They are a different approach to directivity control using active or passive means to influence the directivity lower down the frequency spectrum in a package that is more space friendly.
Most high quality designs that take account of the most relevant research are converging on the same point. There are different ways to get there, different costs and different preferences.
So far there is no universally accepted definition of what the ideal loudspeaker directivity should be. There probably never will be, designing loudspeakers to work with the rooms they are being used in is a massive step in the right direction. Integrating the speaker the equipment and the room together is the way to a better result.
I didn't misspeak... ideal directivity and optimal or objectionable best directivity is a topic that can seen from different views in mastering no less than any other field...he brought up a topic that could be developed on.
Yes, that one came from the Who's recording studio! Fully automated with flying faders indeed. HUGE amount of headroom. Lots of fun. Collectors item now.
Cheers! The D&D 8c and Kii THREE both are cardioid designs with constant directivity down to 80 Hz. 8c is passive cardioid and THREE active, but both work equally well:
Here I have used each loudspeakers onboard boundary, PEQ and contour controls to match the response of both speakers in the same location. In a DBT I doubt I could tell them apart.
The advantage of the cardioid pattern is that it mitigates speaker boundary interference pattern and some room modes better than non-cardioid designs. Not a replacement for digital room correction, but does help and makes it easier to set them up and get decent sound quickly. But, I still use digital room correction to fully optimize them to the room.
Attachments
Doesn't Toole dismiss the notion of 'professional listener' starting at 11:15 of the video you posted? In the discussion of double blind.
Off topic:
Oh probably a custom design of 70's era. Headroom and the way they saturate is what make them so desirable in my view. There is definitely some advantage to be fully loaded with transformers about sound too.
Those Neve's design are pure genius from electrical design point of view. I serviced some of them ( few early Neve...but more Ams/Neve VR and VX) and was lucky to see and listen to one of the very first desk he build ( the one build for Barclay's studio in Paris, Geoff Tanners talked about this particular one in his 'story' dedicated section about early Neve).
The deck is still used in a very nice place near Paris called 'studios de la Frette' ( Feist recorded in there).
A pita to keep in good shape and not the most ergonomical console ever build but such a sound!
Thank you Mitchba and sorry for the off topic.
Oh probably a custom design of 70's era. Headroom and the way they saturate is what make them so desirable in my view. There is definitely some advantage to be fully loaded with transformers about sound too.
Those Neve's design are pure genius from electrical design point of view. I serviced some of them ( few early Neve...but more Ams/Neve VR and VX) and was lucky to see and listen to one of the very first desk he build ( the one build for Barclay's studio in Paris, Geoff Tanners talked about this particular one in his 'story' dedicated section about early Neve).
The deck is still used in a very nice place near Paris called 'studios de la Frette' ( Feist recorded in there).
A pita to keep in good shape and not the most ergonomical console ever build but such a sound!
Thank you Mitchba and sorry for the off topic.
Both Mastering Engineer and Loudspeaker Engineer have this in common...A very intimate relationship with.....Signal! its all about the signal. Two important and powerful people with a common goal.
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Seems to me the mastering engineer needs a speaker and listening environment that lets him predict/match to the intended market ...be it home audio, HT, auto, ear bud, live DJ, etc...and whether vinyl, CD, or compressed streaming, etc.
Unless it's just about getting the best sound for the one doing the mastering in their own studio ???? I dunno...but I suspect that happens alot...
Anyway, I wouldn't expect the mastering engineer to have any special hearing or talent to dial a sound in, other than familiarity with that particular task.
And I think many other folks heavily involved in audio reproduction or production, practice 'mastering' is a less formal specific way all the time..
Live sound engineers, be they front of house, or musician's monitors master the overall sound, in addition to mixing the show.
They need speakers with predictable coverage pattern, and seamless SPL integration, that they can 'master on the fly' often ramping up SPL as a show progresses.
Tonality is often adjusted for changing audience size, and sometimes even continually adjusted for temp and humidity changes.
Heck, every time we as DIY'ers grab an EQ for a song we think needs help, we are 're-mastering' imo.
To that end, I keep individual volume controls for each section of my 4-ways, all controlled by a master volume control....simply to fix tonality i think is off.
So honestly, I don't see how a mastering engineer is in any better position to learn how to make better speakers than the next guy..
It just comes down to how much do you love audio, and how hard are you willing to work at trying to find best sound, ...i do believe....🙂
Unless it's just about getting the best sound for the one doing the mastering in their own studio ???? I dunno...but I suspect that happens alot...
Anyway, I wouldn't expect the mastering engineer to have any special hearing or talent to dial a sound in, other than familiarity with that particular task.
And I think many other folks heavily involved in audio reproduction or production, practice 'mastering' is a less formal specific way all the time..
Live sound engineers, be they front of house, or musician's monitors master the overall sound, in addition to mixing the show.
They need speakers with predictable coverage pattern, and seamless SPL integration, that they can 'master on the fly' often ramping up SPL as a show progresses.
Tonality is often adjusted for changing audience size, and sometimes even continually adjusted for temp and humidity changes.
Heck, every time we as DIY'ers grab an EQ for a song we think needs help, we are 're-mastering' imo.
To that end, I keep individual volume controls for each section of my 4-ways, all controlled by a master volume control....simply to fix tonality i think is off.
So honestly, I don't see how a mastering engineer is in any better position to learn how to make better speakers than the next guy..
It just comes down to how much do you love audio, and how hard are you willing to work at trying to find best sound, ...i do believe....🙂
Camplo,
The Loudspeaker engineer’s goal in creating the “perfect” studio monitor is to make one that performs well in all the metrics deemed important to most accurately reproduce audio signals for a given cabinet size, SPL and cost.
The Mastering engineer’s goal is to alter the recorded signal to make it subjectively “sound better” for the media and speakers used by the intended market.
The Mastering engineer chooses which loudspeaker(s) best represent the metrics that make their work easier to accomplish and more profitable.
What common goal are you thinking of?
Are you aware of some unique missing piece of the audio reproduction puzzle that has not already been communicated between mastering and loudspeaker engineers in the past 143 years of loudspeaker designs and recording?
Art
Whilst some of the "trained" listeners were professionals many were not, a lot of professionals were excluded due to work induced hearing damage making them unreliable. Trained in this context means they had completed Harman's How to Listen Program.
Harman How to Listen
If you read more about the research you will probably understand it better. Start with the third version of Sound Reproduction
There is also a thread here How to Choose a Loudspeaker -- What the Science Shows - AVS Forum | Home Theater Discussions And Reviews Toole and Olive are posting directly in this thread on their research. The Thread is very long and the signal to noise ratio is dreadful, there is a lot of this but pros should be ones testing, you can't test in mono, etc etc. And then tucked in there in between all that rubbish is about 5 pages of complete gold from some of the most experienced researchers in this field.
Horrible to read but worth it in the end.
I do that a lot at home I am constantly tweaking to try and find a sound that is better balanced and more pleasing across the board and not only applicable to a few tracks. I do not want to be changing EQ per track, sometimes I find magic with a single track and EQ only to find it makes everything else awful.
I am with you there. It's all about the person, their knowledge and ability, not their title and profession.
Try mastering and see for yourself. I've made my claim but it isn't enough to move you. Yet you don't see the mastering engineers opposing me with such passion as the loudspeaker designers. Mitcha's post should of been a testament tot he potency of the trade as opposed to the design of tool.
To think a person would want to create a tool but never learn how to use it...is beyond me. A mastering monitor is a tool. It just happens this tool is also the desire of the purist audiophile so the tool doubles as a media device.
- who said they didn't need those OTHER tools? You only have one tool? Those other aspects of mastering will never detour from the need of the "perfect playback". Whatever experience you think I need to master I can recreate with an Impulse response or EQ....on my "perfect system". For the most critical listening, I just want the plain old perfect speaker experience...checking on Car PA or Earbuds etc, is secondary, as well, something I can emulate with my system without leaving my studio chair. The better my loudspeaker is, the better I can emulate these other listening environments, so once again the loudspeaker system as a whole remains a bottleneck if possible.
Lol that is literally their job, you guys are funny!!!
How many times can I tell you its all interconnected....Mastering Engineers fiddle with eq's for a living....on a daily basis. Mastering is similar to voicing a speaker.
Imagine having to find the right curves for a track being sold to millions of random people on random systems....not just the audience in your living room.
The stakes are higher, the expectations are higher.
Maybe its the loudspeaker designers who are the ones with the chips on their shoulders... Sincerely, the number one user of your top performing products lol...Sincerely, the only consistent group of people who can actually hear the speakers you build because we have great rooms...sincerely, if you make a claim that your speaker is so "perfect"...give it to us...we'll prove that theory very quickly by using it for work lol. Sincerely, all we do is ear train all day, every day.
Floyde called it the Circle of confusion, lets keep doing it the same way I guess. Everyone knows that confusion is a product of a lack of communication.
Its almost like you guys feel encroached upon...
We aren't designing loudspeakers....we are designing signal. If you look at it like that then you can easily find connections. Signal Designer
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With all due respect, my opposition to the idea that mastering engineers are in a better position to be loudspeaker designers, doesn't really have any passion in it at all.
I'm just saying what makes sense to me, based on the incredible and diverse tuning talent and speaker setups I've witnessed.
I kinda see it the other way, that you are romanticizing the mastering complex into something beyond reason.
Sometimes concentrating about what is theoretically optimal precludes learning what is actually achievable and relevant.
A well known cure for that is called sawdust...i submit maybe it's time to give it a go????? 🙂
all the best 🙂 Mark
Looks like a perfect answer to me
Art. Very logical and looks like a life of experience about it !I'msure some musicians are watching the thread with some popcorn sessions.
I was a little scared when it came to the intimate relation of some sort like knowing very very very much closer the musicians to acheive even better relation to the signal and why not to be conductor... Which is sliding on the disgusting side !
I would say in the past 160 years, first reccording date of the voice... 143 years is the Edisson improvment & patent for production
- he hadn't an intimate relation with Queen bees though.
Lol Mastering was compared to adjusting the eq in ones living room..........and no one was offended but I'm the arrogant one. Mastering is the scientific side of listening...and once that side has been established only then can we even attempt to correctly express the subjective.
Lets say that we are talking only about Master Monitor design...if only because that makes me more right....which just also happens to be the most accurate loudspeakers of the period.
I am not but I am good at exposing things...thats part of what this thread could be...exploring what might have happened to the relationship, to end up with the "circle of confusion"....as far as I can see one group decided they didn't need the other.
Lets say that we are talking only about Master Monitor design...if only because that makes me more right....which just also happens to be the most accurate loudspeakers of the period.
I am not but I am good at exposing things...thats part of what this thread could be...exploring what might have happened to the relationship, to end up with the "circle of confusion"....as far as I can see one group decided they didn't need the other.
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From my chair if there was a battle to manage, it should be how to enhance the reccording quality or offers vs the pressure of cost reduction in the reccording world. Hifi difficulties are a joke side by side ! I believe speakers the best result can be already made by people like Geddles level, Toole and others. They do know the math and the intimate thing of the wave and vibration till the mesoscopic. At the end the monney & market rule the result... halas. researchs are so expensive than the markett could not follow, that's why marketing and ads wallet is greater.
Loudness war and so on... so much thing to say...
Loudness war and so on... so much thing to say...
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