Specifications

Digital Surround System
The HEARO 999 is a new reference for headphones monitoring. Many
sound engineers, producers,and musicians use the same monitors for
years so they become their definitive reference for assessing a mix.The
HEARO 999 Processor allows you to take a familiar reference sound
wherever you go so you can evaluate any mix meaningfully, no matter
what monitors may be available on location. The beauty of this system is
you can always tell whether a mix actually meets your own standards or
not because the HEARO 999 Processor gives you the same familiar audio
wherever you are,anytime. At last,you can carry your own proven
reference monitor system with you that enables you to decide on your
own whether a mix sounds good enough or not. The perfect choice for
professional mixing, editing, overdubbing, etc.in the studio or on location.
AKG
HEARO 999 AUDIOSPHERE
HEADPHONES
636
PHOTO - VIDEO - PRO AUDIO
Excellent Acoustics and Great Value
Headphones reproduce sound so well because they have less air to
move than do open-air speakers, and because they do it in a tightly
controlled environment.Their sound quality can be five times
better than that of speaker systems selling for the same price,
or better yet a $200 set of headphones can have the same
specifications for fidelity (frequency response, nominal impedance,
sensitivity and total harmonic distortion) as room speakers
costing $1000.In addition,headphones are a great value. They are
basically small, low-power speakers, and they don’t contain
expensive parts that can heat up and blow the way speakers do.
Ultra high reliability is also the result of new materials and new
manufacturing techniques.
The Makings of a Good Headphone
Many headphones, especially consumer ones are poorly engineered
and use the cheap circuitry. Headphones are miniature speakers
and miniature speakers require miniature power amps. For
professional applications,the headphone amp should be a separate
part of the amplifier. That’s because headphone amps and speaker
amps require completely different specs for output power, damping
factor, output impedance, slew rate and other variables. If the
amplifier is not optimized for headphones, you will soon suffer
from common problems like inner-ear fatigue and poor sound
imaging. Poorly imaged audio will have no feeling of continuity
from left to right, and no sense of depth or space.
Headphone Pad Design
Another headphone-related ailment is outer-ear fatigue. The outer
ear is an amazingly delicate part of the body, and few headphones
are designed with the long-term listener in mind. Even open-air
foam pads can be annoying and painful when pressed against your
ears for a while. The design of the headphone pads and the level of
comfort they provide should be a deciding factor in your choice.
Headphone ear cups generally come in three designs:“supra-aural”
(the against-the ear or “open”design),“circumaural”(the around
the ear or “closed”design) and inside-the-ear, or Walkman-style.
Inside-the -ear headphones can be brutally uncomfortable for
extended listening and are certainly a last resort for professional
applications. They also feature some of the worst imaging and
specs available.
Open-air supra-aural headphones don’t block out sound from the
outside world and are a good choice if you need to listen for the
phone while working. If you don’t want interruptions, buy
close-ear, or “sealed”,circumaural headphones—the type worn by
most audio professionals for critical listening applications.
Circumaural headphones also prevent audio “leakage”, or the
bleeding of sound into the mic while the headphones feed the
listener. Enclosed headphones are ideal for while doing voice-overs
for video work, because they prevent the original audio track from
bleeding into the voice-over. The voice-over takes up a mixer track
whose volume has to be separate from that of the background
tracks captured with the video camera’s mic.
Thinking of Buying a Headphone?
An indispensible tool for audio and video professionals, headphones provide a cheap, but excellent reference environment– the stan-
dard against which open-air room listening is judged. Audio reference monitoring is the most important tool producers have for decid-
ing what changes to make to a track and for insuring consistency throughout a production in which narration, music and background
audio may be recorded at different locations. By design, headphones eliminate the acoustic interaction with a room that can affect the
recording of audio signals, and they reproduce exactly the sound that the audio engineer generated during the final mix-down of a
recording or that the cameraman captured during the interview. Of course they offer the ultimate in portability. With a good pair of
headphones, your sound will meet your standards wherever you go.