The best money you can spend on your home studio.

Steven Slate has a reputation for strong media game, hyping his plugins and recording products as game changers. And with good reason -- you'll find them used in plenty of world-class studios for ITB work on some of today's biggest hit records. But in this case, "game changer" is the only fair way to describe these headphones.

By combining IR and other modeling techniques with psychoacoustic effects, and then hand-tuning the results carefully, Slate and his crew have created the sonic equivalent of the Magic Eye poster. With these headphones, unless you're one of the unlucky few who can't experience binaural effects properly, you can experience recording, mixing, and mastering in world class environments with rooms and speakers that most of us will never be able to afford to set foot in, much less own or work in daily.

Imagine not having to run your mix back and forth onto different platforms like your car, home stereo, or phone to figure out where you have to go back to correct for room idiosyncracies. (All rooms have them, even some of the best.) Imagine nailing the mix on the first revision and knocking your client's socks off. Imagine recording in the world's best studios whenever you want. Imagine taking that capability with you wherever you are -- to another room, on the road, in hotels, outside. That dream is a reality with these headphones.

You can be forgiven for thinking this sounds like hyperbole -- this is a case where you really do have to experience the product before you can understand the hype is well deserved. I've now worked on several mixes and start-to-finish recordings with these headphones, and although I'll continue to use my studio room, I'll likely never do another mix without Slate VSX.

On another level

My only regret is that I didn't buy them sooner. I sat on the fence about them for a long time, just because you can't download a pair of headphones to demo them, and at £400+, it was a risk. I went with my gut, and after less than 24 hours of use, I couldn't be happier with them. I'd read reviews of people saying they reached to turn the speaker off and then realized the speakers were actually turned off, and I was a bit skeptical that they'd be THAT good, but it's all true. I've been producing / mixing for over 20 years, and have never encountered a pair of headphones that gave me complete confidence when mixing bass elements. No matter what I used, the bass would always need some adjustment when I switched to my monitors, but VSX has nailed it.

I can't say for sure that the sound I'm experiencing is exactly what I'd hear if I were in those professional mixing environments as I've never been in those rooms, but I can say the detail is outstanding. They're also incredibly comfortable. The pads almost have a consistency of creme brulee as they're made from the softest leather, that almost feels like a liquid, and they feel amazing. Really solid build quality too.

I have an iLok dongle, but I still wasn't enamoured with the idea of them being tied to a protection system, but... it's not enough to spoil my enjoyment of the obvious benefits

Believe the hype.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

Unbeatable tool for mixing

The marketing is not deceptive, these have transformed my mixes and I recently upgraded to platinum.