Yesterday I was in a studio doing some voiceovers for work. I had brought my own headphones and the engineer, a dyed in the wool audiophile nutjob, went crazy when I pulled out my AKG K701 cans. He was concerned that his headphone amp would drive them well enough for me to get the job done. He had a Mackie mixer and a Presonus HP4 headphone amp, both of which are more than good enough for any headphone you could plug into them.
Naturally, I decided to mess with him.
I told him I know what he is talking about and offered to handle a side by side test of the two headphone outputs. When he wasn't looking I plugged the headphones into the direct headphone output on his audio interface then found an unused headphone extension cable and plugged it into the mackie, making him believe that was the cable for my headphones being tested. There was a rat's nest of cables on the floor, so it was easy to confuse what cable was actually being used. The was seated next to his desk and was blocking his view of the audio interface, so I just carefully unplugged and inserted the real headphone cable from the sound card at the same time I was moving the unused cable between the mixer and the Presonus. I pretended to adjust the levels by ear as I moved the extension cable plug from the Mackie to the Presonus headphone amp.
I then picked some music and started "auditioning" the two. I talked about how the highs on the Presonus were clearly cleaner and smoother, but the bass was punchier and more defined on the Mackie. I went back and forth and back and forth for about 10 minutes, the whole time I was actually using the Tascam audio interface's headphone output.
I then handed the headphones to the engineer to see if he agreed with my assessment and then went further. He said the Mackie was clearly less capable of driving the K701s because it became more washed out at higher levels and that the Presonus was considerably better at driving them because the bass, while less powerful, was actually more articulate and clean. He went on and on and on and we agreed about what we were hearing.
An hour later my voice over work was done and I got up to leave and waited until he was watching to pull my headphone plug out of the audio interface and walked off. At first he didn't realize what I did and panicked that I was going to yank his Presonus headphone amp off the desk as I walked away with my cans. He called to me to wait until he unplugged my headphones and I said, "I already unplugged them. That's just an unused extension cable."
He sat their staring at me as I packed up my stuff and then said, as I was bidding farewell, "You're a mean person."
I said, "Did we learn anything today?"
And I walked out.
He emailed me late last night and tried to argue that my little demonstration doesn't mean anything and that he's heard high end headphone amps and they all sound better than the affordable stuff and that they only sound great when matched to the right headphones. He tried to reference reviews, people he knows, and what his pro-gear dealer tells him. Basically, he refused to accept what happened was real.
I wrote back, "Glad to see your faith is greater than mine."
He an I are work friends, but he is miffed at me now.
Naturally, I decided to mess with him.
I told him I know what he is talking about and offered to handle a side by side test of the two headphone outputs. When he wasn't looking I plugged the headphones into the direct headphone output on his audio interface then found an unused headphone extension cable and plugged it into the mackie, making him believe that was the cable for my headphones being tested. There was a rat's nest of cables on the floor, so it was easy to confuse what cable was actually being used. The was seated next to his desk and was blocking his view of the audio interface, so I just carefully unplugged and inserted the real headphone cable from the sound card at the same time I was moving the unused cable between the mixer and the Presonus. I pretended to adjust the levels by ear as I moved the extension cable plug from the Mackie to the Presonus headphone amp.
I then picked some music and started "auditioning" the two. I talked about how the highs on the Presonus were clearly cleaner and smoother, but the bass was punchier and more defined on the Mackie. I went back and forth and back and forth for about 10 minutes, the whole time I was actually using the Tascam audio interface's headphone output.
I then handed the headphones to the engineer to see if he agreed with my assessment and then went further. He said the Mackie was clearly less capable of driving the K701s because it became more washed out at higher levels and that the Presonus was considerably better at driving them because the bass, while less powerful, was actually more articulate and clean. He went on and on and on and we agreed about what we were hearing.
An hour later my voice over work was done and I got up to leave and waited until he was watching to pull my headphone plug out of the audio interface and walked off. At first he didn't realize what I did and panicked that I was going to yank his Presonus headphone amp off the desk as I walked away with my cans. He called to me to wait until he unplugged my headphones and I said, "I already unplugged them. That's just an unused extension cable."
He sat their staring at me as I packed up my stuff and then said, as I was bidding farewell, "You're a mean person."
I said, "Did we learn anything today?"
And I walked out.
He emailed me late last night and tried to argue that my little demonstration doesn't mean anything and that he's heard high end headphone amps and they all sound better than the affordable stuff and that they only sound great when matched to the right headphones. He tried to reference reviews, people he knows, and what his pro-gear dealer tells him. Basically, he refused to accept what happened was real.
I wrote back, "Glad to see your faith is greater than mine."
He an I are work friends, but he is miffed at me now.
