Engineer's headphones for PFL/AFL in a live sound environment?

Question

We have a couple pairs of headphones we use with our GL2200 for listening to PFL/AFL during a live church service. One pair works fine, the other... does not. We want to replace the pair that doesn't work fine

They should:

• Play nice with the GL2200, and ideally the digital board we're hoping to get at some point in the future
• Have good isolation (I've had good experiences with active systems, but if it just has very very good 'physical' isolation, that'd work too)
• Not be terribly expensive (< $250 would be best)
• Have a volume adjustment on the headphones themselves. We have two sets of headphones coming off the board, and one volume control for both of them.
• If the cabling on them is non-removable, have a decently long coiled cable.

Answer 1

The digital board you're upgrading to should have individual monitor volumes. If not, I'd say it's a crappy board. That said, not many high-quality/professional-grade monitoring headphones have dedicated volume control anymore. It's usually all done through the hardware or software you connect them to.

Anyway, the Beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO ($200) is absolutely amazing for what you're doing. I've had the pleasure of using a pair of these for audio production and they're top-notch.

• 250 ohms and 5-35,000 Hz range
• Acoustically closed diffuse-field
• Extremely comfortable ear pads and headband
• All parts are replaceable
• 9.8 feet of coiled cable

I highly recommend these.

Answer 2

The Sennheiser HD range of headphones is one of the most comprehensive ranges on the market, and can suit a number of different needs. It ranges from the HD 203's I use at home (around £50, 15-19k Hz) right up to the HD 800's that are professional headphones (£1000, 8-50k Hz).

Now, I probably wouldn't recommend either of these extremes - the 203's are good, but they probably don't match your current phones, and the 800's are extremely expensive.

Of the range, I'll recommend you the HD 600's. They:

• Are widely compatible. I don't see any issues with using them for P/A FL feeds.
• Have good passive noise cancelling, thanks to the foam in the ear rests and the hard yet open-backed design.
• Are fairly expensive, unfortunately. They're £370 new ($570), though you can usually find a couple pairs on Amazon or eBay for a couple hundred less. (If that's too much, take a look at the HD 558's, which have marginally reduced specs for a lower price (around $249).)
• No volume adjustment. This feature is actually pretty rare these days. Though I would expect your new sound desk to have independent volume controls for each PHONE OUT socket.
• Have 3m (9 and a bit feet) of coiled cable.
• 260g weight, 300 Ω impedance, 12-39k Hz response, 97dB pressure level, and light wearing contact force at 2.5N.