I've never heard of this before and it seems a little odd, especially given Harman's line of professional JBL monitors. Could you give me a reference for this please?
Monitors, or at least those sold/used by alegedly "professional" Studios, as clearly pointed out by Dr Fred Toole,
are amongst the very worst of speakers possible.. in terms of Frequency /DB response and are the Direct reason that recorded music is Sooo Quality Variable
Lozjek,
That would have a more modern sleek look. I don't have anything against that, it would disappear into the background on many more modern interiors.
Phil,
What I gather that Bare is talking about are the smaller mini monitors that sit on the top of the mix console, something like a Genelec self powered speaker. I do believe that, most use really funky cheap monolithic amplifiers and have weak bass output. I think many engineers do a final check on these to see how a song would sound on many cheap home speakers. I think it is a mistake myself to do it but I know it is done. Engineers go out to their cars and listen on some car stereos that are always compromised by the simple fact of speaker placement, it is always a bad idea and this drives some of the final mix. I've heard plenty of those small monitors and this was part of the drive to do something much better. I do understand that others are designing to a much lower build cost as a requirement of the marketing and sales model they work with.
The large soffit mounted monitors are a completely different animal, the problem is that that is not the final arbitrator of the finished product. If you have ever seen a pair of Auratone speakers in a studio and understand that someone used those to make a decision on final mix you get an idea why most pop music today is so bad, besides the home studio movement.
That would have a more modern sleek look. I don't have anything against that, it would disappear into the background on many more modern interiors.
Phil,
What I gather that Bare is talking about are the smaller mini monitors that sit on the top of the mix console, something like a Genelec self powered speaker. I do believe that, most use really funky cheap monolithic amplifiers and have weak bass output. I think many engineers do a final check on these to see how a song would sound on many cheap home speakers. I think it is a mistake myself to do it but I know it is done. Engineers go out to their cars and listen on some car stereos that are always compromised by the simple fact of speaker placement, it is always a bad idea and this drives some of the final mix. I've heard plenty of those small monitors and this was part of the drive to do something much better. I do understand that others are designing to a much lower build cost as a requirement of the marketing and sales model they work with.
The large soffit mounted monitors are a completely different animal, the problem is that that is not the final arbitrator of the finished product. If you have ever seen a pair of Auratone speakers in a studio and understand that someone used those to make a decision on final mix you get an idea why most pop music today is so bad, besides the home studio movement.
Toole was being polite in an article about 12 - 15 years ago, not wanting to be seen slagging competitor's speaker but he was referring to Yamaha ns10 which, for years was the ubiquitous studio monitor, and was actually shite cuz it doesn't sound the same at low and high SPLs*, among other defects
*terrible defect for near field monitor
here's a polite article about ns10
Yamaha NS10 Nearfield Monitors
we really, really, don't want to pollute this thread discussing that horrible product. Fortunately, they're disappearing
Of course, let's just conclude that for high quality purposes,
we wouldn't want the speaker to have flat sound power like
the said product.
I think the original idea of the NS-10 was a kind of smart idea back when that monitor first came out and was cheap to get. But monkey see monkey do and that was then and this is now, engineers are still using those things and they are just old.
The idea being that there is no 1:1 standard with stereo audio. There isn't even a standard for speaker placement when it comes to music.
I think the rumor is that some smart engineer or mastering engineer went out and bought the cheapest "decent" hi-fi speaker he could get his hands on and tailor made the mixes for that speaker so that you could easily tell anyone who bought your record what monitor to use to get a close 1:1 playback experience. That along with referencing the mixes to see that they sound roughly the same within reason on most consumer playback systems and they were considered to translate well.
I think it may have been a really good idea at the time when it first was done but the monitors sort of got the rep as the standard or some magic speaker that if you can make a mix sound good on these pieces of crap they will sound good on anything.
I think the same basic method is why the speakers i use to mix got a rep for working really well except that engineer went out in like the year 2000 found the best hi-fi speakers for 100-200 bucks and used those - Wharfedale Diamond 8.2s. They could be picked up when they were on the shelf for 100 dollars a pair and sound better than a lot of speakers much more expensive. And if the engineer and mastering engineer referenced for them then you are closer to a 1:1 standard where your music doesn't change and consumers can listen to it properly.
Mixing is a strange thing. I think what mixing engineers and mastering engineers try to go for is something called persistence of subjectivity. We mix in a way that when you guys use these drastically different speakers with drastically different physical events taking place as a result of there being no standard, the mix should still sound roughly the same.
So you check the mix in every single way you can think of and this will make certain things stick out as being wrong when you wouldn't have noticed it before listening in a different way.
I would tell Floyd Toole that we need to come up with a standard for stereophony before we can even start to criticize the paint brush the artist is using. I think he might be stuck in the circle of confusion just like all of us.
The idea being that there is no 1:1 standard with stereo audio. There isn't even a standard for speaker placement when it comes to music.
I think the rumor is that some smart engineer or mastering engineer went out and bought the cheapest "decent" hi-fi speaker he could get his hands on and tailor made the mixes for that speaker so that you could easily tell anyone who bought your record what monitor to use to get a close 1:1 playback experience. That along with referencing the mixes to see that they sound roughly the same within reason on most consumer playback systems and they were considered to translate well.
I think it may have been a really good idea at the time when it first was done but the monitors sort of got the rep as the standard or some magic speaker that if you can make a mix sound good on these pieces of crap they will sound good on anything.
I think the same basic method is why the speakers i use to mix got a rep for working really well except that engineer went out in like the year 2000 found the best hi-fi speakers for 100-200 bucks and used those - Wharfedale Diamond 8.2s. They could be picked up when they were on the shelf for 100 dollars a pair and sound better than a lot of speakers much more expensive. And if the engineer and mastering engineer referenced for them then you are closer to a 1:1 standard where your music doesn't change and consumers can listen to it properly.
Mixing is a strange thing. I think what mixing engineers and mastering engineers try to go for is something called persistence of subjectivity. We mix in a way that when you guys use these drastically different speakers with drastically different physical events taking place as a result of there being no standard, the mix should still sound roughly the same.
So you check the mix in every single way you can think of and this will make certain things stick out as being wrong when you wouldn't have noticed it before listening in a different way.
I would tell Floyd Toole that we need to come up with a standard for stereophony before we can even start to criticize the paint brush the artist is using. I think he might be stuck in the circle of confusion just like all of us.
+1 for not liking the seam along the top! To me it screams cheap injection moulded plastic clamshell (and I know from what you have said this is definitely not the case!!).
I also felt that they looked like an appliance PC (the type used for thin clients). I think that without the seam that impression would be much less.
Tony.
Since the enclosures will be painted and the urethane has to be abraded for adhesion of the paint it wouldn't be a problem to make the seams disappear. I did it on purpose at the time, even put a relief there to make them look more prominent so I can just as easily take that away. I hear you. I'll make it look like a monolithic piece. It actually makes the tooling easier, making that detail in the tooling is a real pain both for molding reasons and cutting the tooling. Point taken.
With regard to the Yamaha NS-10, I think it's popularity would have been a combination of "monkey see monkey do" (peer pressure sell out), and perhaps the "cool" or refreshing look of the white cone. Mixing speakers should be absolutely flat IMO, not just in an anechoic chamber but acoustically at the listening position of the mixing board. Because there is no consistency between all other ways of playback (car, ghetto blaster, average stereo in typical room, high end stereo in rich guys house, etc.). Every other speaker and every other listening room will have different FR and ringing (decay).
That's pug ugly and has technical deficiencies. S's original design is decent. Needs refinement is all.
I didn't want to be the one to comment on that design, I assumed it must be a joke. Who would ever want a product that looked anything like that unless it was going in a child's room! Even then that may scare a lot of kids. I surely wouldn't call that an Italian centric design of any worth.
For those who want to spend a little bit more they also sell the this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqrqu1ManJc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqrqu1ManJc
Mark the speaker system in the video looks more appealing to me. I'm not so sure about the multiple wires, that seems to go against the current thinking of wireless or hidden wires but I guess it is a design statement in itself. The first speaker I just don't get the toy like look of it, drawing attention in the wrong way to my eyes.
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