Re: Headphones - what did Dave get?
I used to have an application where I felt the need to EQ through cans. Say some vocalist shows up with a wireless mic, or just any unfamiliar vocal mic, I found it very useful to plug it into my talkback channel, pop on the cans, and audition the microphone. I could make my usual monitor check noises, find the boomy spot and the presence peak, match the MUT's (mic under test) level to an SM58, and copy those settings over to the vocalist's channel. Then I could just throw it on stage and know it would work.
This came in very handy for combat rock, five-band bills where only the headliner got a sound check, that sort of thing. I could do it during a performance if I had to. And it depended on being able to trust the headphones.
I used Sennheiser 280s for this, and it never bit me in the ass.
