I don't know why you would say that. If you adjust a mix to optimize how it sounds on a particular set of speakers, you can make it sound great on those speakers. But it usually won't translate well to other systems. Even with NS-10s, its necessary to learn what a well mixed record is supposed to sound like on them, and that is different from what sounds best on them. For example, they are very weak on deep bass. If you wanted a mix to sound good on them, you would crank up the bass to compensate. But if you do the mix won't translate well. So you have to learn how much bass you need on them to get a generally workable mix that is about right on other systems.
Which is why you need the NS10 at home.... it will then sound great at home also.
I am hoping my M2 speakers will be used a lot in recordings.
-RNM
Your point seems nonsensical: if NS10 are used to emphasize and highlight certain misgivings in a mix (i.e. a tool, a means), then reciprocity falls apart.
It'd be sort of like saying that one builds beautiful furniture with a ruler left in place as an accent piece.
But Richard, isn't it the room that determines the bulk of how a system sounds? Your living room should be very different from the mastering/mixing room I'd think.
Jan
Jan, I really haven't 'smelled' differences in sound, you must be thinking of someone else. '-)
However, we do have a bit of 'newspeak' here. SY uses the latest 'definition' of 'ears only'. I use the same technique that I have used for the last 60 years, starting with differences in acoustic guitars, and migrating to audio reproduction systems. I just listen, but I also note the opinions of my colleagues, because I might be wrong sometimes about something. I have learned that I have to use either my ears (which are aging) or the listening feedback from others to be sure that any one of my designs is really sonically OK. Unfortunately, I found some examples of my designs that really 'sucked' even though they measured OK. I happen to believe in open listening, mostly to a product (either mine or some others) over time and and gain a listening impression that I can then use to rank the products overall quality, or success relative to price point. I used to do this with guitars, before I got into hi fi, and went to great lengths to find quality guitars based on their listening quality, no matter what they looked like. Therefore, I resold several 'beautifully made' guitars because I could not live with their sound over time, and kept one Mexican 12 string guitar, that was a BEAR to play, due to a weak neck, and had an ugly cigarette burn on its face. If I was affected mostly by sight, I would have kept the guitars that I sold off. It is the same way with hi fi. I don't really care what a product looks like (although many people do) just how it sounds.
However, we do have a bit of 'newspeak' here. SY uses the latest 'definition' of 'ears only'. I use the same technique that I have used for the last 60 years, starting with differences in acoustic guitars, and migrating to audio reproduction systems. I just listen, but I also note the opinions of my colleagues, because I might be wrong sometimes about something. I have learned that I have to use either my ears (which are aging) or the listening feedback from others to be sure that any one of my designs is really sonically OK. Unfortunately, I found some examples of my designs that really 'sucked' even though they measured OK. I happen to believe in open listening, mostly to a product (either mine or some others) over time and and gain a listening impression that I can then use to rank the products overall quality, or success relative to price point. I used to do this with guitars, before I got into hi fi, and went to great lengths to find quality guitars based on their listening quality, no matter what they looked like. Therefore, I resold several 'beautifully made' guitars because I could not live with their sound over time, and kept one Mexican 12 string guitar, that was a BEAR to play, due to a weak neck, and had an ugly cigarette burn on its face. If I was affected mostly by sight, I would have kept the guitars that I sold off. It is the same way with hi fi. I don't really care what a product looks like (although many people do) just how it sounds.
What we have here is the debate between sighted listening meaning that we are overwhelmed by the physical beauty or name of a piece of audio equipment so that it sounds better than something else, or whether we are allowed to keep track of what piece of audio equipment we are listening to, in order to evaluate it more extensively, rather than a quick listen. We don't need names or seeing the equipment. We could use A,B,C etc and nothing else and hear differences accurately. I have done these sorts of tests successfully, even with HK (Silver) in Japan back in 1978. They were shocked that I could so easily tell the difference between 3 designs (that I did not make) in their listening room. I just said that it was my job to be able to do so. Unfortunately, anything that isn't absolutely double blind, and most probably akin to ABX is not considered 'legitimate' these days. I still continue to trust my ears, even over the insults and condemnation by certain people here.
The 12 string sound wasn't 'junky' at all. Several professional musicians wanted to buy it from me. Sonically, it was great! Not as good as a 12 string owned by one of the Grateful Dead (that I happened to strum once, and I would have almost killed for.'-) but pretty darn good. ) Alembic put a steel bar in the neck and I kept it for years until it was stolen, almost 40 years ago.
A figure of speech trying to encompass 'all senses'. Apologies.
I thought this was just English. Just. Ears.
That's basically what I said, although you said it much more flowery
Jan
Only if the loudspeaker is a wide dispersion system. -- which most are. This is also why a narrow dispersion speaker is important to reduce that room influence. +/- 30 degrees or 60 degrees total puts me in the direct field and is similar to a small near field mixing/monitor speaker in that regard. The speakers (M2) are recommended to be toe'ed inward also to be sure that there is minimal room reflections and interaction.
THx-RNMarsh
Junky inasmuch as it has a noodly neck and cigarette burns. That give it some cred (so to speak) among certain artists.
It doesn't have to be beautiful to have an effect. And, again, I'm not saying that it wasn't a great guitar unto itself. Just that none of us are immune (in fact we're all subject to ) biases here and there. What if it's just bare boards of an amplifier of a topology you "know" to sound good vs one that doesn't meet your ideals? They both look equally the same, but which one would you bet on liking more?
Then again, who cares to a large degree?
Anyhow, I'll step out of this issue.
May I oppose this with a quote from Gordon J Holt, the founder of Stereophile?
"As far as the real world is concerned, high-end audio lost its credibility during the 1980s, when it flatly refused to submit to the kind of basic honesty controls (double-blind testing, for example) that had legitimized every other serious scientific endeavor since Pascal. [This refusal] is a source of endless derisive amusement among rational people and of perpetual embarrassment for me, because I am associated by so many people with the mess my disciples made of spreading my gospel. For the record: I never, ever claimed that measurements don't matter. What I said (and very often, at that) was, they don't always tell the whole story. Not quite the same thing."
Jan
This isn't new news. We use the T&M to aid and verify designs but no one who uses them in design think it/they tell the whole story.
Maybe some do think it is all? Who? Raise your hands.
THx-RNMarsh
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