Yannick Willox
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- Oct 13, 2022
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I have no idea actually. I never really worked on them, IMO they are not accurate enough not to make wrong decisions. They sound polite and laid back, everything sounds a bit further. some incarnation even had the tweeter polarity reversed, which was even featured in their PR brochure ! That makes it a no go for professional use !I'm a sound engineer but classical music is not my line of business, I never had to mix on B&W's. Do you have any insights on why studios who specialise in this genre seem to like them? Or is it B&W's marketing machine who wants to makes us believe so (meaning they're less common than the pictures you find on the internet suggest)?
My first surround mix was made in a very compromised mixing room and five of my little speakers. When I went to Polyhymnia (featered in this thread), listening back on their highend b&w 800 surround setup I was not blown away. It sounded as we intended, just a bit more distant and less “present”. At that time that was like a 12K 5.1 setup against a 120K setup.
I also grew up with the “mixed on B&W” paradigm. It was always in the liner notes. One must assume it must be marketing ?
I know from a fact they are VERY common, but some of my collaegues are really not in favor. Most do not say this openly, as they are really almost like the NS10 decades ago, an industry standard.
Even a lot of highend mastering rooms use them as their main system.
I have had masters coming back slightly worse, and colored.
Mind you, I am not saying they are bad speakers. In my book they are simply not good enough. But probably I do not have first hand experience to be 100% sure about this.