The Steel Guitar Forum

What kind of headphone seem to be best to listen to steel thru preamp. And for tuning up in a place with noise?
Thanks.

I used Beyer DT770's for a long time. A word of warning- you can seriously damage your hearing with headphones using them for any extended period of time. I refuse to wear them in any but the most necessary situations now, as I have a 40% hearing loss now after using them for years to practice. Pete Townsend ofthe Who is a crusader about this- his tinnitus has been blamed almost entirely on the use of headphones in the studio.

Headphones are notorious for excessive highs and poor lows. Not only does it sound unrealistic, but those highs are the most damaging to your ears. The cure I found is to go through something like a POD, with amp and speaker models. Not only does it sound more realist and enjoyable, but it tames the dangerous highs. Also, get the better phones rated for 10 or 15 Hz lows - you can't hear anything below about 20 Hz, but the better low response means all the lows will be closer to flat.

i use a set of headphones for practice.i go from my tube effex right to the phones.is this damaging my hearing?i,already have menieres desease in both ears,and its very hard to seperate the tones from a steel,my tele is not as bad,but i don,t want to destroy any more hearing than is already gone?

i use a set of headphones for practice.i go from my tube effex right to the phones.is this damaging my hearing?i,already have menieres desease in both ears,and its very hard to seperate the tones from a steel,my tele is not as bad,but i don,t want to destroy any more hearing than is already gone?

I think i will just get a set to tune up in a noisy place. Anyone do this to fine tune by ear???

Bill that is a bad practice and it has been proven to be damaging to hearing.

UH, back to the question of which headphones would be best in noisy conditons. I too would like to know which make/model to purchase for tuning on stage.

I currently use "Titanium PRO35" from RadioShack. They are reasonably priced and are about as good as any I have owned. I have one for my steel and another for my stereo.

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For just tuning up I would think almost anything will do that covers your whole ear to block out external noise. My remarks above are for practicing and listening. For just tuning up, even the cheapest full ear coverage headphones will do.

Here's a good article on headphones and hearing damage:
http://www.headwize.com/articles/hearing_art.htm

I have found that the tendency for decreased sensitivity, which leads to gradually turning up the volume in headphones, can also work the other way. If I start out with the volume level low enough that I really can't hear the details, I tend to turn the volume down as my ears adapt.

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Lynn Oliver

Check out this website: www.headphone.com/
They have headphones broken down into categories. You should be able to find something for everything here.

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Cheers,
Øystein

• Gold Tone Solid Spruce Weissenborn D / Low G / C+9
• National Dynamic A6th / C6th / Leavitt
• Fender SRV Strat
• Ayers Acoustic
• Koch Twintone II

You could surely wear headphones safely 16 hours a day - if you didn't have a signal going through them. You could also go deaf in a week if you behave foolishly - for tuning purposes, you need just enough, right? AKG makes some decent closed-ear phones that you can get pretty cheaply, there are different numbers - I bought 3 sets of "K-220M's" for $40. Those aren't available, but there are some very similar "AKG K 44's" around for $20. It's certainly hi-fi enough to tune up with. Amazon and Musician's Friend both have them, so some other people probably do too.<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by David Mason on 25 October 2006 at 12:48 PM.]</p></FONT>