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Buying headphones that will last

Lesson Intermediate Stage 1: Your First Setup November 2008

On YouTube this video is called A few tips on buying headphones for the DJ

What this lesson teaches

A short buying guide, with the useful admission that the expensive pair he is holding were given to him and he could not have afforded them otherwise.

What he says to look at

Power handling, in milliwatts. His pair is rated at 3,000 mW. The arithmetic he gives is right and worth knowing because it turns up everywhere: one watt is a thousand milliwatts, so 3,000 mW is three watts - which sounds tiny next to a bedroom speaker rated 20 watts, and is plenty, because the driver is two centimetres from your eardrum rather than across the room.

What the number is really telling you is how hard you can drive them before they distort. A DJ headphone is fed from a mixer's headphone amplifier at high level in a loud room, which is a harder life than a pair of earbuds on a train.

Frequency response. The range of pitches they can reproduce. He says twenty thousand kilohertz, which is a slip - the figure is 20 kHz, and the range you want is roughly 20 Hz to 20 kHz, which is about the span of human hearing.

For a DJ the bottom end is the part that matters. You are judging kick drums, and a headphone that rolls off below 60 Hz will not let you hear what the room is feeling.

Construction. His last point and not the least. A DJ headphone gets yanked on and off, twisted to one ear, left on top of a speaker, and stuffed into a bag with cables. Flimsy ones do not last the year.

Two things he does not mention

Closed back. You want cups that seal against your head rather than open ones that let sound through. In a loud room an open headphone is useless - you will hear the PA through it as well as the cue, which defeats the point.

A swivelling cup, and replaceable parts. The single-ear grip every DJ uses needs a cup that rotates; a headphone that will not swivel is uncomfortable within twenty minutes. And when a pair finally dies it is almost always the cable or the earpads, so a model where you can replace both is worth paying a little more for.

The honest part

He asks viewers to post what they use and how it has held up, which is still the best way to buy anything of this kind. Specifications tell you what a headphone can do. Only somebody two years in can tell you whether the hinge snapped.

Contents of the video

0:00 First of all, I use these guys here from Pioneer

A still from the video at 0:04

This video is all about headphones. First of all, I use these guys here from Pioneer. They are the SE-DJ5000. The only reason I actually use these is because they were given to me for free. To use in my tutorial, so I couldn't afford to buy any like this because they're quite expensive. But, alright, first of all what do you want to know about headphones? Well the first two main issues you've got to look at is the actual milliwatt output. That is the actual output from the diaphragms in here which is of course the speakers. Now the speakers, diaphragms in here are not dissimilar to the actual speakers you will have in your hi-fi. The only difference is these won't be able to push out as much power.

1:19 Each one of those will push out 20,000 milliwatts

A still from the video at 1:23

Now these guys will push out, I'm pretty sure, quote me if I'm wrong, a maximum of 3,000 milliwatts, not watts. That's very important. Here's the deal. One watt is equal to 1,000 milliwatts. So in other words, if you have some speakers in your bedroom and they're 20 watts each... Each one of those will push out 20,000 milliwatts. So you can always impress your friends, I've got some speakers that push out 20,000 milliwatts mate. They'll go, bloody hell they're clever, I've only got some speakers that push out 500 watts. But shh, just don't say anything because they're actually louder than yours. Right, so first thing you need to look at when you're buying headphones like... Oh sorry, make sure that they're a relatively high milliwatt output for this sort of headphone.

2:47 Actual headphon

Not small earbud headphones because if they could push out 3000 milliwatts, they'd probably pound your brain six foot across the room. So just be wary on that. Also you need to actually look at the frequency response. Now the frequency response is basically the bass, mid and treble and what the actual speakers here can push out. The DJ Tutor has a maximum output of up to 20,000 kHz and Grooving DJ will post something underneath. So, two things is the milliwatt output, that's number one. Number two is the actual frequency response and number three, which is still just as important, This is the construction, because at the end of the day there's no point buying some flimsy little headphones they're going to break in five minutes. So what I would like you to do with this video, post underneath here comments, you could say how good or bad the video is as usual, I don't really give a monkeys, but what you could do is you could post in a comment the talk about the actual headphones you have, how good they are, how bad they are,

You know, maybe you like them in some ways, maybe they're fantastic. And just give a general idea so people can have a look through all of the comments and make up their own mind. And also, I've just got to give a big shout out to Amanda. Amanda, right. Now check this out. Life is like spinning records. As one song ends, the other begins. Practice and enjoy. Thank you. 3, 2, 1. Three, two. Oh god, blimey! Three, two, one.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.

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