non in-ear headphones for dvx100a?

Bryan

Bryan

Well-known member
Recently during a shoot my cheapo five dollar headphones died on me and I'm ready to spend a bit more on some nice headphones. I'm looking in the $100 range and I've seen the Sony 7506 and the Senn HD-280 thrown around as good ones.

My problem is the echo with the dvx100a. During this recent shoot the echo was rather annoying. It drove me batty whenever I heard myself echo through the headphones, heh. I've searched some threads that recommend in-ear headphones to isolate and eliminate the echo. But I've never felt comfortable with in-ear headphones, they give me headaches, etc.

So my question is... what are some good non in-ear headphones that will still do an admirable job regarding the echo?
 
Headphones won't eliminate the delay. It's the a/d conversion that you are hearing. It will never go away, unless there is a latency adjustment on the camera that I don't know about (which i'm almost 100% sure there isn't). If you are looking to spend around $100, go with the Sennheiser hd280's, or the sony 7506's. If you want to throw down some more cash, check out the ultrasone stuff. So far, they are the best headphones I have ever used.

-Dave
 
Hi Dave,

I did a search on headphones already and well I just got kinda confused and am hoping you might be able to clarify. with the dvx there is both an echo and hiss. if the dvx is used with professional headphones, like the ones you mentioned above that will stop the hiss or the echo?

From what I gathered it is the echo but not the hiss, is that correct?

Yet the manual says that the use of pro headphones will provide clear sound, i guess this is true if you are in a non 24p mode, correct?

any info. would be great.

thnx,
 
the hiss may go away... but the hiss could be the actual pickup from your microphone. Pro headphones actually will hear more of "bad" sounds than cheap headphones, which is a good thing.
 
Sony 7506 phones are fairly good sounding, are very tough and provide a moderate amount of isolation because they are closed ear phones. I have about 8 sets of them in my studio and I highly recommend them. Everyone that puts them on likes them. Will they solve the latency problem? Depends on how close you are to the source of the sound, and how loud it is.

The hiss is coming from the cheap headphone amp built in to the camera. From what I can tell, the headphone amp is fixed gain, and you will notice that if you turn the mics all the way down, the hiss remains constant. This means the amp is running full blast all the time, and this is less than optimal. No headphones will fix this. The only way to fix it is a headphone level adjustment, or a better amp, or some combination of both.

The only solution I can think of to eliminate hiss is monitor off an external preamp attached to the line outputs. If you are going to this much trouble, you might as well use an external mixer, and bypass monitoring off the camera entirely.
 
Yeah. This hiss and delay won't go away, they'll just sound really good with good headphones. The hiss is from both the crappy mic pres in the camera, the crappy a/d converters in the camera, and the even crappier headphone amp in the camera.

-Dave
 
Alright, I guess I'll go with the Sony 7506. Though can someone clarify something for me first.

I read somewhere that the Sony 7506 doesn't really go all the way around your ear, but the Senn HD280 does. Is this true?
 
I have never owned 7506's, but my recollection is that they do NOT really surround ear at all. The 280's provide some noise isolation, but not as good as my ETymotic in-ear phones. These are NOT the same as earbuds (which I hate). I was pleasantly surprised when I bought mine, and I like them for shooting. They completely eliminate the echo. I betthey would be great in loud locations too, like music videos. Plus they are really tiny, so do not take a lot of room in my location kit. And low profile of them is less intimidating when shooting or interviewing people.
 
There's some misinformation running wild in this thread! Some good stuff too, but here's the facts.

For starters, the 7506 headphones DO totally surround your ears. Your ears are completely encased in each can... except for maybe the absolute bottom of your earlobe. Check any other full-surround phone and you'll get pretty much the same fit. Next.

The DVX "A" model HEADPHONE OUTPUT (NOT CAM) has hiss and echo for two reasons... it is not crappy mic pres... let me repeat, it is NOT crappy mic pres... the original DVX and the A model have some of the BEST mic pres available! The DVX also has some of the best A/D conversion available. It is CD quality sound.

The hiss is from the new HEADPHONE AMP only... Panasonic had reports of inadequate volume while monitoring via headphones... so they put in a LOUDER headphone amp (of worse quality). If you try to use cheapy headphones on the original DVX you'll never get it loud enough... the same phones on the "A" model get plenty loud (but with hiss). Using a pair of 7506 solves the volume issue in the original DVX and makes the hiss in the "A" model more obvious. It's the headphone amp causing ALL the hiss... there won't be any hiss on your recordings. Zero point zero.

Okay next point... the DELAY is caused by the (what the hell is the circuit called?)... crap, I'll look up the name later. Remember the 1 or 2 frames of audio drift that the original DVX has after 20 minutes or so of uninterrupted recording? Well that was a BIG deal to lots of people... Sony's cams pd150/pd170 have PERFECT sync while the original DVX was drifting... in a (supposedly) professional cam that is NOT acceptable... In the "A" model there is NO drift. They accomplished this by delaying the audio to the digital throughput... the picture and sound are in perfect sync on tape, but in the original DVX the sound is actually getting to the tape first... just by microseconds (because of a picture delay from 24p pulldown). Now in the current cam why you hear a delay is you're hearing the mix of audio before it hits the tape... it's a half-second behind, INSIDE THE CAMERA even though the picture and sound are sync'ed before it's committed to tape.

I'm sure in future cams that Panny will fix this issue... and I can't believe they let this pass on this cam 'cause it drives me nuts too! I've got a buddy who own the "A" and I have the original... and we traded cams for a bit and I couldn't monitor my own narration 'cause my brain would just gradually shut down and I'd talk slower and slower. If I was shooting with the A model and my own voice was part of the scene I'd check levels and then put the headphones down.

But for the record, both cams produce nearly perfect sound. I've got a friend who has a Sony with the Greg Winter mod... for direct line in and 120db SN... and he feeds it with an SD 302... and I was about to buy that mixer for my cam (for the 3 channel mixing AND to make my audio even better)... After this friend scoped my audio he said "don't bother, you'll never hear the difference".

I was having this debate with somebody close to a year ago and I put up some audio of a friend of mine singing and playing guitar. You can crank the sh*t out of this (or scope it) and tell me if you hear any hiss. CLICK HERE Elliot had a cold and a scratchy throat which is obvious at about 01:00... you hear a "rolling" quality in his voice... but after that listen to his lips part and the loose strings on the guitar... Okay now THIS is a WMA... if you're still not convinced I'll put up a WAV which is WAY cleaner then this... and this is already perfect. Just mics and DVX... nothing else.
 
As I mentioned galt, I can't use in-ear headphones.

Anyway, thanks Matt for clearing that up. I think I'll go order my 7506's.
 
I have the 7506s and like them very much.

As far as this being fixed on the HVX200, I don't see why not. The XL2 has a headphone gain control and I don't have this problem and the XL2 certainly is not a $100,000 camera....
 
I have HD280's and they do go all the way around my ears. Never tried the 7506, though.

The echo that you hear is caused by the dvx delaying the audio so that it is laid down on tape synchronously with the video. The best way to get rid of it is to completely block out the ambient sounds with your headphones.
 
Aside from the sound quality... which I'm very happy with in the 7506 'phones and I'm sure is also high in the Sennheiser 280's... this is the other reason I like the 7506's so much. I don't know of any other full-sized, isolating phones that pack down this tightly. You wouldn't believe how much stuff I can get in my PortaBrace camera bag... and this is a nice convenience.

7506%20size%20comparison.jpg


Sorry I forgot to say "thanks" to Siruis Doggy for showing me how to post pictures.
 
MattinSTL said:
The DVX "A" model HEADPHONE OUTPUT (NOT CAM) has hiss and echo for two reasons... it is not crappy mic pres... let me repeat, it is NOT crappy mic pres... the original DVX and the A model have some of the BEST mic pres available! The DVX also has some of the best A/D conversion available. It is CD quality sound.
Click to expand...


I'm going to disagree with you here, and very strongly. The A/D converters may be spec'ed at CD quality (which is still too low of resolution for production sound, mind you), how they, and the mic pre's actually perform is something else.

I know I'm sounding like a broken record here, but I've cut lots of stuff done on the DVX, and when people plugged the mic right in (ME66, 416, or 897), I always...ALWAYS...have to spend most of my time doing dialogue clean up because of noisy mic pres. If the people used a good mixer in front of the camera, then usually I don't have any problems, as far as the noise level goes. I couldn't be more adamant about using a mixer, or some sort of good quality mic pre, in front of the camera, and come in line level. It may sound fine to you, but to my ears, the camera falls way short. The A/D converters are also crap. Bottom line. The camera is cheap for a reason. The picture looks good, but it suffers on the audio side. The standard resolution for production audio is 48Khz, 24 bit, which the DVX doesn't even do.

Granted, it's better than the XL1, that's for sure, but don't tout it as a great sounding audio section, when it really isn't.

-Dave
 
Have to slam the XL1 huh??? LOL!!

The XL2 records 16/48k. While not 24bit, it is INCREDIBLY clean for dialog. Check one out...
 
Dave I don't get it. If you do a test in a vaccum then you can't blame the instrument. Click the link I just posted and pop on whatever phones you like... now CRANK THEM UP... where's the hiss? Why don't you trust your ears?

Okay so it may not be perfect audio... but who on here is doing productions that need to go much beyond that?

Here's what Jay Rose said of the DVX audio:

A few months ago ("DV Camera Audio," Nov. '02 DV), I wrote about the disheartening sound current cameras have, and how economics dictated this wasn't likely to change. Maybe I was wrong. Panasonic's AG-DVX100 has reasonably designed, flexible input circuits and the best analog-to-digital converter I've heard in an affordable camera. The camera isn't perfect, but I hope it signals a trend toward better miniDV sound.Flexibility is a key here. Most of today's cameras produce usable sound, but only with high-output mics or low-level line inputs. The DVX100's two XLR inputs (with switchable phantom) performed equally well at any mic level you'd find at a DV shoot, and at both consumer and professional line levels. In fact, I was able to push the input to +14 dBu without significant distortion. This is the widest usable input range of any camera DV magazine has measured.It's also got the widest frequency response, including a smooth high end with no audible aliasing. Aliasing distortion adds nonmusical whistles to high frequencies. Modern studio equipment uses oversampling, an expensive technique, to avoid this problem. Until now, I haven't seen oversampling in any DV equipment. I can't guarantee Panasonic included it either - like most camera manufacturers, they don't publish meaningful audio specs - but the result sure sounds like it's in use. This is the only reasonably priced camera I'd recommend for music.The camera's signal-to-noise ratio (a measure of hiss and other electronic junk) is about average for modern cameras of this class, although as noted, it extends over a wider range of input levels. The DVX100's high-gain mic setting can accommodate a -60 dBu input - more sensitive than other cameras, and necessary only with some dynamic and ribbon mics - but performance in that mode wasn't impressive. If you need to record that kind of mic, get an external preamp.I tested the DVX100 with the same setup as the November '02 article: analog input from a calibrated signal generator, FireWire output through a high-quality converter to an audio analyzer. I used 48 kHz (16-bit) mode with automatic volume control turned off. Frequency response was remarkably smooth: 25 Hz to 18 kHz ± 2 dB, with a couple of insignificant, narrow dips at 130 Hz and 280 Hz. Distortion (THD+N) was 0.14 percent for line-level inputs, rising to 0.18 percent for a -50 dBu mic. With a +14 dBu input - well into the headroom of any professional mixer - distortion was only 0.3 percent. Signal-to-noise ratio, relative to a 1 kHz signal at -12 dBFS, was -60 dB for line and -58 dB for mic inputs. This translates to a 72 dB dynamic range, acceptable for broadcast and some theatrical purposes.
 
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