https://stevenslateaudio.com/vsx
I’m curious to hear what you folks make of the new Slate Digital VSX monitoring headphones product. Priced at $899 AUD which I think is about $650 US and EUR - 560.
Is it just a pricey way to find that my mixes sucks on multiple settings, or a practical way to identify mix issues without leaving your room?
General thoughts?
I hate mixing on headphones, but if I had to do it, I think this is a great way to go.
Expensive?
Let’s look at the alternative: I have a pair of Sennheiser 650hd cans - they retail for about AUD$600. Add Sonarworks Reference 4 for headphones to flatten out their frequency response - that is another AUD$200. Waves “Abbey Road Studio” room sim software is on sale now for around AUD$69… so that’s a total of $869…
It could work, I guess - I’d probably trust an integrated system like Slate’s a little more, though. All reports are that it seems pretty good. I think I would go for it if I had to move to an apartment. If I was going all in, I’d probably ad a Subpac to it for the full “authentic” experience.
Yeah, I wasn’t sure what folks would call “pricey”. I guess it’s pricey if it just confirms that you are unhappy with your mix! 
Ive heard this before from Todd Rundgren, talking about studio and live…arrangements of sounds…to prevent boredom boring bored song sounds psychology.
Im old school, but listening to McCartneys RAM album is mucho-grande with sounds everywhere and all over the place… nothing to do with sales, and it helps he had a previous job in the beatles…but his solo RAM is almost an art at moving things around a lot. It might even help make up for a average song. HIghly recommend RAM for a listen, to the mix, not the songs or Billboard current fad’s…hear how a sparse song is made lively with pans and sharing spotlights with instruments.
of course this is the opposite of ACDC stuff where its always the same mix with the same gear and same vocal and same structure…
I haven’t tried it, so I can’t really offer opinions on it specifically, but I have tried other speaker modelling software. Years ago someone at Dolby made some and they sounded amazing. I put them on and when I heard sound, I took them off because I thought there was something coming from the speakers.
When slate came out with these headphones, I went to to try the waves version to see if I was missing out on the idea. I found the waves version to be a gimmick at best, annoying at worst. After 10 minutes with the demo, I knew that I would never need it or want it.
So basically, my experience is that when done right, it can sound really good. When not done right, it’s totally lame. I have no idea where the VSX falls on this scale.
I actually bought the Waves version and stopped using it after two weeks or so.
The idea of it is intriguing; if the software developer gets everything right and calibrated it using one specific set of very good headphones, then in theory they can develop a standardized monitoring system with predictable results in any room. It could also be cost effective vs. the expense of good monitors, but it’s definitely a niche product.
Kind of impractical for a producer/engineer to have to pass the cans around for people to hear the mix, so monitors would still be needed.