ouimetnick
Hafler Fan!
You’d think, but every speaker does have its own personality/way of coloring the sound a bit.
How are studio monitors different from other speakers?
- Thread starter angelaudio
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You’d think, but every speaker does have its own personality/way of coloring the sound a bit.
angelaudio
Super Member
Starting to see HiFi in a different light now. It’s not an exact science, definitely some subjective elements involved
edgewound
JBL Pro Authorized...
Yamaha NS-10 was popularized by a guy named Bob Clearmountain. Kind of well known in studio circles. NS-10 was just inaccurate enough to be used as a general playback speaker that the general public might use.
edgewound
JBL Pro Authorized...
Studio Monitors, as a rule, are very accurate and revealing in the midrange. MOST consumer listeners find it fatiguing or harsh to listen to, so they are voiced with a bit more subdued midrange response.
At CES 2019, JBL showcased the 4367 Studio Monitor and the L100 Classic. The L100 classic walked all over the 15" woofer based, horn midrange, 4367 in both midrange accuracy and imaging in front of the speakers. The 4367 sounded like the music went inside the box and hid. The bass response was very impressive, though.
At CES 2019, JBL showcased the 4367 Studio Monitor and the L100 Classic. The L100 classic walked all over the 15" woofer based, horn midrange, 4367 in both midrange accuracy and imaging in front of the speakers. The 4367 sounded like the music went inside the box and hid. The bass response was very impressive, though.
angelaudio
Super Member
The 4367’s sound like they sound like my RSL’s, to a T except that the bass extension on my rsl’s is very subdued. Midrange galore, but the music sounds very “inside” the box as you said. I’m wondering if they would benefit from a recap. I took a look inside and there are about 5 total caps and one inductor. Four of the five caps are yellow and oddly shaped, they remind me of the “self-healing” caps used on the Dahlquist DQ-10’s, no values on them just a code of some sort.
mjw21a
Super Member
A mate of mine has done wonderful things with cap choices in his Yamaha NS1000m speakers. Still insanely revealing however now they're rich and lifelike so you see they can sound enjoyable. On the other hand in the studio they just want to hear what's in the mix so this would be a no no.
bowtie427ss
Lunatic Member
By the time a song reaches the production stage the musicians have little, usually nothing to do with it. They go in the studio, record their bits, and after that its largely out of their hands.
What would Donna Summer have sounded like without Georgio Moroder?
The artist creates the intellectual content(sometimes with the help of professional tutors and session musicians), recording, mastering, production engineers, and outside composers create the sound you hear in the final product.
Consider what the majority of the 50 million copies of Meat Loaf(assisted by composer Jim Steinman) "Bat Out of Hell" were originally played/heard on for systems. First copy i heard played to death was on a neighbors console, and high school friends' all-in-ones.
C W McCall sold over 2 million copies of "Convoy". How many of those do you think were played on a properly squared and level cartridge with ideal tracking force?
In both the above cases i can assure you that the engineers cared about what the listener was going to hear, and they went to lengths to make sure the consumer heard the best sound he could regardless of his playback system's quality, or lack thereof. It was the 70's and a lot of new music would be heard for the first time by drivers listening to a factory radio with a single oval speaker buried in a metal dash.
An introduction to Carol Kaye can be very enlightening for many enthusiasts. Enjoy.
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bowtie427ss
Lunatic Member
Part of it was the genius of their aesthetics including the designer's presence of mind to spec a bright white woofer cone with no grill as well as have the make and model silkscreened on the baffle in a world where riders often require that visible branding/badges be removed or obfuscated.
How many consumers sucked up a pair based entirely on their assumptions because they had seen them parked on the meter bay of a large console or window sill of a studio control room? They must be good, right?
FWIW. I flipped a set of Auratone once for stupid good money.
I almost threw them away when they showed up. Cheasy little boxes with a small full range driver.
Some Google showed they were popular.
They supposedly got to be called “awfultone” and were popular in recording studio mixing because “if the music sounded good on them, it sounded good on anything”.
I almost threw them away when they showed up. Cheasy little boxes with a small full range driver.
Some Google showed they were popular.
They supposedly got to be called “awfultone” and were popular in recording studio mixing because “if the music sounded good on them, it sounded good on anything”.
Studio Monitor, Control Monitor, Studio, lots of terms and there isn't any one universal standard. They can be the same as a home speaker in some cases, sometimes with a prettier cabinet, sometimes a different crossover, no one answer because in many cases the manufacturer built home audio speakers and monitors with the same drivers.
Some monitors are designed to be flatter. Some are designed to reach very high SPLs without breakup or overheating. Some are designed for a narrow soundfield to reduce reflections, some are fitted with mounting points and tougher cabinets.
In most cases you will find that any real professional speaker is going to actually meet its performance specs, because the people I know in pro audio actually measure and test, so they aren't as easily fooled by loosly controlled specifications on a box or brochure.
Most of my monitors have been JBL Studio Monitors and Control Monitors, from the 4311/L100A through the LSR series. They have since the 4312A always been designed to be as flat as JBL can build them. Starting with the LSR series they were designed to meet the THX curves.
Also mentioned above is the importance of the sound that the end-user would hear. Studios mixing pop music back in the '70s certainly knew that the most important listener was the record buyer, typically a teen to twenties who would listen on a portable player, a car radio/stereo, portable radio. The music had to sound good to them and over radio (compressed) with some background noise (further compression). That is what the mix was designed for.
Today's mixes need to sound good on earbuds and bluetooth players as well as car stereos and computer speakers. What the studios and Mixing Engineers use for a reference needs to give them something that is revealing enough to hear all of the detail, yet crappy enough to at least partially emulate the target audience.
If you get a chance to hear them, do so. If you like them buy them pretty much like any other speaker.
Some monitors are designed to be flatter. Some are designed to reach very high SPLs without breakup or overheating. Some are designed for a narrow soundfield to reduce reflections, some are fitted with mounting points and tougher cabinets.
In most cases you will find that any real professional speaker is going to actually meet its performance specs, because the people I know in pro audio actually measure and test, so they aren't as easily fooled by loosly controlled specifications on a box or brochure.
Most of my monitors have been JBL Studio Monitors and Control Monitors, from the 4311/L100A through the LSR series. They have since the 4312A always been designed to be as flat as JBL can build them. Starting with the LSR series they were designed to meet the THX curves.
Also mentioned above is the importance of the sound that the end-user would hear. Studios mixing pop music back in the '70s certainly knew that the most important listener was the record buyer, typically a teen to twenties who would listen on a portable player, a car radio/stereo, portable radio. The music had to sound good to them and over radio (compressed) with some background noise (further compression). That is what the mix was designed for.
Today's mixes need to sound good on earbuds and bluetooth players as well as car stereos and computer speakers. What the studios and Mixing Engineers use for a reference needs to give them something that is revealing enough to hear all of the detail, yet crappy enough to at least partially emulate the target audience.
If you get a chance to hear them, do so. If you like them buy them pretty much like any other speaker.
Chip Chester
Super Member
I guess one other thing I neglected to mention in my previous screed is distortion. It takes an awful lot to make most studio monitors distort. One of he key things you're looking for when recording is unwanted* distortion. Your monitoring chain can't be the source of it, ever. You're listening for distortion from the mic, pre-amps, EQ and any dynamics processing side chain, and within the console itself (summing amps). Or the record multitrack, or the mix deck. Lots to monitor, and you have to be able to trust your monitors. Great amps, along with large and small monitors and reasonable listening levels are the keys here. I would always make sure to listen to a mix at very low level -- like it was background music in a restaurant. Tells you very quickly whether you can hear everything. Turn stuff up way loud, and sure, you can hear everything. But not all music is listened to like that. Low-level playback is a good check.
*Desired distortion, for effect, actually needs to be monitored well, also. If a guitarist is trying to achieve a certain sound, the recordist's job is to faithfully capture the sound the guitarist creates in the studio, distortion and all. You can change things later also, but minimum is capturing the original sound.
*Desired distortion, for effect, actually needs to be monitored well, also. If a guitarist is trying to achieve a certain sound, the recordist's job is to faithfully capture the sound the guitarist creates in the studio, distortion and all. You can change things later also, but minimum is capturing the original sound.
Chip:
I agree a lot with what you're saying, but I think that you're missing the type of music a lot of us listen to whch might have a high level of dynamic range. If you're listening to music at very low levels on music that is very dynamic, you will not hear the quiet passages, the strings coming up from nearly silent, etc.
True that most music is compressed and designed to be listened to at low levels or in a car that has a minimum of 70dB of ambient noise, but not all music is mixed that way, especially orchestral and classical.
I agree a lot with what you're saying, but I think that you're missing the type of music a lot of us listen to whch might have a high level of dynamic range. If you're listening to music at very low levels on music that is very dynamic, you will not hear the quiet passages, the strings coming up from nearly silent, etc.
True that most music is compressed and designed to be listened to at low levels or in a car that has a minimum of 70dB of ambient noise, but not all music is mixed that way, especially orchestral and classical.
Biggles, you’ve got me thinking about getting my Goodmans triaxioms repaired. One of the horn tweeters is dead on one but they are as close as I can get to what you’re talking about here. They do have a crossover, albeit very simple with only two 1.5mfd caps but the driver that is fully working does put out a special kind of sound that is, now that I think back to it, more pure sounding. The 6600h’s that I have sound analytical, flat, with good transients and modest bass extension but it is more of a “processed” sound. You’ve got me wondering about the Stephens 80FR’s too. This thread might end up costing me some dough in the endDo you have tweeters playing alongside your 80FR’s?
Sort of, but I did it wrong. I put Alnico wharfefale super 3's in bamboo utensil cups, set on top. I brought them in at 2500hz, should be 5k, I think. I need to run everything through the DATS first, again. Get those Goodmans out pronto, world leaders in quality audio.
Biggles
VYNULADIKT
Active Member
Regarding "flat" vs "audiophile quality", do you think it's possible that a speaker may exhibit a near perfect freq. response for mixing yet not have the ability to convey the finest details such as breath and lip sounds of a vocalist or make the barely audible brush on a drum not sound like static?
"flat" is simply passing a sine sweep from one frequency limit to the other, within the stated tolerance (EG: 20-24,000Hz +/- 3dB). At lower frequencies you might be able to hear the 6dB difference between the high side of the curve and the low, at the extremes (especially near the top) you either hear the tone or you don't (not really that simple, but follow me please).
It is usually including room response of some type, unless specifically stated: anechoic. Room response typically helps to enhance some bass frequencies, so anechoic would be more accurate to compare if it is available.
This is not at whisper-quiet, nor is it at ear-bleeding loud. Therefore it does not tell you what the speaker will do at very low volumes or what it can drop, nor will it tell you what it does during very loud/dynamic passages where there can be cone breakup, distortion, losses to the cabinet and baffle, etc., so the response can be completely different there. Also as the "motor" of the speaker heats up under hard use it will lose efficiency so you can lose "flatness" in the response (some of the things that a quality monitor will not do).
Distortion is not part of this spec., as mentioned in the last paragraph it can happen and the speaker will still be within its "power handling" range but not sounding very good.
Phase linearity is not specified, the phase of the music can (and typically does) change throughout the frequency range, especially near the crossover frequencies. This will directly affect imaging. Typically the passive crossover is one of the most complicated parts of the speaker as it can suck power, cause phase shift, and otherwise make it very difficult to blend two or more drivers together to make them sound like one.
Dispersion is sometimes specified, if you're outside of the "sweet spot" this might help you to see what frequencies might disappear. A wide dispersion might be desirable for filling the room with music, a narrow soundfield might be desirable to tame sidewall reflections.
Impedance is usually a single number, where in reality it should be supplied as a graph. It is usually stated as nominal, but minimum might be more important to your amplifier and cables, and depending on how the amplifier handles a load that varies in impedance it might change the gain significantly as the impedance changes.
So what does "flat" mean? Just the simple first paragraph, none of the rest. Speakers are the most important link in the chain, and very hard to choose from published specs.
It is usually including room response of some type, unless specifically stated: anechoic. Room response typically helps to enhance some bass frequencies, so anechoic would be more accurate to compare if it is available.
This is not at whisper-quiet, nor is it at ear-bleeding loud. Therefore it does not tell you what the speaker will do at very low volumes or what it can drop, nor will it tell you what it does during very loud/dynamic passages where there can be cone breakup, distortion, losses to the cabinet and baffle, etc., so the response can be completely different there. Also as the "motor" of the speaker heats up under hard use it will lose efficiency so you can lose "flatness" in the response (some of the things that a quality monitor will not do).
Distortion is not part of this spec., as mentioned in the last paragraph it can happen and the speaker will still be within its "power handling" range but not sounding very good.
Phase linearity is not specified, the phase of the music can (and typically does) change throughout the frequency range, especially near the crossover frequencies. This will directly affect imaging. Typically the passive crossover is one of the most complicated parts of the speaker as it can suck power, cause phase shift, and otherwise make it very difficult to blend two or more drivers together to make them sound like one.
Dispersion is sometimes specified, if you're outside of the "sweet spot" this might help you to see what frequencies might disappear. A wide dispersion might be desirable for filling the room with music, a narrow soundfield might be desirable to tame sidewall reflections.
Impedance is usually a single number, where in reality it should be supplied as a graph. It is usually stated as nominal, but minimum might be more important to your amplifier and cables, and depending on how the amplifier handles a load that varies in impedance it might change the gain significantly as the impedance changes.
So what does "flat" mean? Just the simple first paragraph, none of the rest. Speakers are the most important link in the chain, and very hard to choose from published specs.
Chip Chester
Super Member
Radically different technique between multitrack record/mixdown performances and straight-ahead classical music. And in non-film-soundtrack orchestral recording (wherein dynamics are as much for film sound effects as they are for musical effect,) there's probably not a lot of post-production mixing going on. The 'mix' comes from the conductor and performers, and not so much from the engineering team. Very little use for smaller reference monitors there.
I've spent many an hour in concert halls recording varying instruments/ensembles with no dynamics processing at all. The only gain riding was to prevent overload at various points in the signal chain -- mic preamps, thru the console, and on to the tape machine (back then.) Ours was to capture the performance as-executed. The LP mastering engineer had the tougher job -- how to squeeze reality onto a playable disk.
I've spent many an hour in concert halls recording varying instruments/ensembles with no dynamics processing at all. The only gain riding was to prevent overload at various points in the signal chain -- mic preamps, thru the console, and on to the tape machine (back then.) Ours was to capture the performance as-executed. The LP mastering engineer had the tougher job -- how to squeeze reality onto a playable disk.
Ditto
Ford doesn't say the F150 is the largest selling vehicle, they say Ford F series trucks are the largest selling, as they add up every single F series make and model to get their total number. If GMC added Chevy and GMC truck totals together 1500, 2500 up to the 3500 series alone should beat those numbers without getting into commercial trucks like Ford does.
THF2
Where we are going, there are no roads
I agree with @Chip Chester and @SaturationPt
The use of a “studio monitor” by recording professionals is different than what we AK’ers like to hear (at least think so) in our respective listening spaces.
The last point is important as our listening spaces (whether they be a standard living room or, a dedicated listening space that has been optimized or even one's car!). This is a huge factor in how these systems sound based on environment and personal preferences.
IMHO, if the goal is to achieve truly flat frequency response from a home system, there are those that would pursue this (with all of the various dependencies ) and would be happy with the results.
However, I would think that most would taylor their home systems by occasionally using the “loudness” switch on their receiver/preamp, using an EQ for specific preferences, using a particular amp/preamp/phono cartridge, etc. etc.
In the end, it all boils down to what one’s preferences are with regards to listening.
All’s I’m saying is that a “studio monitor” with a supposedly “flat frequency response” might not be the end all/ be all for most people,
The use of a “studio monitor” by recording professionals is different than what we AK’ers like to hear (at least think so) in our respective listening spaces.
The last point is important as our listening spaces (whether they be a standard living room or, a dedicated listening space that has been optimized or even one's car!). This is a huge factor in how these systems sound based on environment and personal preferences.
IMHO, if the goal is to achieve truly flat frequency response from a home system, there are those that would pursue this (with all of the various dependencies ) and would be happy with the results.
However, I would think that most would taylor their home systems by occasionally using the “loudness” switch on their receiver/preamp, using an EQ for specific preferences, using a particular amp/preamp/phono cartridge, etc. etc.
In the end, it all boils down to what one’s preferences are with regards to listening.
All’s I’m saying is that a “studio monitor” with a supposedly “flat frequency response” might not be the end all/ be all for most people,