Mixing on headphones is a skill, and the pair you learn it on matters about as much as the skill does. A mix that holds up on a good open-back usually holds up most places, while one that only sounds right on consumer Bluetooth cans tends to fall apart the minute it hits a car stereo.
I've spent more than four decades between front of house, monitors, broadcast and the studio, including a run as live and studio mix engineer for Victoria Monét. For the open-backs on this page I'm leaning on the people who measure them for a living, mostly RTINGS, SoundGuys and Sound On Sound, and adding my two cents on what a mix actually needs from a pair.
Want the whole method? I wrote it down in The Professional Audio Mixing Blueprint, 12 chapters running from monitoring and gain staging through EQ, compression and the checks I run before a mix goes out the door. It's out now on Amazon.
Mixing on headphones used to be what you did when the room was a mess or the neighbors were home. That's changed a lot. The headphones got better, and software like Sonarworks SoundID Reference and dSONIQ Realphones can now pull a pair's response toward a flat target, so plenty of engineers do real mix work on cans, and a big part of the appeal is that they sound the same in every room you carry them into.
Every pick here is an open-back reference pair that working engineers mix and master on. I've left out hi-fi pairs voiced to sound pretty, and that's why the HiFiMan Edition XS from the old version of this page is gone. RTINGS found it less comfortable and less stable on the head than the HD 560S, and the Audeze MM-100 covers the planar slot with a tuning built for this job. For mix decisions you want honest over pretty.
Headphones or monitors, and when each one earns its keep
Honestly, you want both. Good monitors in a treated room give you a real stereo image, actual low end you can feel below 40 Hz and the most trustworthy translation check going, once they're set up right. Headphones sound the same in every room, let you hear fine detail at low levels and don't need ten grand of room treatment to get there.
Most pros mix on monitors and flip to headphones to check panning, low-end detail and consistency. Bedroom and project-studio folks often run it the other way, cans first and speakers as the "does this still hold up" check. Either way works fine. What doesn't work is mixing only on AirPods or Beats and crossing your fingers that it translates.
What I'd look for in a mixing pair
Open-back comes first. Air moves through the cup, the stage opens up and you lose that "band playing inside your skull" feeling closed pairs give you. Mixing is mostly placement, reverb decay and depth, and you need room to hear those. The trade-off is that open pairs leak and don't isolate one bit, so keep them away from a live mic (that's what closed tracking headphones are for) and off the plane.
Tuning should sit close to neutral so the headphones show you the mix without dressing it up. A small bass lift is fine, and the Harman target that a lot of listeners find natural has one built in, but I'd get nervous about anything more than 3 or 4 dB up or down anywhere in the range. The HD 650 is the famous case. Its slightly shy top end has talked plenty of engineers into mixing too bright, and it's still one of the most-used mixing headphones ever made, so there's more to it than dead flat.
You also want enough resolution to hear the little stuff, like a clipped transient, a chopped reverb tail or a breath edit that's a hair too tight. Cheap pairs smear all that together. Planar drivers from Audeze and refined dynamics from Sennheiser, Focal and Beyerdynamic pull it apart, and you'll know you've got enough when you start catching things in old mixes you swore were finished.
Comfort matters more here than almost anywhere. A mix can eat eight to twelve hours of focused listening, and a pair that clamps, weighs a ton or bites in the treble will wear your judgment down late in the day, right when it counts. Velour pads, a light build and a gentle clamp all help.
Then think long term. Pads squash flat, headbands wear out and cables fray, so buy from brands that sell spare parts, like Sennheiser, Beyerdynamic, Focal and Audeze. Last is the amp question. High-impedance pairs at 300 ohms and up need a dedicated headphone amp to get loud and sound their best, while anything under about 80 ohms is happy on an interface. If you don't own an amp yet, lean toward the lower numbers in the specs below.
My seven picks for mixing and mastering
Photo: Sennheiser press image
Sennheiser HD 490 PRO
Sennheiser's modern reference, and the pair I'd mix on day in, day out
This is the one I'd steer most engineers toward. SoundGuys calls it the best studio headphone overall, and RTINGS picks it for mixing, raving about an open, natural stage and more bass extension than you'd expect from an open-back. Sound On Sound found it comfier than Neumann's NDH 30 and neutral enough for picky analytical work. It ships with two pad sets, velour 'Producer' pads and fabric 'Mixing' pads, and each one nudges the voicing a little. Every part can be swapped out down the road. The knocks are small ones. RTINGS points out the build is mostly plastic, and at about $424 it's more than double an HD 560S (the Plus version, with a case and a spare cable, runs $499). At 130 ohms it'll want a proper headphone amp behind it.
Sennheiser HD 560S
The cheapest open-back I'd trust with a real mix
RTINGS' 2026 studio guide calls this one of the best-value headphones going, and says its midrange is actually flatter than the HD 490 PRO's, with tidier control of peaks and dips. It's light, it's open and it's about $180, and it's dipped to $140 or $150 a few times this year, so it pays to keep an eye out for a sale. The weak spot is way down low. Like most dynamic open-backs it runs out of steam in the sub-bass, so check your 808s and kick on monitors before you print. Some folks find the treble a little lean, and the plastic build is more light-duty than tank.
Beyerdynamic DT 900 PRO X
A built-like-a-tank open-back that plugs straight into your interface
Sound On Sound heard 'outstanding subjective performance' from Beyerdynamic's PRO X pair, and this open one is made like a workhorse, with replaceable major parts and a detachable mini-XLR cable. At 48 ohms with high sensitivity it doesn't need a separate amp, so it runs straight off an interface, which is a big deal if your desk is already a rat's nest of cables. It's about $280 at Beyerdynamic, Vintage King and Amazon alike. A couple of things to know before you buy. At 345 grams it's no featherweight, and the treble has that Beyerdynamic sparkle some engineers find tiring late in a long session.
Mixing, tracking or a bit of both?
Tell the matcher about your studio work and your budget, and it'll whittle the list down to a few pairs worth a look.
Try the matcher →Audeze MM-100
A planar tuned with Manny Marroquin for the kick-and-bass tug of war
Audeze tuned this 90 mm planar with mixer Manny Marroquin, and Sound On Sound said it brings that signature sound 'to the masses at an extremely competitive price.' Planars hang on to bass extension and low distortion in a way dynamic open-backs at this price just can't, which makes this my pick for sorting out the kick and bass when your room is lying to you. At 18 ohms a dongle or any interface will drive it. On the downside, it's heavier and clampier than the Sennheisers. The price is a bit of a moving target. Audeze had a $299 sale price with mid-November shipping when this was checked, dealers with stock want $399, and Amazon showed it out of stock on October 29.
Sony MDR-MV1
Sony's featherweight open-back for immersive mixes
Sony built this open-back for immersive and spatial mixing, and SoundGuys named it its top pick for spatial content. At 223 grams it's one of the lightest pro open-backs around, and RTINGS rates the fit very comfortable over a long session. The cable detaches and the cups fold flat for the bag. Here's my gripe. SoundGuys found it very bassy and says it needs EQ for most uses, so either learn its curve inside out or run correction software on it. The price bounces around, about $330 on Amazon and $340 at Vintage King, where the list price has climbed to $420.
Photo: Lucasbosch, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sennheiser HD 650
The midrange plenty of engineers learned to mix on
It's been around since 2003 and it still sits on a lot of mixing and mastering desks. Its midrange is the yardstick a whole generation of engineers learned on, and there's nothing on it that can't be serviced for decades. You do have to know it, though. That slightly shy top end can talk you into mixes that come out too bright, and at 300 ohms it needs a real headphone amp, not a laptop jack. It's about $380 on Amazon right now, while dealer prices run a good deal higher (Vintage King lists $579.95). If you'd like something a touch more neutral, its sibling the HD 600 goes for around $280 on Amazon.
Focal Clear Mg Professional
Focal's pro flagship, for when you mix and master on headphones every day
Focal pairs magnesium-dome drivers with the kind of dynamics and resolution that make edits, reverb tails and little bits of distortion jump right out at you. Sound On Sound came away impressed by its dynamic response and low-frequency extension. It's $1,499 at Vintage King and on Amazon, and at 55 ohms most interfaces can push it, though a dedicated amp won't hurt. Let's be real about the money. For a lot of people, fifteen hundred bucks would go further on treating the room, and at roughly 450 grams it's a lot of headphone to wear through a twelve-hour day.
Don't skip the correction software
Here's something headphone reviews don't say enough. Every pair wanders off flat somewhere, and that includes every pick on this page. The HD 650 pushes the mids forward, the MV1 is bass-heavy and the DT 900 PRO X has that lifted treble. None of that's wrong exactly, but you either learn each pair's quirks and compensate in your head or you let software do the math for you.
Three tools worth knowing about:
- Sonarworks SoundID Reference is the big name. The headphones-only version lists at €99 on Sonarworks' site, covers 500-plus models and corrects them toward a flat target as a plugin or across your whole system.
- dSONIQ Realphones corrects 200-plus headphone models and throws in studio and listening-room simulations, so you can get a rough idea of how a mix might land in a car or a cafe. It's handy if you don't have a good speaker room to check in.
- Goodhertz CanOpener Studio ($79) is crossfeed plus a bass and treble EQ, and Goodhertz is upfront that it doesn't correct the headphone. What it does is blend a little of each side into the other so the cans behave more like speakers, which is meant to take some of the strain out of a long day.
I'd honestly take an HD 560S with correction running over a flagship without it, and I think that's the most underrated bit of advice in home-studio mixing.
How to pick between them
Stuck between two? Find the line that sounds like you.
Questions engineers ask about mixing on headphones
Can you really mix professionally on headphones?
Yes, and plenty of engineers do. The old knock was that the stereo picture doesn't match speakers, but crossfeed like CanOpener and correction like SoundID Reference have closed a lot of that gap. What you really need is a reference you know inside out, set up right, in a place you trust. A good pair of headphones can be that, as long as you check the mix on other systems along the way.
Do I need a separate headphone amp?
For most of this list, no. The HD 560S at 120 ohms, DT 900 PRO X at 48, MM-100 at 18, MDR-MV1 at 24 and Focal at 55 all run off a decent interface like a Focusrite Scarlett, a Universal Audio Apollo or an Audient iD. The HD 490 PRO at 130 ohms likes a little more push, and the 300-ohm HD 650 really does want its own amp, something like a desktop unit from Schiit or JDS Labs. I go through impedance and sensitivity and when you need an amp in more detail elsewhere.
Why are open-back headphones better for mixing?
The open cup gives you a wider, more speaker-like stage, so you can actually hear where things sit left to right and front to back, and that's half of what mixing is. The price is leakage and zero isolation. Don't wear them near a mic, and don't bother on a plane.
Will my mixes translate to car stereos and earbuds?
That's the big question, and honestly it comes down to you more than the headphones. Any reference pair here will translate if you run correction, check the mix on a few other systems as you go and give yourself time to learn the pair. I'd spend a few months on one pair and nothing else. You'll start making better calls before you can say why. My chapter on monitoring and translation walks through setting up your monitoring so mixes travel.
How do I tell if my mix is bass-heavy or bass-light?
Three checks. First, run Sonarworks or something like it so your headphones' own lean is out of the picture. Second, A/B against a commercial track in the same genre, a Bruno Mars single for pop or Anthrax for metal, whatever fits. Third, play it on AirPods, in the car, on a Bluetooth speaker and on your phone's speaker. If the bass holds up on all four you've nailed it, and if it's huge on AirPods and missing in the car, your low end is living in the wrong octave.
Should I buy monitors or headphones first?
If you have a treated room, or you're willing to treat one, I'd go monitors first, and a pair like the Kali LP-6 or Yamaha HS5 is a common place to start. If your room is untreated or you mix at 2 a.m. when the neighbors are asleep, go headphones first. Most of us end up owning both anyway. The one combo I'd steer clear of is expensive monitors in a bare room with no plan to fix it. You'd do better putting that money into a great pair of headphones and one small speaker for final checks.
Is the Drop HD 6XX the same as the HD 650?
Close enough for most people. Sennheiser makes the HD 6XX for Drop with the HD 650's drivers, and the differences come down to looks and a few small tweaks. Drop has sold it for around $200, sometimes less on sale, though I couldn't confirm today's price. With the HD 650 at about $380 on Amazon, it's the cheapest way into that sound, if you can catch it in stock.
My bottom line
If you can swing it, the Sennheiser HD 490 PRO is the pair I'd mix on day in, day out. On a tighter budget, an HD 560S with SoundID Reference running gets you most of the way for a lot less, and the Audeze MM-100 is my pick for the night you can't figure out why the kick and bass keep stepping on each other.
Whatever you buy, load the correction software before the first mix, not after the third round of revision notes comes back.