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Those ATs are 38 Ohm? That could explain it. Low impedance headphones are designed to provide ample volume when listening to devices with relatively wimpy headphone amps, like mobile phones and iPods. Another user elsewhere expressed concern with his Beyer DT990s (which come in three variants—32 Ohm, 250 Ohm, and 600 Ohm) and I'm willing to bet his are 32 Ohm.
I'm actually surprised your Sonys sound any better, as they're even lower, at 24 Ohm.
Helix's headphone amp is LOUD; it's designed to drive high-impedance studio headphones to stage volumes. Low impedance headphones distort way faster, fatigue your ears, and at a high enough volume, can damage your hearing. With Helix you could conceivably split the headphone output to two pairs of 200-300 Ohm cans/IEMs and drive both over the sound of a drummer (and adjust respective levels via MIDI CC control of path output blocks). My band does this now.
Personally, I use Sennheiser HD600s (300 Ohm), and before those, the HD580s (same). Also have a bunch of Sony 7506s around, but they're 63 Ohm and harsh-sounding already, even with an iPod. I also keep a pair of Sennheiser HD280 Pros (64 Ohm) at work and they're pretty boxy sounding, but if I can get a mix to sound good on them, it'll sound good anywhere. I treat them like wearable Yamaha NS10s, if those NS10s were powered by an Alesis RA100 instead of a Bryston. Wouldn't want to construct tones with them.
And...
A well-known recording engineer friend and I were talking a while back and he mentioned that some older professional recording gear might get worse reviews today simply because headphone impedances have been dropping steadily. Back then, there was a much better chance that any over-the-ear headphones would be high enough impedance to sound great on gear at the time. Now it's all about blowing kids' eardrums out with their $200 Beats that are designed to push enough bass from a phone's puny headphone amp.
Helix is professional gear—designed for professionals—and we weren't about to dumb down our headphone amp because everyone happens to have white earbuds in some drawer in their house. Feel free to use consumer cans, but don't expect it to sound great.
BTW, a lower-impedance doesn't necessarily mean worse specs; it simply means the cans were designed for a different purpose. There are amazing-sounding, Über-expensive low-impedance cans that sound amazing on phones but terrible on pro gear. And there are amazing-sounding, Über-expensive high-impedance cans that sound amazing on pro gear but terrible on phones.
I have a few more specialist presets for specific songs like U2 stuff, but no one would notice if I didn't use them
ypu can get good and bad sounds out of most things, with a modern modern modeller there are a lot of options so it's easier to get a bad sound and blame the gear
it didn't happen the first week I got it, but my sound using the Helix is the best I've had in my whole time playing, and that includes a lot of great amps
If you prefer something else then that’s fine
if you’re using the wrong ohm headphones then see my first point
That's exactly what I did and it sounded shit. It took a very kind shop lending me one before I had enough time with it to work out how to make it sound good through headphones. I think it's incredible, but depending on your use case, it's not always instant win.
if all all else fails I have one rule about gear I either can’t play first or don’t have 4 months to learn before I buy:
did is someone else make it sound good?
if the answer is yes then I’ll be able to make it sound good
No you don't.
Its so easy to dismiss/insult someones opinion by claiming user error.
Of course, the UI means that diving in is made massively easier, but I agree that when spending cash on a piece of kit like this, you need to invest time.
Another unit similar in terms of requiring patience is the SY300. Once I’ve got my head around that and it’s in a Helix loop, I’ll be quite excited to see what I can come up with.
My music:- https://soundcloud.com/hubobulous
Perhaps not on the amp front - I agree they are immediately easier to tweak, but a little time with the Helix gets you into the same sort of speed.
My music:- https://soundcloud.com/hubobulous