, and they seem to have made it with those headphones as reference.

https://www.dsoniq.com/

I got my 1990's recently and i'm very happy (used to work with 990's and Realphones). The amount of detail is just crazy, and i've never heard headphones that translate so well in the low end.

The software is also on sale atm, and will be updated soon with more mixing environments and such.

[3ee]

I have quite a few reference headphones gathered over the years... latest additions being the Focal Clear Pro and Audeze LCD-X (2020 rev? The one with the different outside fabric)

I thought I would order the two and keep only one but they both do very different things well.

Overall, probably the Focal Clear is better I’d say... but even saying this now, I’m not so sure

Clear:
+overall dynamics
+kick/lows punch
+uniform detail across all freqs
+overall stereo image “shape”
+overall tonal/freq response (especially if you won’t eq them)

LCD-X
+speed/transient response
+details
+a different ‘planar’ ‘de-gluing’ of the sound and some sort of liquid smoothness but also ‘sharp’ when needed, not sure how to describe, they sound bad when when the music/sound is bad!

Both of these help in QC-ing in they’re own ways, they are complementary if you ask me. Get the Clear for ‘overall’ and get the LCD-X for fast response and details

[3ee]

^negative comments of these:
Clear:
-Stereo img is OK but not wide (The Imaging shape is great tho)
-not the most detail but that’s a good thing if you want to focus on something else, an overly detailed headphone can be distracting. It ‘sugar-coats’ just a tiny tiny bit.
-some mid and mid-high peaks can be a tiny bit distracting but can be totally eq-ed out
-be careful not to stress them out, I’ve not experience the ‘driver clipping’ problem at all (didn’t even try) but by design it seems like it has that.

LCD-X

-not too dynamic overall, it has a pleasant sense of punch and dynamics, it’s OK, but it also feels a bit ‘packed/congested’ ... not really ‘compressed’ sounding but limited (not the sound of a limiter) in a way
-Stereo img seems a bit odd (but gets corrected to some extent if you eq the headphones)
-you either learn to use them as they are or they can really benefit from eq correction.

All headphones really benefit from very precise ‘manual’ eq correction I think! Freq response and masking, stereo image width and shape will get corrected

[3ee]

forgot to mention: I also have the DT-1990 and although they can be great with eq (still not @ the level of the Clear and LCD-X if you ask me) , I absolutely won't recommend them without eq correction... they seem too bright and some high-mid peaks/dips combination really mask the freq response.

here's the eq correction I had for my particular unit, A-pads: https://app.box.com/s/k8y0ob80su2dffywz449jle4sqs586ij