What impedance on headphones for Epic?

[AndreasOberg]

I'm going to buy a few headphones for mixing audio and thought I would use them for monitoring the scratch track on our Red Epic as well.
However I'm wondering what impedance the Epic can actually drive in the headphones.
I'm choosing mainly between 80Ohm and 250Ohm. The headphones I've been looking at so far are Beyerdynamic 770 Pro.

Any thoughts?
/Andreas

 

[AndreasOberg]

I decided to order some BeyerDynamics 80 Ohm. Should get them soon and will run some tests. In the manual it says high impedance should be used on Epic. High Impedance is normally 100 and up so it shouldn't have a problem running 80 Ohm then.

I also tested and 80 ohm works fine with Apple Retina laptops.
/Andreas

 

[Allan Black]

The general rule goes that while phones are used for recording to camera and track laying etc, good speakers are used for mixing.

Another excellent set of cans is the Audio Technica ATH-M50s, although they're 38Ω they should be more than OK, you'll just need less volume from the camera to drive them ... > http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...ath_m50_closed_back_studio_headphone_red.html

While you're at it, get some Garfield Earpad covers, they're excellent value, washable and good in the heat, without degrading the sound ... >

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/368314-REG/Garfield_SGARHS3_Headphone_Softie_Earpad.html and they're red too

Cheers.

 

[Dustin Dooley]

I have a pair of AKG K271 at 55 ohm and the classic K240 at 600 ohms (fyi the K240 that you buy today is most likely 55 ohm as they have updated it, I have a vintage version). Both work great with Red. The lower impedance 271 is much louder and has a closed back which for monitoring for video is something to think about and for most situations is necessary, as the open back phones might bleed into the mic depending on your proximity. Really, most modern phones are low impedance. Now, if you were monitoring off an old Altec tupe amp you might have an issue with sound quality and the low impedance, but modern electronics can handle them fine.

With that said I love my AKG K271 pair, great sound, classic look, and as a bonus the cord attaches to the headphones via a mini xlr. A life saver if your like me and have shorted out more than a few and had to get out the soldering iron and black tape, or more likely it is in a place that can't be soldered and had to buy a new pair. It also mutes when you take them off.

 

[Tom Visser]

As a professional sound mixer throwing his opinion into the mix, the two main standards are a flavor of whatever current Sony MDR-75## like the 7506 or various versions of the Senheisser HD-25. My cans of choice are the HD-25-1 ii. The Sony's are cheaper. The HD-25 does have a point of failure for some people in an intermittent connector on the cable, happens to me occasionally as the units get older, but always fixed with a slight jiggle of the cable.

Full or partial isolation of these or other cans highly reduces your situational awareness by making it difficult to hear other people talk to you or things such as vehicle noise if working in / around traffic, live sidewalks, etc... I don't know that I'd ever recommend a camera operator to cripple his situational awareness by wearing sealed cans - would find it perfectly acceptable to wear a consumer grade / sports style on-ear headphones in such a case, results will be good enough for what you need. Trew Audio sells a surveillance style walkie headset that also has a mini-jack input that you could plug into your sound mixer's IFB receiver, or presumably just plug into your camera's headphone jack. You could even plug in your iPod and listen to music.

http://www.trewaudio.com/store/Trew-Audio-Surveillance-Kit.html

The fidelity will be dreadful, but if you just "listening to the scratch feed" as you mentioned, it sounds like you have a mixer already taking care of the critical details and you just want to hear the general scratch mix for content purposes or to detect if some piece of equipment has gone down like a camera hop receiver or something like that...

 

[Dustin Dooley]

Tom, you make a good point when shooting outdoors or in dangerous situations when you might need to hear your surroundings in order to avoid becoming road kill or have a boom swing around and wack your head off.

It's a constant reminder that context is what creates meaning. Small room no dampening and a close camera mic could cause problems with the open back. A set of Vic Firth super isolated drum headphones might not be a good idea in a construction zone.