For mixing and mastering try the Neumann NDH 30 headphones. Brilliant sounding - very clear and detailled. According to the hearing impression as good as the KH80DSP monitor speaker. They are not cheap but worth it.
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Well, I ended up ordering a pair of the Audeze MM-500. I just couldn’t get over the weight of the Hedd’s as well as the poor frequency response curves and all the distortion between about 1k-5k (HEDD HEDDPhone Review (headphone) | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum). I’m sure it doesn’t show nearly the entire picture, but if I can’t listen to them in person I have to at least make a decision based on something…
Hopefully these will be the first pair of headphones I actually like lol, I will post an update in the other headphone recommendations thread. Thanks for the help everyone!
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Sounds like a great choice. Would love to audition the MM-500’s in the future and looking forward to hearing about your experience with them.
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Congrats on the MM purchase! Can’t speak on them, but I have a pair of LCD-X and Sennheiser HD800s. Both of which are phenomenal and I feel very fortunate to own both.
I have been beginning to think the LCD’s may be better to mix with but I have done most of my mixing on my HD800 so I’m pretty used to them by now. I’ve been considering switching the 800s for my home environment. One downside with the 800s is their low-end is lacking which may make mixing bass/kick a bit difficult. I have a custom curve from the built in EQ in my AD converter that I use with them.
My X’s are mainly for home use or casual listening, haven’t done much mixing on them, but they feel more ‘standard’ in terms of what people would experience with listening (less 3-D vs the 800s).
That being said, the X’s are way easier to drive and don’t require an amp of any sort whereas I can only use my 800s in my studio. More versatile in that regard.
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I am thinking so, thanks again for recommending the LCD-X. I was actually watching a video today with some professional mixing engineers like Michael Brauer, Dave Pensado, etc. and they all actually offhandedly mentioned using the LCD-X for mixing lol. So if the mm-500 really are a step up I should be good to go (or as good as it’s going to get at least)!
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Well I got the mm-500s in the mail today and had a chance to try them tonight and the first thing I thought was ‘wow’. It’s like when I first bought some nice expensive studio monitors after using cheap ones for so long, or maybe even more extreme of a difference than that, I am actually really surprised. Headphones to me have always sounded like crap, or at the best were just annoying to listen to because some part of the spectrum was poking out too much, another part was muffled, always some issue with the soundstage, etc. But with the mm-500s I don’t think I am going to have a problem at all mixing with them. Everything is clear and detailed and right where it should be and nothing is fatiguing. Only thing I can say is they don’t have as much of a bass punch as a pair of closed back headphones or some studio monitors, but I think that must be impossible with open back headphones… So I can’t really fault them there as otherwise I can hear the bass very clearly all the way down. I think they are actually going to be really easy to mix with once I get used to them and I never thought I would be saying that about a pair of headphones.
They are only 19 ohm so really easy to drive, but do you think there would be any improvement using a headphone amp over just plugging them into the big six?
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I don’t see any mileage in adding a headphone amp, your big six is man enough to drive much higher impedance cans so will be more than up to the job of getting the best from them…
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Fantastic–glad to hear you’re digging the MM-500s. Not at all surprised at the quality jump you noticed–you 're hearing much more detailed and accurate sound with headphones designed specifically for high level studio monitoring. The Big Six is competent at driving headphones, but nowhere near the last word. The headphone circuit in a cheap Mackie mixer will “drive” most headphones–and sound terrible doing it.
Recommend you live with the MM-500s for some time before you consider upgrading to a headphone amp. You can certainly mix with what you have, but it’s nice knowing that your signal chain can still be upgraded. I can say there’s a significant difference listening to to the LCD-Xs out of the Big Six vs my Schiit Raganarok amp. I still don’t hesitate to mix directly out of the Big Six though.
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Well, a friend is coming over this weekend and bringing a topping a30pro amp for me to try, so I guess I will be able to compare and see if it would be worth it. I couldn’t find my shiit heresy, I must have sold it.
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If you buy their “Fulla” DAC then you’d have a Fulla Schiit DAC. They obviously run with it 
I was looking at their Jotunheim 2 with the ES9028 DAC as a potential headphone DAC/Amp.
Need to see what else is out there but it seems like a really great deal for the quality of of components and price.
To be on topic:
I have HD-650’s that I’ve had for many years. I haven’t had any desire to upgrade. These are pretty flat out of the box. Maybe need a tiny bass boost IMO, but they are really overall fantastic headphones.
I love how easy it is to get parts from Sennheiser as well.
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So forgive me for being ignorant, but what would the deal be for routing if you’re putting a dac/amp at the end of your signal chain and bypassing the headphone outs… just trying to understand the benefits…
My plan would be to use a separate (duplicate) digital output from my current audio interface/monitoring controller setup.
My speakers take a digital input (AES) as well as my monitor controller (BMC-2). I forward that digital signal to a Clarity M (spectrum analyzer). I would just forward or duplicate that signal specifically for the DAC/Headphone amp.
Edit:
I saw your edits.
It’s simply to get a better quality headphone amp with a dedicated volume controller.
Better quality amps can also let you hear more details and dynamics in your headphones.
Without digging into electronics engineering too much:
All of the electronic components and design of an amp have things like slew rates, distortion, noise, etc…. All of these things play a part in changing how the audio sounds.
Usually opamps or discrete components that are high quality have very fast responses, low noise, and minimal and/or at least desirable distortion (warmth maybe?). Great designs make a difference as well of course. This is really a simplification, there’s a lot to it.
By having a faster response you can hear all of the separate sounds clearly and less mush smear. Audio interfaces have good headphone amps but they can be better.
I also need to be able to drive my 300ohm headphones with more power.
I keep things lower to leave headroom for mastering. I also calibrate a reference level to be able to mix at the same SPL regardless of the material. So having some extra power in the headphone amp can be nice for that.
Right I get it now thanks for the explanation… makes sense now…
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You could always go with the Sennheiser HE-1’s
https://www.sennheiser-hearing.com/en-US/p/sennheiser-he-1/
Only a $10,000 down payment required for them to start building your pair.
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I’ll wait for the HE-XX to hit drop.com in a few years. I’m thinking at that point they will probably be around $219 like the 6XX.
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Let me know when that happens 
I’ll be there!
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nice! congrats.
my $.02 is to get sonarworks and EQ the headphones!
HD650 and Grado SR80 or 125 as a second listening check
Ok, so I did a little testing: I hooked up a headphone amp (a topping a30pro) to my mixer and did some A/B-ing (well, as good as you can do with unplugging and replugging and trying to match level differences) between the headphone out on my mixer and the SE output on the headphone amp. The big six can drive all the headphones louder than I need them, so it doesn’t have any problems in that regard but I just wanted to see if there was any difference in sound quality anyway.
With some of my headphone there was a HUGE difference. With the drop 6xx (sennheiser hd650) it was night and day, especially the bass was so much better. It basically made what so far I had considered almost a trash pair of headphones actually pretty darn good. So I would say it is a must for those. For other headphones, like the MM-500, the differences were much more subtle. So I would say depending on your headphones an amp can make a big difference, or almost no difference lol.
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Sorry for hijacking but along with the best headphones what are you folks using to drive them? I’m looking at picking up an amp - I ideally don’t want to spend the earth but also don’t want to introduce a weak link into an expensive audio chain.
Any good pointers for where to start?
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