Headphones

Whatever type of keyboard you end up getting, you’re almost certainly going to need  a pair of reasonable headphones for private practice.

The cost of these varies so considerably from about £5 to over £1000, so this can clearly be a bit confusing for a beginner.

I’ll be honest I’ve had some really cheap ones (about £10) that haven’t been that bad - especially the JVC’s, but generally speaking the cheap ones are total crap.

In my opinion a good mid priced, great value option is the Sennheiser HD-599 which is what I use. See here for more details (also check out Amazon prices - they do them in black at a much lower price!).

These are ‘open backed’ and are particularly good for keyboards - great sound and very comfortable even for very long sessions. Having found these I wouldn’t use anything else.

But whatever headphones you get, I strongly recommend that you get headphones with replaceable leads (like the HD-599) AND get a 3.5mm - 90 degree angle stereo socket adapter (shown below. Then plug this into your keyboard (with a size reducing adapter if necessary) then plug the headphones into this.

Why?

Because then when you trip over the lead, you will just pull it out of the socket instead of possibly damaging the keyboard socket! And believe me you will trip over the lead, it’s just a matter of when!

It’s not a bad idea to use one for your foot pedal too!