Choosing headphones for the home studio

You've probably noticed there are several different styles of headphones out there, some go in you ear, some go over. Some are wireless and some cancel noise. Which is the best kind to buy?

Studio Headphones
There are three kinds of headphones most commonly used in studios. They look similar but there is one feature that distinguishes the three types, that is the vents on the back of the cup.

A headphone with no vents is called a closed-back design, sound from the speaker are prevented from leaking out and outside sounds are isolated. This type of headphone is great for recording because of the isolation they provide, greatly reducing extra noise picked up by your microphones. The problem with this design is that it is difficult to build an accurate and detailed speaker in a sealed box, so you can't really trust the sound from them for mixing.

Featured Equipment Of The Week: Presonus HP4 4-channel headphone amp

Presonus HP4 4-channel headphone amp 
 The Presonus HP4 comes in a 1/3-rackspace chassis. The HP4 accepts balanced/unbalanced inputs and outputs (1/4" TRS). It features four discrete headphone outputs on the front panel each with its own volume potentiometer and 250mW of amplification per channel.
Find out more: Presonus HP4 $149.99

Can you say quiet? PreSonus can with the HP4's -98 dB noise floor and wide frequency response. Also, the HP4 allows control over control room monitors with a separate volume potentiometer that can be muted using the MONITOR MUTE button.
 The HP4 is powered by an external wall mounted power supply. The input can either be set to stereo or mono. The mono selector button on the front channel simply copies both inputs to both sides.
Presonus HP4 4-Channel headphone distribution amplifier