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"Studio monitors give you the big picture—it’s like stepping back a few feet and listening to the mix as a whole. It’s about energy, moving air, and feeling the music and the general sense of how your mix is shaping up. But when I need to get into the finer details, I switch to headphones.

Headphones allow for focused listening, helping me pick up on subtle nuances in the mix. They’re essential for precise placement of instruments across the soundstage.

While monitors provide a general sense, headphones let you hear those slight changes that can make an element feel more distinct and in its own space. Personally, I find that I can miss some of these details on monitors but dial them in more accurately with headphones."

- SARA CARTER | Simply Mixing, Mix Engineer & Former BBC Sound Engineer

"Our listening experience differs when speakers are in front of us versus when they’re attached to our ears. I have to be mindful of these differences.

Even if I have the best speakers in the world, I need to ensure my mix translates well. While mixing, I constantly reference both speakers and headphones. For instance, if I’m moving something around in the mix, I check on headphones to ensure it moves consistently—in terms of direction, speed, and height. For me, it’s critical to have headphones I can trust and relate to.

That’s why, more than ever, headphones are important. Forty or fifty years ago, we checked our mixes on a mono transistor radio—that’s how people heard music. Whether it was during breakfast in the bathroom, getting ready for the day, or driving to school or work, music was experienced differently back then.

These days, people listen to music through earbuds or headphones, so I have to be acutely aware of how listeners hear their music. It’s crucial to trust that what I’m doing translates well."

- ADAM MOSELEY | U2, Beck, Rush, Kiss, Nikka Costa, Roxette, The Cure, John Cale, Spike Jonze, UCLA and Berklee

"There are two things we need to focus on when doing front of house (FOH) or when you’re on tour. I mean, if you’re on tour with Depeche Mode or Madonna, you definitely have two or three days to set everything up. You’ve got time to listen to what’s going on in whatever venue you’re in.

But when you’re on a tour bus with Thomas Lang on drums, Paul Gilbert on guitar, and all these other incredible rock musicians, it’s a different story. Today, you’re in Seville; tomorrow, Madrid; then Paris. It’s all tour bus hopping. You just jump in. I have my personal playlist of music that I really trust, so I play it in those situations.

Over there, headphones are critical because when I start miking and checking the miking on stage—drums, amplifiers, vocals—it’s not like a keyboard line check. It’s about microphones.

I need to hear what’s going on. For instance, if there’s a frequency at 200 Hz that I keep hearing, I need to know if it’s coming from the actual miking on the amplifier or the venue itself. Headphones are essential for that."

- ENRICO SESSELEGO | Steve Vai, Paul Gilbert

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"This has happened to me many times on tour. I’d work hard to get the low end right, only to realise later it wasn’t accurate because I couldn’t hear properly. Having a calibrated system that you trust saves a lot of time and ensures better results at the end of the creative process.

I create electronic or dance music, where the choice of the kick drum is crucial. If you make a poor choice at the beginning - when you can't hear whether it's the right kick or not - it will end up costing you a lot of time later in the production.

The new headphones sounded great even before I set up the software. I could hear mixing mistakes and identify when everything was right. After setting up the software, the difference was huge. I thought I was hearing 100%, but with calibration, I realised it was only 80-90%.

The bass boost on my headphones impacted how I perceived the low end, especially in electronic music. Calibration balanced the sound, making it easier to judge lower frequencies without affecting the mids or highs as much. That’s the big difference the X1 calibration made for me."

- STEFFEN 'SUGAR' HARNING | producer, mixing and mastering engineer, Milk & Sugar DJ Team

"For those outside our industry, nuances might not seem important, but they mean everything to us.

When I first unpacked the headphones and tried them without calibration, I was already impressed. But once I used the calibration algorithm, the improvement was undeniable.

Whatever you want on matching with my pair was actually a little improvement that I felt right away. I felt that the little nuances, like you said to me, are not that little, so it makes a difference. "

- ENRICO SESSELEGO | Steve Vai, Paul Gilbert

PLUGIN INDEPENDENT

"Adding calibration filled out the low end even more, providing a balanced sound. It’s a really useful tool to have.

Plus, you can apply the calibration curve using any standard EQ plugin, which is brilliant if you’re an engineer who travels between studios. You don’t need to install a plugin on someone else's system—just call up an EQ, dial it in, and save it as a preset. That’s a unique and great feature."

- SARA CARTER | Simply Mixing, Mix Engineer & Former BBC Sound Engineer

"The demand to work outside the studio is getting higher and higher. If I’m traveling and need to rely on any equipment, it’s going to be the X1.

Apart from being a great headphone, I have the security of it being calibrated, so I have the software, and if I need it, I can put it on the DAW and know the headphone is flat response—it’s not interfering where it shouldn't be, which is very important for me as a mastering engineer.

As a mixing engineer you might need more creativity, more emotions - but as a master engineer, I like things to sound flat, you know? I don't need emotion; the emotion was created already before."

- FERNANDO DELGADO | Grammy winning mastering engineer