VMK25 Adjustments for Studio Use

How to make Valco's VMK25 headphones about the best studio headphones in the world?

I, Valco's product designer, mastering engineer, and general sound guru Jasse “Jazmanaut” Kesti, will tell you in this blog post how Valco VMK25 headphones can be equalized to high-end studio headphones with noise cancellation when wired.

No headphone is perfect. This is simply because a single element should produce a perfect full frequency response without crossovers. It is very difficult and very expensive.

In my mastering studio, I have some of the world's best studio headphones, which cost over €4000, and even they benefit from a little equalization.

That's why, for example, Valco's VMK25 headphones beat many "studio standards" when I've carefully and lovingly tuned their sound using internal DSP processing to be extremely Hi-Fi, true to the original recording. Of course, even the best settings won't help if the headphones don't have the right technology otherwise. Fortunately, we have top-notch composite elements.

Unfortunately, Bluetooth inevitably introduces a small delay, which is a critical bottleneck in music production or video editing: Monitoring playback delays the groove, and timing lip-sync in video work is impossible.

But luckily, the VMK25s work completely delay-free with a wire, and the noise cancellation also works. So mixing on a laptop is a breeze when environmental noises are eliminated. Unfortunately, wired mode bypasses the DSP circuit with tone corrections, but don't worry. I have a solution that doesn't even require expensive third-party headphone correction programs.

Here's how: In your digital work environment or audio capture software that supports plugins (I personally prefer Rogue Amoeba's Soundsource or Audio Hijack on Mac), take the most neutral full parametric!!! digital equalizer and enter these values:

Valco VMK 25 ANC ON- Equalization Settings:

1. +10 dB  3900 Hz   Q 2.00
2. -3 dB     1800 Hz    Q 1.00
3. +2.96 dB 900 Hz     Q 1.00
4. -3 dB      58 Hz        Q 2.00

And because there are also boosting moves here, I recommend that you also slightly reduce the equalizer's output so that the signal does not distort. -5dB is at least safe.

And there you have it, you now have one of the world's most consistently reproducing studio headphones, with noise cancellation to top it off!

Check the attached image for measurement results and be amazed! (Don't mind the readings above 10Khz. My meter is not reliable at such high frequencies.)

Now I can hear some hi-fi enthusiast or home studio junkie whining that consumer-designed Bluetooth headphones can't be as good studio headphones as specially designed passive headphones!

To that, I say I am the ultimate hi-fi junkie, and I listen to music in my mastering studio with such a large sample and intensity that it's absurd. And I designed these headphones primarily for myself.

I use this particular setup with these settings in my mobile work, and it consistently produces excellent results. So: You're welcome!

tldr: And if you didn't feel like reading, you can also find the same thing in video form here: VMK25 equalization (youtube.com)