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Best Speakers (Studio Monitors) to Hear Reverb

dasdoing

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wonders how you setup your speakers... pointing towards your MLP? toe-in? coz back when I tried focals without waveguide and slight toe in in my own setup, compared to KEF X300A and the current 8030C the imaging was actually best for X300A->8030C->Focal Alpha 50.
he probably has a big room and wide dispersion give him more ambience of his own room, which he likes. kind of opposite of hearing reverb
 

mightycicadalord

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wonders how you setup your speakers... pointing towards your MLP? toe-in? coz back when I tried focals without waveguide and slight toe in in my own setup, compared to KEF X300A and the current 8030C the imaging was actually best for X300A->8030C->Focal Alpha 50.

I don't think it's fair to lump KEF coax in with non coax speakers with waveguides, that's a whole different type of speaker really.

I tried all possible positioning and it was always the same result. It's super hard to ignore the differences too when you play a song with vocals and they are dead center vs. being a wash with no focus. Was playing Submotion Orchestra - Branches on amiga's last night and the singer is dead center and locked there, there's no confusion about where things are in the stereo field, while the 8030c the singer exists to the left and right, placement of elements in the stereo field are difficult to judge. It feels like with 8030c when you move, whatever center it has tries to move with you? I don't like that at all, sounds totally unnatural.
 

sigbergaudio

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Waveguides can offer a particular type of imaging, but I've never considered imaging as strength, they always make sacrifices there to my ears. Non-waveguided tweeters generally offer wider dispersion and one that narrows towards the top and the result is a more defined image that expands out beyond the speaker. For example the center image on my amiga's is very strong, you can't ignore it, while the 8030c effectively has no center for the most part.

Have you heard coax speakers?
 

mightycicadalord

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he probably has a big room and wide dispersion give him more ambience of his own room, which he likes. kind of opposite of hearing reverb

Nope, rooms are fairly small and both treated, the living room not very heavily at all, the smaller bedroom is heavily treated where I do most of my mix work. All speakers basically behaved the same in either room in regards to I guess you can call it "reverb" performance.
Have you heard coax speakers?

Kef 350, but it's been awhile. I recall the reason I got rid of them was that I could hear the tweeter distorting with the woofer movement, same thing with the volt 8's that I had built but sold the guts to.

I'm super happy with my atc, paul carmody and bagby speakers, far happier than I was with the 8030 or kh120, even for mix work. I think that these very accurate speakers are not exactly the end game mixing tools people think they are. A lot more preference there than people think I'd argue. My mix translation on those two speakers was frankly terrible, with space being a really tough thing to get right. Them waveguides just don't work for my ears.
 
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darakon

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@ mightyciadalor:
I made more or less the same experience.
For example: the kh120 measures pretty much like the perfect speaker.
And yes, it sound almost perfect in its way.
But its missing emotions, musicality and the feeling of 'space'.
I understand that for many it's a perfect tool for a studio.
For me it wasn't because even in a studio, I personally prefere to listen to music and not to noise.
I believe that the medium wide 'constant directivity' target just does not match my listening preference.
The waveguides 'improves' the diagrams for sure, but I often prefer other speakers.
 

Frgirard

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@ mightyciadalor:
I made more or less the same experience.
For example: the kh120 measures pretty much like the perfect speaker.
And yes, it sound almost perfect in its way.
But its missing emotions, musicality and the feeling of 'space'.
I understand that for many it's a perfect tool for a studio.
For me it wasn't because even in a studio, I personally prefere to listen to music and not to noise.
I believe that the medium wide 'constant directivity' target just does not match my listening preference.
The waveguides 'improves' the diagrams for sure, but I often prefer other speakers.
Preferences are just an opinion not a fact.

I use kh420 and o300 and for me and only for me this two models are fun. Fun if the fun is embedded in the recording.
This is an opinion.
That's what monitors are for. Reproduce the sounds without fun which feeds them.
This is a fact.
 

darakon

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Preferences are just an opinion not a fact.

I use kh420 and o300 and for me and only for me this two models are fun. Fun if the fun is embedded in the recording.
This is an opinion.
That's what monitors are for. Reproduce the sounds without fun which feeds them.
This is a fact.
Listening is always subjective.
The kh420 I did not hear yet. The O300 is also one of my favorites. 3-way, wider baffle and middle dome pays off.
The O300 is a good combination of analytics mixed with some fun.
 

sigbergaudio

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It's interesting how things are perceived differently. The question is what is causing what is heard. To me it's the other way around. A competent coax driver is so good I think it's weird not more manufacturers are using it, everything else feels like a compromise.
 

Duke

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Could it be something about waveguide in combination with nearfield listening?

That may be.

A waveguide imposes greater-than-normal vertical spacing between drivers, while a coaxial is... cheating??

"If you're not cheating, you're not trying hard enough." - Gene LeBell
 

YSC

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I don't think it's fair to lump KEF coax in with non coax speakers with waveguides, that's a whole different type of speaker really.

I tried all possible positioning and it was always the same result. It's super hard to ignore the differences too when you play a song with vocals and they are dead center vs. being a wash with no focus. Was playing Submotion Orchestra - Branches on amiga's last night and the singer is dead center and locked there, there's no confusion about where things are in the stereo field, while the 8030c the singer exists to the left and right, placement of elements in the stereo field are difficult to judge. It feels like with 8030c when you move, whatever center it has tries to move with you? I don't like that at all, sounds totally unnatural.
Bringing in KEF was just because it's the speaker I've used and my general impression of spatial clues goes from coaxial (point source with built in waveguide) ->8030->no waveguide traditional design.

I think I can guess the reason for this, if you move around a lot I guess it's the off axis drop off (usually in the HF range) where the lack of detail once you move from the MLP makes you have a sense of rapidly changing spatial clues and hence "nail the center" easier, while the more even off axis response of the waveguide speakers don't provide you this HF roll off early off-axis.

for this alone I would say it's just personal preference.

P.S. for spatial clues I think it is already off topic for the reverb thread
 

mightycicadalord

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Preferences are just an opinion not a fact.

I use kh420 and o300 and for me and only for me this two models are fun. Fun if the fun is embedded in the recording.
This is an opinion.
That's what monitors are for. Reproduce the sounds without fun which feeds them.
This is a fact.

Monitoring for me is about two things, reproduce signals with fairly limited coloration, but also deliver music to my ears in a way that makes sense. I need a balance of both to do good work.

A monitor that is neutral but doesn't recreate music in a way that makes sense to the user, is a useless tool. People here are wayyy to limited in what they think a good monitor is. Reality is if you can deliver good work it doesn't really matter you use. Now that's a real fact.
 

YSC

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Monitoring for me is about two things, reproduce signals with fairly limited coloration, but also deliver music to my ears in a way that makes sense. I need a balance of both to do good work.

A monitor that is neutral but doesn't recreate music in a way that makes sense to the user, is a useless tool. People here are wayyy to limited in what they think a good monitor is. Reality is if you can deliver good work it doesn't really matter you use. Now that's a real fact.
That’s the argument I don’t understand. Make sense depends on what the music originally was produced and then played back, if the original music was played back using very heavily coloured speakers or mic then a neutral speaker with fairly low colouration would sounding bad and doesn’t make sense at all. Same vice versa.


I myself is only a geeky hobbist who don’t even dare treating my tiny room. But IMHO if you want to do production you would want a pair of neutral speaker without directivity error to do the main mixing, then check with common consumer tuning like on headphone, or a pair of whatever is popular consumer speakers to make sure it won’t sound bad on mid boost FR or bass boost FR
 

unloren

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I have two sets of monitors in front of me right now, Geithain RL906 and Amphion one15.

I decided to do a quick and dirty reverb test and here's what I noticed. The Amphion has more midrange and so I hear the reverb in that range with more volume in detail. If I pitch up the source, in this case an 808 clave, I get a lot more volume and definition from the Geithain, because the monitors themselves are more hyped over 1,000 Hz.

Reverb is close to white noise in a sense, so it's going to reveal the curve of your monitors' unique frequency responses. Of course any room noise/reflection is going to mask this, so if you have a dry room I guess the reverb you hear will depend on how loud your speakers are at any given frequency. However, I know there's a lot more going on, such as internal resonance and phase problems, and those will probably play a part as well. ASR is useful resource in this regard because all the measurements include that information.

I would imagine a dry sounding speaker (aka neutral) would give you the most useful information regarding how reverb will translate, whereas a colored speaker will bring out certain frequency ranges that may be useful when adjusting reverb parameters. ATC seems popular because they offer that extra volume in the midrange where a lot of instruments overlap.
 

AyeYoYoYO

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Reverb tail work is best left to bright headphones with huge soundstages, AKG K7__, AKG K812, Beyer T-90, Beyer 1990-A, Senn HD800, 800s,

Use them until you get ATC money. Even then, modern huge stage cans are hard to beat for the applications you refer to.
 

dshreter

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I don’t think a monitor sounds dry or wet. That refers to post-processing and typically the addition of reverb. I don’t see why a speaker should have that attribute as a description.
 

unloren

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I don’t think a monitor sounds dry or wet. That refers to post-processing and typically the addition of reverb. I don’t see why a speaker should have that attribute as a description.
Based on the speakers I have at the moment, if the high end is hyped it places instruments like guitars, percussion, and vocals closer to you, almost like a holographic effect. This creates a sense of depth in the recording.

My other speakers measure more flat, and everything, whether it's hi hats, vocals, or the kick drum, all sound like they're coming from the same place, at the same volume. It's... a boring sound.

And it may just be my room, but I feel like ported speakers throw the bass more, so you get the impression that the bass is coming from... all around you. I know bass is omnidirectional so it shouldn't matter the source, but in the same room I get a distinctly different impressions from the ported and non ported speakers I've used.

So I can definitely attest to that "dry" monitor sound.
But a grain of salt and all that. I'm no scientist.
 

dshreter

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Based on the speakers I have at the moment, if the high end is hyped it places instruments like guitars, percussion, and vocals closer to you, almost like a holographic effect. This creates a sense of depth in the recording.

My other speakers measure more flat, and everything, whether it's hi hats, vocals, or the kick drum, all sound like they're coming from the same place, at the same volume. It's... a boring sound.

And it may just be my room, but I feel like ported speakers throw the bass more, so you get the impression that the bass is coming from... all around you. I know bass is omnidirectional so it shouldn't matter the source, but in the same room I get a distinctly different impressions from the ported and non ported speakers I've used.

So I can definitely attest to that "dry" monitor sound.
But a grain of salt and all that. I'm no scientist.
Speakers definitely sound different from one another. Dry and wet just have a specific meaning, that I don’t think applies to speakers.

Bright, dark, enveloping, focused are all descriptors I can can accept for speakers. But not dry and wet :)
 

YSC

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Speakers definitely sound different from one another. Dry and wet just have a specific meaning, that I don’t think applies to speakers.

Bright, dark, enveloping, focused are all descriptors I can can accept for speakers. But not dry and wet :)
I can accept all of these terms, but one thing comes out in my mind is that all are relative terms where adaption to one's favorite or adapted old gear plays a big role in. say if you for years used the HD800 as a main hifi source, once you go to some preference curve tuned headphones you will feel it's boomy muddy etc. back when I was using some dell integrated speaker bundled with the cheap desktop and goes to the Fostex PM0.4, I would have a few weeks feeling the bass is amazing and well defined, but if I go back to them after I am adapted to the 8030C? there's no bass at all! and then comes my 7040A...

So IMO those claim of hearing more reverb in ATC I would say that's for sure given their boosted mids and the subjective feeling might very well be honest if compare side by side, and then when you are used to the sound signature, you play back your favorite album in a pair of Genelec/Neumann it will sound dry, if you go to smiley curve Dynaudio it maybe even dryer.. where myself getting used to the Genelecs if listen to ATC would likely feel it's artificial boosting the mids and unrealistic sounding.

and that's precisely why I suggested to OP in early post to try use some free apps to EQ a shelve in the mids of the genelec and see if that suddenly removes the problem. it's always easier to do some EQ and flick the settings on and off than spending thousands and found that there's something still not right to your taste.
 

mightycicadalord

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That’s the argument I don’t understand. Make sense depends on what the music originally was produced and then played back, if the original music was played back using very heavily coloured speakers or mic then a neutral speaker with fairly low colouration would sounding bad and doesn’t make sense at all. Same vice versa.

It's all about translation, that's all that matters, that the ideas in your head and movements in your DAW translate to effectively the same sound over different playback devices. For some, neutral speakers get them there, for others something with a little more coloration gets them there. Taste and experience trump accuracy any day.
 
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