Phiaton PS 320 Dual Purpose Headphones
Following last weeks iPhone as audio recorder post, I’d like to talk about headphones that perform double duty for both monitoring and listening to music. Professional sound mixers need to hear all tracks clearly and evenly so they can have baseline for their recordings that can play on the widest range of speakers and audio systems. This includes everything from portable cell phone speakers to high end audiophile home theater systems. The headphones they use are very flat and linearized so as to not color the sound being mixed. In the photography world, it is like editing all your raw images with the tone curve set to linear. The image files will be flat looking with very little contrast and that’s what music sounds like from traditional monitoring headphones.
There are several go-to headphones used by sound mixers and audio recording pro’s but I would consider these single purpose devices. They work very well for the task of monitoring and mixing but have you ever tried to listen to your iPod through them? It’s a lot like looking at all your images with the contrast dialed way down. The cameras in the DSLR video movement are dual purpose (stills and video) so why shouldn’t the rest of your kit be able to handle more than one function well? With that in mind I set out to find a pair of headphones that met the following requirements:
- Closed back to block out environmental sound
- Portable, preferably folding
- Works great for listening to music un-amped on an iPod/iPhone
After auditioning many sets of headphones, I ended up with the Phiaton PS 320 Headphones
Here’s a quote from a post I wrote at Head-fi.org about these headphones (yes I’m a geek)
I’ve been auditioning closed ear portable headphones and I think you might want to add the $150 Phiaton PS 320 to your short list. They are on-ear instead of over ear and I thought it would bother me considering I usually use the AKG 701′s which are cavernous but I got used to the feeling in about 10 minutes. I now find them very comfortable and the sound pumping through these cans un-amped is really a surprise.
So far, they seem to be really good for melodic rock with heavy instrumentation. “My Bird Performs” from XTC is a beautiful well crafted song that starts out with light guitar licks and then builds with what I can only describe as a rock orchestra. That song really sings on the 320′s. There seems to be a lot of separation between instruments and very nice clear vocals.The next track that really stood out for me is the pseudo acoustic version of Trent Reznor’s NIN song “Something I Can Never Have” from Still. It has really quiet moments with just Trent and the piano that sound like you are in the same room with him. The 320′s have no problem at low listening levels or when the music builds.
Johnny Cash’s version of NIN’s Hurt is also really amazing on the 320′s. A lot of good speakers and headphones will crackle with the barrage of vocals and instruments at the songs crescendo.
You can tell from my mini-review that I was impressed by the Phiaton’s. In addition to using them for leisure music listening, I recently used these headphones connected to a Tascam DR-100 to monitor the sound for an upcoming Photoshop Cafe instructional video shoot. Actually, since I was not only a producer but the talent, the camera person who was doing double duty as our sound guy used them but I heard playback through them several times.
The Phiaton’s small sized on-ear cups rotate making them easy to take off and put on as well as letting you rotate the ear pad to an open position to hear what’s going on in the room (like you see DJ’s doing). This is important since the closed design does such a good job of blocking external noises.
BTW, there’s a noise canceling version of these headphones that I recommend to friends looking for a set of cans to use on planes. The PS 300 NC’s are a step up musically from the industry standard Bose headphones but you wouldn’t want to use any noise canceling headphones for monitoring sound while recording. Noise canceling works by generating sound that is at the opposite end of the spectrum from outside sound that is being detected via a small microphone on the headphones. One sound cancels out the other. When monitoring sound, you don’t want to have the headphones getting rid of noises in the room. You want to hear any buzzing or irritating sound and try to get rid of it so that it doesn’t end up in your movie and NC headphones could trick you into thinking that you are getting a clean recording.
The only negative I can think of for the Phiaton PS 320′s is the short flimsy hard wired cable. It would be great to have the option of changing to a longer cable or easily replace it if it breaks in the field. I haven’t experienced any problems with the length when listening to portable players or when connected to an audio recorder on my belt. I’ve also used the 320′s at my desk and haven’t felt tied to a short leash or found myself crushing the cable with the wheels of my chair like on headphones that have 15′ long cables. I suspect that Phiaton did some major research on the perfect length for a portable headphone and may have found the sweet spot. Even so, I wish the cable terminated in a plug that would allow for easy swapping out for upgrading and/or replacing.
It’s a good idea to spend your hard earned money getting equipment that can be used for more than one singular purpose and you get a lot for your $150 with the Phiaton’s. Don’t get me wrong, if you are the sound mixer on a multi-million dollar feature, you should be using dedicated gear that is priced accordingly. But if you are new to DSLR video and/or just dabbling in it, choose gear that can get the job done when recording and enhance your experience when listening to music. I highly recommend the Phiaton PS 320 Headphones
