Drum and bass is one of the hardest genres to mix on headphones. The whole track lives or dies on what happens between roughly 30 Hz and 250 Hz, exactly the region where cheap consumer headphones either exaggerate wildly or give up entirely. If your headphones hype the low end, you will pull the sub down too far and your mix will sound thin everywhere else. If they roll it off, you will push the sub too hard and your track will fall apart on a club system.
The fix is a pair of proper studio headphones with a response you can trust, and ideally an understanding of what that pair is and is not telling you. Below are five bass music production headphones that have earned their place in studios over many years, spanning entry-level workhorses to open-back reference models. First, though, it is worth understanding the closed versus open question, because for sub-heavy genres it matters more than the brand on the headband.
Closed-back headphones seal the ear cup. That isolation is brilliant for recording, late-night sessions and noisy rooms, and the sealed chamber tends to reinforce low frequencies, so basslines feel physical and exciting. The trade-off is that the sealed cup can smear low-end detail and build up resonances, which makes fine judgements about sub level and tail length harder. Closed backs are excellent for writing, sound design and checking how your low end slaps, but they can flatter it.
Open-back headphones let air move through the cup. The result is a more natural, speaker-like presentation with a wider stereo image and, crucially for drum and bass, far less low-end smearing. You can hear where a sub note ends, whether your kick and bass are fighting, and how reverb tails sit under the mix. The downsides are obvious: they leak sound both ways, so they are useless for recording vocals and awkward in shared spaces, and their sub extension often measures lower in level, so the bottom octave feels quieter even when it is accurate.
Why does flat response matter so much for sub-heavy genres? Because you are mixing frequencies you can barely monitor any other way at home. Most bedroom monitors on stands cannot reproduce 35 Hz meaningfully, so your headphones are often the only honest window into the sub. A neutral pair lets you set the relationship between kick, sub and mid bass by ear and have it translate to big systems. A hyped pair has already made that decision for you, and usually made it wrong. The ideal setup is one closed pair for tracking and energy checks, and one open pair for the critical balance decisions.
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The M50x is the default recommendation for a first serious pair, and for good reason. It is a closed-back design with 45 mm drivers, a punchy but reasonably controlled low end, detachable cables and a folding frame that survives being thrown in a bag for years. For drum and bass work it is a strong writing and sound design headphone: basses feel energetic, drums hit hard, and the isolation means you can work at night without disturbing anyone.
Its low end is slightly forward rather than strictly neutral, so treat it as your energy check rather than your final word on sub level. Typically found around £130.
View on AmazonA German-built studio staple that has been in production for decades. The DT 770 Pro extends impressively deep for a closed back, which makes it genuinely useful for judging whether a sub is present at all, and the velour pads make long mixing sessions comfortable in a way pleather pads never quite manage. The 80 ohm version is the sweet spot for producers: it runs happily from a standard audio interface headphone output without a dedicated amp.
Be aware of its lifted treble. Bright top ends can tempt you to dull your mixes, so reference against tracks you know. The cable is fixed, which is its one real practical drawback.
View on AmazonThe HD 600 has been a mixing reference for a very long time, and it remains one of the most neutral headphones you can buy at its level. The midrange is the star: vocals, snares, Reese movement and the harmonics that let a bassline read on small speakers are all presented with almost no editorialising. Mixes balanced on an HD 600 tend to translate, which is the entire point.
Its sub-bass rolls off in the lowest octave, so it will not thrill you with rumble; it will instead tell you the truth about everything from the mid bass up. At 300 ohms it benefits from a decent headphone amp or a strong interface output.
View on AmazonThe open-back sibling of the DT 770 offers a wide, airy presentation with more low-end presence than most open designs, which suits bass music producers who find reference-grade neutrality a bit lifeless to write on. Detail retrieval in the highs is excellent for catching clicks, harsh resample artefacts and noisy loop points in your sound design.
Like the 770, the treble is boosted, so it rewards producers who learn its character and check their top end elsewhere. The 250 ohm impedance wants a reasonably capable headphone output. Velour pads and legendary Beyerdynamic build quality round it out, and it is usually one of the more affordable open backs of this quality.
View on AmazonAudio-Technica's flagship open-back reference is the quiet achiever of this list. It is remarkably light at around 210 grams, so it almost disappears on your head during long sessions, and its tuning is even and honest from the mid bass through the highs with none of the treble lift of the Beyerdynamics. For final balance decisions on a drum and bass mix, this is the kind of headphone you want.
The catch is its very high 470 ohm impedance, which genuinely needs a headphone amp or a powerful interface output to come alive. Pair it with a closed back for tracking and you have a complete monitoring setup.
View on AmazonIf you can only buy one pair, buy for your room and routine. In a shared flat, working at night, take the DT 770 Pro or the M50x. In your own quiet space, chasing the most reliable mix decisions, take the HD 600 or the R70x and accept the leakage. Whichever you pick, learn it: run your favourite commercially released drum and bass tracks through it repeatedly until you know exactly how a finished, professional low end sounds on that pair.
Then use a spectrum analyser as a second opinion on the bottom octave, keep your monitoring level moderate and consistent, and check every mix on at least one other system before you call it done. Headphones tell you balance; a car, a club or even a phone speaker tells you translation.
Accurate monitoring reveals weak sound design fast. If your basses are not holding up under scrutiny, the professionally designed Serum preset packs from PresetDrive give you mix-ready basses, subs and growls built for exactly these genres.
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