The problem
Monitors and headphones present sound differently: the mixer needs to know the limits of their own system and compensate for them. Neither is “right”: the mix has to translate on both and on everything else (car, phone, club).
Studio monitors (nearfield)
Pros: sound reaches both ears from both speakers (natural crosstalk), a realistic stereo image in front of you, a physical sense of the low end, and a natural read on reverb and depth.
Cons: the room (modes, reflections) strongly alters the low end and the image: in an untreated room, peaks and dips of ±10–15 dB below 300 Hz are normal. Small monitors (5") roll off below about 50–60 Hz.
Placement:
- Equilateral triangle: monitors and head at the vertices, each monitor angled about 30° toward the listener.
- Tweeters at ear height.
- At least 20–30 cm from the back wall or, conversely, very close to it (for the rules on bass ports and SBIR, see “Room Acoustics”).
- Symmetry in the room: monitors and listening position at the center of the short wall, if possible.
- Decoupling stands instead of resting them on the desk.
- Moderate, constant listening level.
Headphones
Pros: independent of the room, extremely detailed (noises, clicks, reverb tails, sibilance), inexpensive compared with a treated room, useful at night.
Cons: no crosstalk (the left ear hears only the left channel), so the stereo field sounds exaggerated and the vocal sits “inside the head”; panning feels more extreme; low-end perception depends on the fit and the model; fatigue at high volumes; reverbs sound more prominent (you tend to add too little).
Types:
- Open-back (e.g. Sennheiser HD 600/650, Beyerdynamic DT 880/990 Pro, AKG K702): more natural sound, well suited to mixing.
- Closed-back (e.g. Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro, Audio-Technica ATH-M50x, Sony MDR-7506): they isolate, useful for recording.
- Planar and high-end headphones for a more linear low end.
Correcting the limits
- Calibration: software such as Sonarworks SoundID Reference corrects the response of headphones (profiles per model) or of the room (measured with a microphone).
- Crossfeed / room simulation: plugins that blend part of one channel into the other and simulate a room (Waves Nx, dSONIQ Realphones, Slate VSX, Goodhertz CanOpener). They help you judge stereo and depth on headphones.
- References: listen to reference tracks on the same system (see “Reference Tracks”).
- Analyzers for the low end when the room or the headphones are not reliable.
Recommended workflow (with an imperfect room)
- Balance and main decisions on the monitors (or on headphones with crossfeed).
- Check details (clicks, noises, sibilance, tails) on headphones.
- Check the low end with an analyzer, headphones, and a second system.
- Check on a phone, in a car, on a Bluetooth speaker, on earbuds.
- Small corrections, then another pass.
Example
Trap mix in A minor: on headphones the 808 on A1 sounds perfect; on the monitors (5", small room) it disappears below 60 Hz; in the car it booms. Checking with the analyzer: the 808 is 4 dB louder than the reference at 55 Hz. Fix: −3 dB on the 808 and harmonic saturation at 110–165 Hz; now it sounds consistent on all systems.
Common mistakes
- Mixing on headphones without ever checking on speakers (wrong stereo and reverb).
- Trusting the low end of small monitors in an untreated room.
- Listening too loud and for too long.
Exercise
Mix the same song twice: once only on headphones, once only on the monitors. Compare the two mixes on a third system and note the systematic differences: they are the flaws of your setup that you need to compensate for.
Links
“Room Acoustics”, “Reference Tracks”, “Psychoacoustics in the Mix”, “Mono Compatibility”, “Mixing for Social Media and Smartphones”.