Phones or speakers?

[Top Cat]

"Binaural" recordings are known to sound best when played through headphones, but what do you think about other playback setups?

[dex Otaku]

I tend to combine binaural with non-binaural recordings. My assumption is that nearly everyone who will hear anything I edit will be listening on speakers, though I do also usually tell them to try listening with good headphones to get the full effect.

While most things I work on are plain stereo, my favourite setup to edit for is currently 5.1 surround. It can be quite challenging, and also very fulfilling.

The last concert recording I made had two versions - a stereo and a surround version. Since I have two HiMD recorders, I used one to record the feed off the board [which I was mixing] and the other with a friend's MS-907 mid/side stereo mic to record the crowd. With some filtering on the crowd recording the surround version is quite .. convincing, shall we say. That was my first [albeit far less than ideal] foray into quad recording.

I tend to fantasise about working with Ambisonic recordings as well.

[dex Otaku]

One thing to add, too ..

as with many, most if not all of my editing is done with headphones. The mastering [if you can even call it that with logitech z680s, which are light years away from being decent nearfields] is done over speakers.