LEWITT LW6: Wireless Headphones for Audio Professionals

0:00 Hi everybody and welcome to the Office Hours Tuesday Focus. You know, we live in an increasingly wireless world these days. Our phones, laptops, guitars on stage, our car keys, they're all untethered from wires or plugging into something. And one area though that's been a bit slow to follow that path, studio monitors and even our focus for tonight's show, critical monitoring headphones. To help us examine this next frontier in wireless technology,

0:28 I'm pleased to welcome to the show tonight Brian Fisher from Lewitt Audio. Brian is the channel marketing manager there, and Lewitt has just introduced the LW6, a very low latency wireless studio headphone designed for critical studio monitoring. So if you're interested in cutting away those classic curly cables out of your life from your headphones, well, you've come to the right place. Brian, welcome to the Office Hours Tuesday Focus.

0:54 Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to talk about it. Well, go ahead. I said I'm really excited to talk about these. I think you're about to say the same. Well, everybody's been looking for something like this for a long time. I mean, low latency, getting something that feels a little bit like a wired thing, but being untethered so that no matter what you're doing, if you have to stand up for a second

1:19 and run to grab something, you're not ripping off your headphones, as I've done eight million times over the course of my career, is a boon. So let's get right into the announcement. Can you tell us a little bit about the LW6s and maybe show us what they look like and a little bit about the product highlights? Yeah, absolutely. So this is what they look like.

1:39 I'm wearing them right here. And like you said, they are a ultra low latency wireless studio headphone. So that's kind of a category that hasn't existed. There are obviously plenty of consumer headphones that are wireless. You know, Bluetooth options are all over the place, but the issue with Bluetooth is it degrades the audio quality. So you have compressed audio and you also have a lot of latency.

2:06 So, you know, audible delay between what you're doing and what you're hearing, and especially if you're trying to use them for recording, that just wouldn't work. So that was the problem that we were trying to solve with these. These actually just launched today, this morning. So brand new on the market is as new as could be. But yeah, that's really the goal is to kind of provide a uncompromised performance of a professional studio headphone, but with wireless technology.

2:34 I was looking at the specs and you've achieved something like 5.4 milliseconds of delay. Yeah, exactly. So 5.8 milliseconds of latency. So we developed a proprietary wireless technology that we call RealSound that delivers completely uncompressed PCM audio. Oh, sorry. I thought you cut in there for just a second. But yeah. So basically, you know, that was the two design challenges for us were one, creating wireless uncompressed

3:08 audio that was low enough latency to where it wouldn't be a problem. So 10 milliseconds is kind of that threshold of audibility where it starts becoming distracting and affecting your performance if you're recording with the headphones. So we wanted to keep it as low as possible and as high quality as possible. And then the other challenge was creating a really, really neutral and accurate frequency

3:35 response in a closed back headphone so that it can be used for both recording and for critical listening and mixing purposes. Talk to me a little bit about, I think as I was reading through the product specs, they were talking about the fact that it not only has this ultra low latency pathway, but it also has regular Bluetooth. So if you want to use these for something other than this ultra low latency,

4:02 like if you just wanted to monitor something that was a Bluetooth feed from something else, you could do that as well. Can you talk a little bit about that design feature? Yeah, absolutely. We wanted to just include all of the different connection options that we could really think of. So it does have traditional Bluetooth for if you just want to take it outside

4:20 the studio, connect to your phone. But then you also can connect wired via analog. There's a USB-C port in the headphones you can connect directly to. And then we have the transmitter for wireless that can be plugged in directly to your laptop via USB-C. Or you can run an analog input into that from a mixer or audio interface. So there's a whole bunch of different ways you can connect it.

4:45 So yeah, you can sort of take it between whatever scenario, whether you're mixing on the go or tracking in a traditional studio or just listening to music on the commute to work. And from what I remember seeing, the headphones themselves, there's also a connector unit. And as I understand it, that software programmable, you can do things with these that you can't do with a standard set of regular wired headphones?

5:12 Yeah, so that's another aspect is they have built in DSP. So there's digital processing happening on the headphones that allows you to do things like customize the frequency response. One thing that, you know, we noticed from our research is if you wear glasses, or, you know, sometimes just different head shapes, different amount of hair can affect how this seals and the amount of bass you hear. So being able to actually tweak the frequency response can be really

5:41 helpful and you can save kind of your custom profile in the headphones so that it goes with you whenever you connect them it just automatically comes up you can even do up to three different versions of like custom eq profiles and then there's also virtual studio monitors so it creates basically a binaural like virtual studio environment so it sounds like you're sitting

6:04 in front of speakers in like an ideal mixing room. Nice. What else? You have a little tour, as I understand, to kind of take us through the interface and let us see a little bit about how you can operate these once you've got a set and you're installed? Yeah. So if we want to pop over to that window, I can show you the basic software app.

6:25 So we have a desktop application for Windows and Mac, and we also have a smartphone application to control a lot of these advanced features that I was talking about. So you can see kind of up here, there's a sound profile section. So transparent is the default. That's the tuning of the headphones that, you know, we created. We have an enhanced bass setting, enhanced high-end,

6:51 and then custom where you can go in and add specifically, you know, exactly how you want to tune them to your liking. And there's three different slots for that. Down here, you have toggling on the virtual studio monitors. So that creates that virtual studio monitoring experience. And then other monitoring options like a loudness guard to avoid sudden spikes in volume from hurting your ears.

7:20 And some different monitoring options like monitoring in mono or swapping the left and right channels. Preset target volume. So there's a lot of things under here. but just trying to give people different options to be able to customize the experience a little bit. And then with that, we actually on the headphones have a couple of different programmable custom buttons. So if you primarily are just toggling on and off

7:48 the virtual studio monitors or your sound profile that you like, you could program those to a button and just click it directly on the headphones to turn it on and off. so what what kind of listener what kind of user is this entirely for people who work in studios or is there a broader target basis for these that was the primary focus when we were designing

8:11 these was for audio professionals so whether that's you know critical listening and audio editing or you know recording producers who are doing a mixture recording and mixing you know people who are doing mastering. So a lot of music specific applications, you know, that said, you know, anyone who appreciates, you know, high quality, high fidelity audio, and kind of the wireless experience could, could enjoy this. But a lot of the features and the problems we were

8:41 looking to solve, we're really thinking about, you know, a producer who's looking for a very versatile tool for monitoring that they can use kind of for everything. So before we go any farther, Most of you who are regulars around Office Hours know that we encourage your questions. This is an open, live, back and forth. So I'm going to toss up the QR code here in the corner of the screen.

9:03 If you have questions for Brian as we go through this and talk about the product, or if there's just things you're interested in and the whole idea of wireless headphones, put your questions in. You can shoot that or simply type askofficehours.global into any web browser. It'll get you to the same place. And once you're in there, you can, if you're part of the Mukana family, you can actually vote on the questions.

9:26 And then Cindy keeps an eye on that. Cindy, our question reader today, will bring them up a little bit later in the show to kind of go beyond what we're talking about and what you're interested in. So that takes care of that. Let me sneak to the next thing that I was interested in. is there anything that somebody would be surprised in your feature list about that it can do something that people really kind of aren't expecting?

9:52 Hmm. I mean, I'm trying to think of what I haven't already mentioned. I mean, I think the most surprising thing, I think, is just being able to get the latency that low with, you know, uncompressed audio quality. And I think the DSP features are sort of, you know, the third line or fourth line of features that you see. So I think people will initially hear like, oh, wireless studio headphones, great. But, you know, the DSP features really do open up a lot of unique, you know, possibilities.

10:26 And for me, particularly, you know, the first thing that I gravitated towards was the custom sound profiles. As simple as that is, just being able to tweak it exactly how I want to hear it is something that I've kind of always wanted to do with other headphones. You know, for me, I like to boost up the bass a little bit because my glasses tend to make the seal not as strong and I lose some of that low-end response.

10:50 response. So being able to dial it in exactly the way I want to hear it and kind of keep that saved so that I don't have to worry about loading some EQ preset in a monitoring chain or something. It's just automatically there. Almost sounds like it's a shot across the bow of if you have a little problem with hearing one ear or another, something like that, you might be able to

11:12 use some of these tools. I know it's not supposed to be an audiologist tool, but at the same time, If you have a little high-end problem in your left ear or something like that, this might be one solution to it. Do you have that much control over the EQ curves of the two separate headphones? No, that's a really interesting use case. I mean, that's definitely possible.

11:34 It could be implemented in a future firmware update or something. But right now, it is just a standard stereo EQ. We don't have left, right, or mid-side capabilities in that. Um, but yeah, interesting idea for sure. Hey, if you, uh, would, can you take us through the process? So I buy a set of these, I get them shipped to my house. I open them up. What's

11:58 the setup process? Is it just as simple as plugging them in and you're good to go? Or do you have to walk through some steps? So the basic setup process is really plug and play. I mean, uh, you do want to download the software kind of right off the bat. Um, cause that is sort of your control center to work through, you know, the settings. You also have, you know, it shows your

12:22 connection status on the screen, whether you're wired or going via real sound. So you want to download that from the website or there's a QR code in the packaging. And then when you have that installed, it's really just plugging in, you know, the transmitter, plugging in your audio interface or whatever the source of audio is to the transmitter, and then turning on the headphones

12:45 and they're good to go and you can start kind of playing around with some of the different features. But yeah, from there, it's, you know, ready to go out of the box. An even easier way to use it would be just to get them and plug them in directly via USB-C so you can start listening to music with them. But yeah, for me, since I already have like a whole setup looped in through another audio interface,

13:11 I'll just go analog out and use the wireless that way. So clearly the box, and I don't know what you actually call it at Lewitt, but the intermediate point that's turning whatever's being fed to it audio-wise into the wireless signal, FM, I think, and then that goes to the headphones themselves. What are the connections on that central control thing, and how would people normally hook them up?

13:37 Yeah, so the transmitter, it's just like a little square. It has an analog input. It has a USB-C connection that powers it and also transmits audio. And then there's an additional analog output. So you could actually, you know, attach another pair of headphones to it. The idea there is, you know, if you're just plugging the transmitter into your laptop and using it as a kind of digital to analog converter,

14:08 you could have your headphones going with wireless and then your friend brings his headphones. you could plug them in to the extra output and uh you know just another handy option to have there um but yeah that's that's the transmitter and uh it basically there's a there's a function button on it that you can toggle between analog and going uh the usbc connection

14:34 cool uh let's get into our questions we're going to dive into the first question cindy Drozda, as always, is our question reader tonight. So Cindy, what have we got from the outside world? Here's our first question from Rion Smith in Trinidad and Tobago. It says, if you remain close to the unit, it will keep the latency low. What happens if you go a bit further?

14:56 How much running room do you have here, Brian? Yeah, so the range of the transmitter is about 16 feet. And so you can actually see your connection status in the application if you're getting like towards the edge. But in practice, you know, in a typical control room, you're not going to get much further than that. The main thing that you need to keep in mind is the transmitter should

15:22 be kind of in clear view of you and the headphones without any large objects obstructing it. But yeah, you'll start to hear if you get to the very, very outer limits, you'll hear a little bit of crackling and kind of the early signs of dropout. So it's pretty obvious when you've reached kind of the edge of that boundary. Okay. It sounds like that you can turn around in the studio and get some gear, no problem.

15:47 But if you decide you have to go pick up the mail, you're in trouble. Yeah. Out on the street. Run to a different room or out of the house. It's not going to work. It's a little iffy. All right. Fair enough. Well, it's trying to do something special. I mean, this isn't just a low-grade wireless system that if you lose it, it's no big deal

16:03 If you're listening to something back, you want it to maintain connection as much as possible. Let's sneak into our next question. And this one here is from Peter Belvin in Houston, Texas. How about multiple musicians in studio, some needing to share the same mix, others their own, without having one transmitter per headphone? Ah, can you do a couple of sets off of something?

16:27 Or what's the topology of the small radio system? That is a good question. I know you can run kind of multiple wireless units. Not off of the same transmitter though. You have that extra, you know, analog output on the transmitter, but they're designed to really go and be paired with one pair of headphones. So essentially, you know, when you have like different headphone mixes going out, you would take that analog connection, you would connect it to your transmitter, and then you would have that wireless feed of your headphone mix.

17:05 You know, most likely everyone's going to have different headphones. Maybe some people brought their own. So it's unlikely that you'll see, you know, every single player in the studio with wireless. But yeah, if you did have that, it's a pretty low profile transmitter. and we include a special mount too, so you could easily mount it to a microphone stand or something like that if you need to keep it close and out of the way.

17:33 So does it have like a quarter 20 on the bottom, or you said there's some sort of special mount? Is this for the box? Yeah, for the little transmitter that transmits the wireless signal, there's a little kind of adapter on the bottom, so you could like screw it into a mic stand. Ah, okay, cool, cool. I'm curious. This seems like a musician's best friend. If you're tired, as I am, I'm not a musician, but I spend all my time in front of microphones. And I just know that every time I grab one of my old headphone cords, I realize how managed to mess it up I've managed to get here.

18:13 So the idea of not having all these curly cords that are driving me nuts, that strikes me as being a nice idea. What are the features of this that's going to make it easier for people to operate in the studio? And it seems like what you're headed for is something that makes life a little bit easier for you, but still has very few compromises in sound.

18:37 Is that really the point of this whole thing? Yeah, I mean, you nailed it right there. I think obviously, you know, you can immediately see the benefit of wireless in terms of not dealing with tangled cords and all that stuff. But for me, one of the additional benefits is being able to use the same pair of headphones for a lot of different applications and have a very consistent sound quality.

18:59 Because typically, you know, I'm in a mix in open back headphones. Open back headphones tend to have a more neutral sound profile that works better for mixing. and you use closebacks for recording because you need that isolation so you don't get extra bleed in your microphone. But, you know, our goal with designing the sound of these was to really aim for the neutrality and kind of transparency of an open back headphone, but in a closeback design.

19:26 So you can mix on these, you can record on these, and there's not that jarring experience of switching headphones and everything sounds totally different from how you remembered recording it. So for me, that's a really big workflow thing that's helpful beyond just the convenience of wireless. Let's go to our next question. Coming in from Seattle, Washington, here's a really good question from Guy Cochran.

19:52 What is the history of Lewitt and how did the idea for these come about? Ah, we always like origin stories and some of us have heard of Lewitt for quite a while, but tell us a little bit about the company too. Yeah, so it's based in Vienna, Austria. And it was founded by our CEO Roman. And I think about 2009, it was he originally worked at AKG for a while. And then eventually, when he started Lewitt, his goal and intention was really to focus on innovation, just with the idea that not everything that can be done with microphones has been done, that there's a lot of interesting technology out there that could be

20:31 implemented in great ways for microphones. And so that was the initial focus was specifically microphones like the 440 that I'm talking into here. It's kind of one of our most popular models, but we have really interesting concepts for microphones like the Lewitt Ray that came out a couple of years ago that has an IR sensor that can detect how far you are away and adjust its

20:57 tone and level accordingly to make sure that you sound consistent. So great for, you know, podcasting and live streaming and all that kind of stuff. And then other microphones like the high-end LCT1040, which has both a FET circuit and a tube circuit and four different voicings for the tube circuit. So you can really kind of blend them and tailor the sound exactly to what

21:22 you want to hear. So, Lua, it's always been about trying to figure out how to solve kind of new problems and be able to just create more unique creative options for artists. And so, I think the same thing has applied to other product categories that we've moved into. We've tried to find other ways to bring solutions to musicians that can solve interesting

21:46 and unique problems. So, you know, our audio interface is really striving to make them very streaming friendly, very user friendly. And, you know, with the headphones trying to make the workflow really seamless with the wireless technology and really seeing that there was wireless technology that wasn't really being used to its full extent in this application. And so, yeah, Lewitt's always kind of had that spirit of trying to

22:13 trying to do what that hasn't been done completely and kind of push things forward a little bit further cool overview of the company talk a little bit about yourself how did you get involved with luit and what was your background yeah so i was brought on to the team kind of right as they were opening up the u.s office so um i am a musician i am a mixing engineer as well i have uh i do a lot

22:38 of kind of freelance production and mixing work for other independent musicians and so huge passion of mine. I have worked in the past for iZotope. I've done a lot of educational content as well. And so I was brought on to the team as they were trying to really kind of build out their presence in the US more, helping manage the retail accounts here, and then also kind of things on the channel

23:04 marketing side, helping with content as well. So yeah, that's what I've done the last, I think it's It's been about four years now since Lewitt Inc. was established here in the U.S. And it's just right now, yeah, me and one other colleague that are kind of running the show here. I got to know, what's your instrument of choice and what's your genre of choice?

23:27 If you were going to go out and play next weekend, what would we see and hear you doing? Yeah, I mean, I'm a guitar player. That's, you know, my first, you know, instrument that I grew to love and learn to play. I can kind of play keys. I sing as well. I can kind of mess around with some percussion stuff. But, yeah, really guitar is where it's at for me.

23:49 And, yeah, in terms of music styles, I love, like, shoegaze, dream pop. The more reverb, the better. That's kind of my style. All right. We'll get you a plate reverb somewhere in the back of your house and let you play forever. Nice. All right, let's get to our next question. Next one in is from Roscoe Jones in Madison, Indiana. Roscoe asks, are there any head-related transfer function techniques built into your headphones?

24:16 What are thoughts on using headphones to mix in 3D? Now, a lot of our audio people are very familiar with this kind of things. You've seen people who actually pay a lot of attention to the fact that when you're wearing headphones, the size and shape of your head determines some things, and microphones, and spatial placement, and there's all sorts of things. So what are your thoughts on head related transfer functions?

24:43 Yeah, so this would definitely apply to something like the virtual studio monitors that we have built in. So what that is basically is, you know, based on an ideal kind of mixing room with near field speakers. It's creating a binaural, you know, experience of that. So an immersive experience, essentially. And it's using an averaged HRTF. but we do have a software plugin called Space Replicator

25:13 that has a lot more advanced features when it comes to creating virtual spaces to mix in. And so we actually developed our own process of creating your own HRTF. You kind of go through a listening test essentially to determine a specific binaural profile that's custom to you. And then you would also enter in which headphones you're listening on, and then it gives you the most realistic version of that studio space possible.

25:48 And so with these headphones, we include kind of the basic version of Space Replicator. So you can kind of extend that even further, because the virtual studio monitors are kind of made as like a quick on-the-go reference when you need an approximation of a studio. But Space Replicator goes a lot deeper and kind of gets into more of what he's talking about in that question there.

26:11 It's always fascinating to me. I remember the first time I walked into a room and they had a little fake head there and binaura microphone sitting on there. And the people who try to get the most accuracy possible in recorded sound sometimes go to those extremes. I always find it fascinating. It's really excited to see how much effort goes into making sound as, I don't

26:33 know if it needs to be as perfect, but as enjoyable as possible. Let's go to our next question. Next up, we have Josh Kaufman in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania asking, the specs appear to treat real sound, Bluetooth, USB-C, and analog as separate modes. Can the LW6 stay connected to multiple sources at once? And if so, can you switch between them or actually mix them? Oh, interesting. Brian? Great question. They don't work simultaneously, but you can easily

27:04 switch between them. So for example, if you're running Lewitt Real Sound, you have two options. You can connect an analog input or, you know, digital input via USB-C, and you can toggle between those two. So if you want to toggle between kind of direct audio from your laptop and audio from a mixer. You can easily toggle between those with a button on the transmitter.

27:30 And then, yeah, with the actual headphone connections, it's a physical wired connection. So it'd be a little clunky. You could connect them both at the same time. And then you might have to like choose in the software app, which one you're using at that specific time. But you can't mix them. I'm not totally sure what the benefit would be of actually somehow mixing the signals in that way.

27:52 But yeah, it's pretty easy to switch. All right, let's head to the next question. And this one is from Brian Jones in Michigan. Greetings. I believe you mentioned being able to use the wireless and analog interfaces on the transmitter simultaneously. Is there a difference in latency between the two when both interfaces are used? So for the transmitter specifically, you have an analog input and then the USB-C connection,

28:23 but ultimately the latency is a property of the wireless connection itself. And so if you went directly connected to the headphones, you would get that kind of real-time listening experience you expect with wired headphones. The latency is just from the real sound wireless transmission. Ah, okay. So you can use the mode that gets you closest to what you're trying to get accomplished here. Interesting. Next question. And this one is

28:57 from Roscoe Jones in Madison, Indiana. Roscoe asks, are the batteries replaceable? What is the runtime if being used at full volume? Ah, battery questions. They can make your life lovely or miserable. So what's the battery profile here? They're not user replaceable. You'd have to send them in if there was like an issue with the battery or something that needed to be refurbished

29:23 directly through Lewitt. So they're not accessible to the user in that way. They do have a 21 hour battery life. So you can use them a super long time before they run out. Very efficient. Yeah, if you have 21 hours, well, some people have done that before. I guess a really, really, really, really long audio book that you're desperate to finish in one listening, I guess that would be a problem.

29:49 But I'm making that up. Next question. Next up is Guy Cochran in Seattle, Washington. In your YouTube video, Top 10 Tips for Recording Vocals in Your Home Studio, you mentioned number four, dial in your headphone mix. Can you expand on that here with a YouTube link? Oh, nice. So you have a YouTube series on some of your audio things. Tell us about it.

30:14 Yeah, so this is one I made on the Lewitt channel. If I remember correctly, I think what I was talking about in dialing in the headphone mix was paying attention to things like adding reverb, adding delay, creative effects, or even compression while recording vocals. all of those things that make the vocal mix sound more finished because ultimately that gives you more confidence as a singer.

30:40 It helps the singer to really perform better if they are hearing a better, more realistic kind of mix in their headphones. So that's what I was referring to there. I think. Nice. Next question. And this one is from Rian Smith in Trinidad and Tobago. Since DSP is built right in the headphones themselves, all four inputs, real sound, Bluetooth, USB-C, and analog modes,

31:08 get the same treatment, correct? Yeah, in the sense that the DSP is always running. Essentially, they're active headphones, and so your sound profiles are always going to be there, available, no matter how you connect to them. The option for virtual studio monitors, all that stuff, None of it like turns off, you know, if you connect via analog or Bluetooth or whatever, it's all there.

31:35 Brian, is there anything else you haven't talked about yet in terms of features of the product that you think is worth the audience paying a little bit of attention to? I mean, one thing that I could talk about that, you know, was a big, big part of the research and development of this product was just the process of figuring out our target

31:56 and process for making sure these headphones translate well to the most people. So, that's when I was talking about the tuning of the headphones and trying to make sure they were sonically honest and accurate for mixing. So, one of the unique things that the Lewitt team did is instead of relying on a standard measurement rig, which if you've seen them, they're kind of like this, you know, podium

32:22 with just ears on like two flat surfaces. Realistic looking ears, but, you know, that's it. There's not like a realistic head in between them. So you get a perfect seal if you put this kind of headphones on them, which just isn't realistic. Like I said, you know, you have glasses, you have hair, you have different shaped heads. It affects how your headphones actually sound

32:43 because of the sealing of the headphone cups. I've got friends who have beards that are so bushy that there's no way in hell you never get any kind of seal wearing anything. They're missing out on a bunch of low end. So basically what we did is actual method called M-I-R-E, microphones in real ears. So it's just what it sounds like, tiny microphones that are placed in the ear canal,

33:10 you know, lots of different people doing tests to really make sure that we're gathering data that applies to a range of different, you know, real life situations, and then averaging that in order to make sure that our target is going to sound accurate to the highest number of people. So yeah, kind of an interesting, crazy thing, you know, seeing, I didn't know that process even existed, but it basically helped us to kind of fine tune things.

33:41 And then it sort of made the need for those custom EQ profiles even more, made us even more aware of how much that's needed because of the variance that can happen between different people and their unique heads. Yeah, I put on the headphones that other people have been listening to, and I'm always freaked out at how they want things way different than I do.

34:05 And I suppose if you're a metalhead, that's different than if you're listening to string quartets all day long. Yeah, it's kind of an interesting idea. You expect a pair of headphones to sound the same to every person who puts them on, but that's not the case. Somebody could put on the same headphones and hear something that sounds quite different, especially in the low end.

34:29 Yeah, it's always been surprising to me. I do mostly voiceover work, and because of that, I've been on 7506s since I was young, mostly because of that kind of sharp presence peak. I don't like them for listening to music, but it's good for me because I can hear parts of speech that are messy. If they drop an S's, and the plosive problem isn't that huge.

34:54 but it seems like to me those are what i'm trained to be able to hear problems in speech on and i know that that's not what somebody who's um listening back to any kind of music would want so it's it's interesting to me so i'm fascinated with this idea of having to tune a set of headphones to a a kind of an overall standard and it sounds like you guys approached that and tried

35:20 to figure out where to target for the most people and then gave them the ability to tune them up closer to what they're looking for. Am I right about that? Yeah. And like you mentioned, that's actually an interesting point of what you're looking for in your headphones might change depending on the task that you're doing. So if you're just, if you're doing general mixing, you might have a certain sound profile

35:44 you like, but maybe if you're doing more critical listening, editing, you know, trying to get get rid of the clicks and pops and different artifacts in the high end. You want to hear that detail enhanced. And so you could create a custom profile that boosts up some of that high end detail. So you don't miss any of that. And then kind of switch to that when you need it.

36:06 So, oh, that actually sounds fascinating because I find myself, yeah, I'll be listening back to one performer who did an audio part in an audio drama. And I realized that he or she has a problem with something, maybe it's fricatives or something. And so to be able to have a specialized profile so that I can make sure that the lines are clean and we're not having that problem would be really

36:30 interesting. Is it really easy to change these? Can you kind of set up, how many set profiles can you set up for listening back? Yeah. So if we're able to put up the screen over here, you can see on the left, there's three preset ones. And then on the right, you have three custom ones. So this is my general listening usually i'm like bringing down the high end a little bit

36:54 and uh and bringing up the low up in the bottom a little down at the top yeah it's my preferred kind of general mixing setting uh but then you know you could go to another one and just do a more broad high frequency boost for when you want to grab that detail and really hear all the clarity up there and all the painful detail.

37:16 And then, yeah, there's a third one for whatever other scenario. Don't tell my actors. Occasionally it is painful detail. Not often. Not often. Yeah. All right. We have the next question. Josh Kaufman comes to us from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Josh asks, what professional workflow do you think is the best match for the LW6's combination of low latency wireless and multiple input options. Yeah, I think these headphones are really going to be a great match for producers, people

37:54 who are doing kind of a variety of different tasks that include recording, that include mixing, or even mastering, and they're kind of switching between them. A lot of the producers that I've talked to who produce content as well, being able to have a pair of headphones like this that works well for that as well. And so, I think that's kind of one of the use cases that really jumps out and something

38:21 that I'm excited about because, you know, if I'm working on an independent bands record, you know, mixing it and helping with some co-production, I might be in the middle of mixing and realize, oh, this needs some tambourine or I need to track some acoustic guitar right here just to accentuate this part. And then I can have my headphones on and just kind of grab my

38:41 guitar and put up a mic and be ready to go without worrying about running cables and getting everything set up. So I think that efficiency is what comes to mind. Have you guys done any thinking about on-set location audio? And the reason I ask that is because there's always a set of headphones that get passed around or multiple sets of headphones on people. Is it set? And I think it would be

39:03 interesting to be able to find a way to up the quality of multiple people listening. Am I right that if you have one transmitter, how many units can you attach to the same frequency as receivers? Can one go to many or is it only a couple of pairs? I am not 100% sure on that. I'll have to actually ask the product team because I feel like this

39:31 question has come up a couple times now um and yeah as far as as far as i know um the transmitter designed to be able to work with up to like two different um headphones but um i'd have to verify that yeah it'd be an interesting thing if you could i think you also those crazy silent dance party people who get 30 people in a room silent disco be awesome wouldn't it next question

39:59 Douglas Carmichael asks through the QR code is there any way to tie the transmitter into a pro mixing console with balanced outs what's the feed so this accepts kind of a standard headphone output so it doesn't accept kind of line line output level so you would need to go through some type of headphone amp before arriving at the transmitter. So essentially the transmitter is designed to be able to plug it in

40:33 the same place you would plug in a normal kind of passive pair of headphones. So is it a 3.5 millimeter or a quarter inch? 3.5 millimeter. 3.5 millimeter. So make your adaptive cables with that in mind. We include multiple cables and adapters for those as well. Oh, okay. So that's part of the kit. Great. All right, let's go to the next question.

40:59 Here we have Rion Smith in Trinidad and Tobago asking, how is the sound rejection and noise cancellation? Is there active noise cancellation of these, or are they just relying on the fact that it's a closed headphone? There's no active noise cancellation, no. Good. They're isolated in the sense that you have the isolation of a closed back design that doesn't let sound leak out or helps kind of block out outside sound.

41:29 But yeah, there's no active cancellation happening. I always find that to be a good thing. It always drives me crazy if I can't hear kind of, yeah. Anyway, active noise cancellation I've found to be as many problems as it is pluses. It's one thing when you're listening to music and you want to keep the sounds of the traffic out. It's another thing when you're tracking something and you have to hear every single thing there

41:51 and you don't want a cancellation happening at the same time. Next question. This question is from me, Cindy Drozda in Erie, Colorado. Are these headphones comfortable to wear with glasses? I've had problems in the past with headphones. Ooh, is there a discussion there of headphones and eyewear? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for me too, it's a big thing to be able to wear headphones

42:15 for a long period of time without it really bothering me with glasses on. And these are super comfortable. They have kind of a memory foam ear cup that, you know, seals really well and you can wear for a long period of time. And just the ear cup shape works really well for me. So in my experience, yes, it's very comfortable with glasses.

42:37 So you don't wear them for an hour or two and then have impressions from your eyeglass temples burned into the side of your head or something like that permanently? Not as bad as some other headphones I've used for. okay next question next up we have roscoe jones in madison indiana asking can you elaborate on setting up mics in a recording studio while wearing these might the engineer actually walk

43:02 into the active studio while wearing these to change the sound that is a new method of micing that i have never done interesting yeah that's interesting so like i said there's a 16 foot range of the transmitter. So, if you're staying within that range and you're not, you know, don't have a huge obstacle kind of blocking the way, you will get some cutout potentially if

43:30 you're crossing over into a live room. But it would be interesting to experiment with placement and figuring out if you can find a place to put it where you would be within range as you're kind of moving around things in the live room. But in a home studio context or a project studio where you're kind of mixing and recording in the same room,

43:54 it is really ideal to be able to, you know, be adjusting, you know, reamping guitar, adjusting the microphone with these on and then just walk back to your mixing station and not have to, yeah, worry about getting tangled up on the way. Sounds almost ideal to be able to figure mic placement out. I mean, if you're micing a viola or something like that, and you're able to move it and still have the headphones on that are connected to the feed, that might be really, really useful to save time.

44:23 Anyway, next question. Here we have Guy Crockron in Seattle, Washington, asking, is there a cushion option for hot and humid environments? My 7506 is getting sticky, and my Sennheiser HD25-1-2s came with velour. Oh, headphone pads. Yeah, we do have some alternate headphone pads coming down the line. We're going to have, obviously, like replacement options for when they wear out or get funky after years of use.

45:00 But I think we'll have optional materials as well that will eventually be available in the near future. I will not hold up my third set of headphones that is sitting next to me and reveal the fact that they're falling apart. I think I've only had these for 12 years or so. Next question. Coming in through the QR code, Douglas Carmichael asks, if I'm feeding the transmitter with a pro

45:26 headphone amp like an RND RNHP, would I turn the volume knob on the amp to max and control the volume at the headset? Do you have to learn gain structure for these? Yeah, so you could max out the volume and then just use the volume on the headphones. Sometimes the feed you can run into clipping the transmitter if it's delivering a super

45:54 hot feed. So with my own interface, in my experience, it's pretty easy to kind of find the sweet spot with the metering in the plugin itself. and then I kind of find that max volume setting is like loud as I'm in a monitor and then from there kind of turn down the headphones so just to make that more clear what I would do is sort

46:19 of max out the volume on the headphones turn up your headphone amp to kind of as loud as like you would want it and then from there you can kind of dial back your volume oh I forgot to mention there There is a volume wheel on the headphones themselves. That's why I keep reaching back here. So you can actually adjust the volume directly on your earphone cup as well as, you know, on the computer.

46:45 So that's how I like to use it. But you could also, you know, do the reverse and sort of use your headphone amp. That's got to be an incredibly useful feature. I can't imagine having to ask for it. Turn them down. Turn them up. to just be able to reach up and determine your own. And it becomes second nature when you get used to it.

47:05 It's like, you know, you'll probably put on other headphones and be like, wait, why can't I control the volume? Where's my knob? Love it. Next question. Coming in from New York City, Brody Hefner is asking, if using them wirelessly in a situation where your signal chain includes side tone, one's own voice in the mix, would the single digit millisecond latency be perceptible or distracting for some users?

47:31 What have people said to you before, Brian? How much does this bother anybody or not? So as I said earlier, I think 10 seconds is kind of generally recognized as like the threshold of, you know, audibility where you can start to kind of hear. I think you said 10 seconds. You're talking 10 milliseconds, right? Yeah. 10 milliseconds. Because 10 seconds is really confusing.

47:55 You might be able to hear that. That might be distracting. I only say that because I used to be the stadium announcer in the Coliseum in Phoenix. And that was about a second and a half. And it almost drove me insane. Oh, yeah. That would be very challenging. But 10 milliseconds is kind of that threshold where it starts to become a little bit more

48:19 audible, potentially distracting when it gets above that. So these are at 5.8 milliseconds. So one thing that you'll have to keep in mind is what else is in your chain. What are your settings in your DAW, particularly if you're monitoring like virtual amp simulators or software instruments. So you'll have to manage latency that way. Typically, in a lot of recording applications, like if I'm recording my voice, I'm almost always using direct monitoring, which is real time.

48:50 So it's not adding any latency that way. Nice. Next question. Douglas Carmichael is back with us. What adapters are included with the LW6 package? Oh, yeah. You mentioned that there were some extras tossed in there. Yeah, so you get two kind of 3.5 millimeter audio cables of different lengths, an extra long one and a shorter one. And you also get the adapters to the quarter inch size with both cables.

49:23 and then yeah you'll have the transmitter you'll have the headphones and like that screw on adapter for the transmitter so you can like mount it to a mic stand and then a transport bag and I think that I think that covers it cool next question you also get a short and a long USB-C cable ah okay next question Here we have Vic Hernandez in Springfield, Missouri asking,

49:56 is it a standard wireless connection or through a proprietary dongle? It is a proprietary kind of wireless transmitter. So it's Lewitt real sound is kind of what we call it, but yeah. And do you know what frequency band is it in or have you tested it and there's not much? It's in the ultra wide band range. Okay. All right. Fair enough. oh next question this is interesting guy cochran gives us a change of direction

50:28 from seattle washington what's the most popular lewitt mic oh that one's easy by far it's this one the lct 440 pure uh condenser microphone just a fixed cardioid condenser mic that just a workhorse works great for everything about how many mics does are in the lewitt catalog what variations are out there for people who are interested in exploring the brand yeah so we have a lot of options when it comes to studio microphones um i think for this type of

51:01 style of microphone um at kind of the more affordable level we have the lct 240 pro then we have the 440 uh pure which is a step up from there there's a couple other um fet microphones the 540s and the 640ts and then we have kind of our premium tube mics and we have a couple options there the lct 1040 which is kind of our most expensive and most kind of packed feature

51:32 set for a microphone kind of at the upper end of like $3,500 and then the lct 240 pro is like 129 So it's a pretty wide range of microphones to be able to kind of capture a lot of different people of different journeys, you know, whether they're recording a podcast at home or, you know, cutting vocals for, you know, a top 40 artist in a studio or something.

51:59 If some of our listeners are interested in exploring farther, where should they take a look? What are your retail outlets or online outlets and what can they expect to find there? yeah so we're on a bunch of retail outlets sweetwater guitar center american musical supply sounds vintage king um you know probably dnh so like pretty much all the major ones you can

52:22 think of uh will show up there um and yeah of course go to lewitt-audio.com to be able to to find the in-depth details of our products we include very detailed specs and tech graphs for all of our microphones, polar pattern charts. We try to give people as much information as we can about what the microphone does, how it sounds, so you can make an informed decision on that. So

52:47 definitely worth checking out the website itself. So if anybody has any more questions, can they reach out to you? Or is there a place where they can dive in? You mentioned the website, so that's obviously one thing, but how do people get more information if they're looking for more? Yeah, so a great way is honestly the social media, you know, pages. So our Instagram, you know, even Facebook, TikTok, all of those like, you know, if you have a specific question, just DM us and I monitor that some of the time we have a bunch of people in Vienna that monitor that. So we all kind of take turns jumping in there to answer questions. So yeah, if you have a question, feel free to shoot us a message.

53:29 excellent brian thank you so much for being with us today to talk about the new lewitt thing this is brand new is it in the supply chain already or what's the shipping status at this point since it was just announced essentially today yeah so at a bunch of retailers it's in stock ready to ship now um a bunch of the ones i mentioned before so there might be a few places where it's still

53:51 in that kind of pre-order status but um but we have them in stock and and ready to go so there's no delay on getting those. Excellent. Again, thank you so much for being here and telling us about this new product out in the marketplace. And I hope for some people, it turns out to be exactly the solution that they're looking for. As always, we want to say thank you to so many people for being a part of this show and for

54:17 supporting us. There's a huge crew in the back and there's a huge crew that works 24-7 on officehours.global. You know, we're a 501c3 nonprofit. we've been doing this forever two thousand three hundred and seventy three shows as of this one we have not missed a single day with a show for that many it's been chloe i think between somewhere five and six years or something like that uh and for the telek traversal tonight if you had gone

54:44 around to uh if brian had gotten on a plane and gone around everybody who asked questions you would have had to travel 38,000 miles at 61,000 kilometers, 302 million bananas for scale. Thank you everybody in the back end who worked on this particular show. And thanks everybody who worked on, who works on all of our shows, uh, seven days a week here at office hours. We appreciate it.

55:06 We will see you next week on the Tuesday focus with another guest and topic. See you then. good job oh well thanks i Thank you. Thank you.