a good pair of cans do not cause significantly more ear fatigue than monitors do.

cans are perfectly adequate for mixing purposes. the only thing you need to think about is that the stereo image on headphones is different to that of monitors. so yea, either way, you will need to cross reference the results on various soundsystems, both high end and low end to get a better idea of what it really sounds like.

the difference with headphones and monitors lies partly in how we perceive direction of sound - as the difference in time it takes for the sound to reach the left and right ear.

this is why it is possible to create (sometimes bizaare) spatial, stereo positioning by delaying (in milliseconds) one or both channels in a stereo pair to varying degrees. this will change the time it takes for a sound to reach your ear and change its perceived place in the mix. this is partly how widening tricks are done. on headphones, a stereo mix will always be perceived as wider than it is on monitors because of the proximity of the driver to the ear. the distance between the sound source and the ear is greatly reduced, thus the time it takes for the sound to reach both ears is reduced. thus headphone monitoring will give you a different sense of space in your mix to that of monitors. especially if you use stereo widening effects or delaying channels in stereo pairs.

and if you are doing that, you should really be testing your mixes on lots of different soundsystems (your hifi, your crappy sony ear bud headphones and your car soundsystem) with professional tracks as references to make sure you get it right. because it can sound very weird if you do it wrong - amongst other things, whole instruments could be disappearing in the mix as a result of destructive phasing. you could be left with a great big gaping hole in the middle of your mix if you widen a sound too much. etc.

so in a roundabout way, ive just taken 10 times longer to explain pretty much what has already been said in this thread :\ its not about x versus y and neither is better. they just give you 2 different versions of what your mix will sound like and you should really use both (and then some) to make sure it sounds as good as possible on all of them. listening on crap soundsystems also helps you to isolate stuff that is blatently wrong with your mix. my sony hifi speakers are bassy as hell (with very little midrange) but ive never listened to a professional track that shakes the driver to the point where you think its going to rip. so when this happens in my tunes (and it has) i just know ive put my basslines through too many valves and i need to seriously cut some low end.

all i know is that after i destroyed (i mean i really did) my fostex monitors and started producing in my headphones everything sounded like shit. it took me more than a year to start making decent stuff but my tracks still sound too empty or too full. in some tracks when i listen to them on big systems with a good sub all i can hear is the bass below 50 - 100hz and the hihats... the mdr700s suck for production but im cursed to use them since even if i did get monitors i wouldnt be able to use them for atleast a year... damn babies...

This is proposal.
Use headphones to pre-master and listen your track.
Use monitor's you have to mastering your tracks.

i start work on track with headphones, and its finished i go to rest. I back and switch to monitors and mastering track.

Sometimes i back to home, switch to monitor, play track and woot ? what is that ? this is shit ! and many hours lose, and must work on sound in track .

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I mix/compose with headphones using eq presets which I tweaked for playback on monitors and speakers.

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quote:

Originally posted by Storyteller long-term usage of headphones (on high volume) damages your ears way more than the same volume on speakers. So be carefull.

Glad to see someone caring for a change :P

I think up to the stage of Mastering a track down headphones would do the trick and your neighbours don't complain as much. An A&R manager would usualy listen to a demo on headphones and most record companies do a final Mastering of the labels to be released themselves.

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quote:

long-term usage of headphones (on high volume) damages your ears way more than the same volume on speakers. So be carefull.

Probably true depending on the Speakers you are using. Mine go way louder without distorting than my headphones can handle before crackling.

But yeah i do have crappy headphones : Sennheiser HD270

[edit]
actually when i just got my monitors and was testing their limits i got woozy from the sound and felt sick afterwards, now i cut all the bass below 50hz on my mixer when playing back - and it helps !

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