Avantone CLA-10 (Yamaha NS-10M Clone) Review

[Deleted member 21219]

The main reason is not that they don't trust their speakers, a second opinion is sometimes needed when a mixing engineer has lost the overall view of the mix (can't see the forest for the trees). This can easily happen after a long time of mixing and obvious problems in the mix are missed because of the extreme concentration on solving small details in the mix. A new set of ears can sometimes be needed to hear fairly obvious and larger overall problems with the mix.

Another way to get around this common problem is to use well-known reference tracks and listen to them regularly during the mixing session to re-tune the ears and get a "reality check". This problem got nothing to do with the speakers in use, it doesn't help if the speakers are measuring flat to not. It has more to do with acclimatization to the sound and tonality, in a similar way as a certain record can sound bright and bass-shy but your hearing gets used to it after a few songs.

I hear what you're saying, but wouldn't all this be ameliorated if equipment was standardized? Wouldn't the "reality check" become superfluous?

Jim

 

[PeteL]

Please don't make claims you can't back up. You had not seen a single measurement of any of those rooms yet claimed they are better than most consumers. No way you could do that by just looking at the room or listening. You must measure. That is what I do and so does every acoustician. Bass response cannot be determined by ear or eyes.

As to consumers, we are not talking about the masses. I would say there is far, far more awareness and knowledge of room impact in this forum than there is in the Pro industry. We are absolutely ahead of the production field when it comes to knowledge and tools of high fidelity sound reproduction. Don't fall for fancy look of studios. If they are not showing you their frequency response as their business card, the most important part of that mission is lost.

Wow... OK, They probably purchased this SonarWorx rig and measurment microphones just for show and didn't use them and blatantly lied to me in my face. And this app that is running on their computer is not doing anything good even tough sitting beside the engineers he walked me trough it and AB right beside me and showed me that on the mixing phase They'd use the full fledge linear phase but would revert to minimum phase at tracking for a close enough work around when latency is still too long. Sure. Show me the picture or it didn't happen. Do you assume dishonesty like that all the time?

 

[goat76]

Some are seemingly horrible and erratic.

That seems pretty subjective. All the more benefit of having sound quality standards globally applied to studio work and audio gear/equipment. The sooner the better.

No, what matters the most for the overall quality is that well-known reference tracks sound correct for the mixing engineer, with the speakers of his or her choice. Then the result will mostly depend on the mixer's subjective choices, choices that may or not may gel well with your subjective preferences, and how you would prefer the mix to sound.

 

[Cbdb2]

Please don't make claims you can't back up.

As to consumers, we are not talking about the masses. I would say there is far, far more awareness and knowledge of room impact in this forum than there is in the Pro industry. We are absolutely ahead of the production field when it comes to knowledge and tools of high fidelity sound reproduction. Don't fall for fancy look of studios. If they are not showing you their frequency response as their business card, the most important part of that mission is lost.

Can you back those claims up? The big studios have been using acousticians to design there rooms for decades. In the last 20years I have seen Genelecs replace NS10s in most studios.
The problem is that these days a lot of music is recorded and mixed in somebodys basement.

Now lets talk about the real problem with a good mix. The recording. The room the instruments are recorded in are much more important than the mix room, especially drums. The way the musicians play is huge, an unmuted bass E string will muddy up the bass. Incosistant drum hits, you cant just turn up a low snare hit, it will sound different. New strings on a guitar make a huge difference. The arrangement. Too many instruments in the same freq. range destroys detail in that range. Why small groups are much easier to mix than large groups. To name a few.
You can't turn a pigs ear into a silk purse, stop blaming the mixer/masterer for all the bad mixes.

 

[goat76]

Fair enough, but we've even been through that before: you could just use EQ on your Anechoic Flat Full Range speakers to concentrate on the mids (you would recess the other areas using parametric EQ). And if you do it that way you're not getting any strange peaks or dips in that mids area (because it's a flat/good speaker), so you're optimising your ability to balance within the mids because you're not being mislead by an uneven frequency response in the mids. Using a wonky speaker for the task shouldn't be necessary & would be sub-optimal.

That could work, but what if that wonky speaker happens to have other qualities that are even better than those Anechoic Flat Full Range speakers, and that quality happens to be what a specific mixing engineer seeks and that he will use these speakers for the tasks that are not related to frequency response.

 

[Deleted member 21219]

Do you assume dishonesty like that all the time?

I doubt that it's dishonesty that is the aim of Amir's remarks .... although this site has had more than its share of that. I think it's the need to make sure that claims have been thoroughly verified and rigorously examined. A lot can fall between the cracks if the only things under discussion are just casual anecdotes.

Jim

 

[Robbo99999]

I’m just not telling an experienced producer how they’re allowed to do their job.

There’s a reason for that - I’m not that far up myself.

There are enough good mixes out there from enough good producers done on these speakers…look, I don’t know how they manage this. And I’m not saying how they manage this.

But it’s an indisputable fact that they do do this, so I’m happy to leave them to it.

Bottom line, irrespective of what’s happened in the past, it appears that the trend is towards more neutral speakers, so I think we’re maybe flogging a dead horse anyway.

It's not about being "up yourself", it's just basic logic - you don't have to be an experienced audio creator to know that "Circle of Confusion" is a problem. 1+1=2 for everybody, even the non-mathematicians. I'm not bringing up the specifics of the argument as they've been repeated by myself & others a number of times already in this thread.

"Trend toward more neutral speakers" is better, but it's still not a named & stipulated standard, and as people have already said RoomEQ is not standardised at these studios either.

 

[Deleted member 21219]

Now lets talk about the real problem with a good mix. The recording. The room the instruments are recorded in are much more important than the mix room, especially drums. The way the musicians play is huge, an unmuted bass E string will muddy up the bass. Incosistant drum hits, you cant just turn up a low snare hit, it will sound different. New strings on a guitar make a huge difference. The arrangement. Too many instruments in the same freq. range destroys detail in that range. Why small groups are much easier to mix than large groups. To name a few.

That's content. I think the topic under discussion here is the equipment, and the standardization thereof. The equipment is like a bottle, and the content is like what's in the bottle. The bottle can contain good, clean water .... or dirty water. Same bottle.

Jim

 

[Robbo99999]

That could work, but what if that wonky speaker happens to have other qualities that are even better than those Anechoic Flat Full Range speakers, and that quality happens to be what a specific mixing engineer seeks and that he will use these speakers for the tasks that are not related to frequency response.

That's voodoo though for those that understand audio science. (see the stuff Amir was talking re CSD waterfalls for instance).

 

[PeteL]

I doubt that it's dishonesty that is the aim of Amir's remarks .... although this site has had more than its share of that. I think it's the need to make sure that claims have been thoroughly verified and rigorously examined. A lot can fall between the cracks if the only things under discussion are just casual anecdotes.

Jim

OK, If I go see a professional for a mix and he tells me he has calibrated his room, I trust that he knows what he is doing, I don't ask "show me the response as your business card". He is a professional. But that's just me.

 

[Robbo99999]

OK, If I go see a professional for a mix and he tells me he has calibrated his room, I trust that he knows what he is doing, I don't ask "show me the response as your business card". He is a professional. But that's just me.

You most definitely would have to do that if you were serious about what you were creating, especially given that there are no named standards being followed, so you'd have to see the specific measurements instead to see what you were dealing with. If it was a named standard, then you wouldn't need to look at the measurements so much, because they would already be falling within a certain set of parameters that would be determined by the named standard.

 

[Cbdb2]

The thing you are talking about is different masters, but I can't see any need for any changes to the mix itself.

If compression or limitation is needed because of outside factors, like a car stereo that must be heard through the outside noise, or other types of limitations in the reproduction gear that is used, then I think it's way better if that compression or limitation is applied in that car stereo or the device with the limitation of reproducing a high dynamic recording for one reason or another, and prevail the full dynamics for the more capable full-range systems.

One ultimate mix without any dynamic limitations in the mastering process is all that is needed when it comes to the music content itself.

dynamic limitations are a necesary component of all mixes, so i dont understand. Different music needs different compression ( time constants for example ) so letting your device decide on it is a bad idea, like letting your device EQ each track after scanning it.

 

[Deleted member 21219]

OK, If I go see a professional for a mix and he tells me he has calibrated his room, I trust that he knows what he is doing, I don't ask "show me the response as your business card". He is a professional. But that's just me.

Professionals can (and sometimes do) exhibit levels of incompetence that is not easily understood. I was a professional (in another, totally unrelated field) for 37 years, and I sometimes wondered how certain people I knew in the industry managed to put their pants on the right way that morning.

What was the saying? "Trust ..... but verify", wasn't it something like that? When I was audited, I had to prove everything that I said to the inspectors. I just got used to it, anticipated it and had all my ducks in a row when they showed up.

Jim

 

[PeteL]

You most definitely would have to do that if you were serious about what you were creating, especially given that there are no named standards being followed, so you'd have to see the specific measurements instead to see what you were dealing with. If it was a named standard, then you wouldn't need to look at the measurements so much, because they would already be falling within a certain set of parameters that would be determined by the named standard.

It's just the general idea that is put forward that in the pro world, anything goes when in the consumer world there is all this great science that I find really weak. There are standards for what is a calibrated room is, and that's what these DSP applications like Dirac, SonarWorx, etc aim to bring. Is it perfect, maybe not, is it 100% everywhere, maybe not, do some Engineers are reluctant to change how they always did, surely. But it is still a fact no matter how you look at it that the quest for a calibrated response Is not only adopted by the "Industry" It's driven by them. The simple fact that Studio Monitors by Pro Brands like Genelec and Neumann are crossing over to the HIFI world is a pretty clear demonstration of that. I don't have that much experience in the studio world, but much more in the live sound and SMAART was released in freekin 1995, almost 30 years ago and it's common practice to make way more complicated measurements in a concert hall than a simple consumer listening place the frequency response is checked to measure flat in every areas, the delay time are checked between sound sources including subs to achieve phase coherence etc, etc.

 

[Joshua Cadmium]

The first line "Broken? Its good enough" Implies you don't care about improvements, so why are you even on this site.

The point is that the current state of music mixing is far from broken, despite arguments to the contrary.

I am on this site because I deeply care about all the work that Amir is doing on the measurement side. I think he and his work are going to be responsible (it's already started) for a huge shift in the way that audio is understood, consumed and enjoyed. I am telling anyone interested to check out this site as it has been such a breath of fresh air after years of pseudoscience. For audio playback, Amir is playing a huge role in pushing the industry forward.

However, the music creation side is not so straight forward. It is part art and part engineering, and in both fields there is a tendency to spend too much time on creating perfection, so you have to be focused on the "good enough".

Artists know that their work can outlast them, but part of being a good artist is knowing when to stop working. Perfection can even ruin an artist - think Brian Wilson trying to make SMiLE.

Engineering is about constraints. There is the classic tale of the engineer wanting to waste time and money on getting to 95% accuracy when 80-90% is good enough. Perfection doesn't pay the bills.

 

[Zensō]

It is news to me that most have adopted SonarWorx. Where does that data come from?

SonarWorks marketing materials. Whether someone chooses to believe their specific claims is a personal matter, but there’s no doubt their product is widely used and is probably as close to a standard as we have, particularly among small studios and independents, which is where the large bulk of new music is being produced.

 

[PeteL]

SonarWorks marketing materials. Whether someone chooses to believe their specific claims is a personal matter, but there’s no doubt their product is widely used and is probably as close to a standard as we have, particularly among small studios and independents, which is where the large bulk of new music is being produced.

Yes I'd say the most elite places may be more Trinnov equipped, they have been around for longer, especially if they do a lot of multi-channel.

 

[amirm]

Let me make sure this concept is understood: we are not talking about a single frequency response being a standard. It would be a comprehensive

Can you back those claims up? The big studios have been using acousticians to design there rooms for decades.

Those acousticians have been doing it wrong. As with these NS-10 notion they have been running with all kinds of targets like LEDE, RFZ, Envrionmental, etc. Not once did they do any controlled studies and take psychoacoustics into considerations. I routinely cringe when I read or watch the videos these acousticians post. And I am not alone at all. Check out this presentation from Dr. D'Antonio, founder of RPG (the top manufacturer and designer of acoustic products). Notice how it starts with wrong notions implemented by the author of the very paper I post in the review of NS-10M:

Notice the arrival of Dr. Toole's work which sadly, even to this date, is mostly ignored in treatment of studios:

Now the new era:

And call for better understanding of research as led by Dr. Toole/Olive's graph below:

They simply don't research any of their ideas. Someone comes up with it with notoriety, and it gets copied -- just like NS-10 we have been talking about. You want to see the blood pressure of Dr. Toole go up, bring up the topic of Pros and how they deal with room acoustics and speakers. If any science is used, it is by accident.

Just because they put acoustic products on the wall years ago, doesn't mean they had a proper handle on it. Indeed they had the opposite.

Go to the studio page of any of these engineers. Do you see a single measurement of their rooms? You don't, right? By contrast, you see a ton from people hanging around here. Do you hear about them applying EQ to correct bass response. You don't, right? By contrast, you see a ton of it here and advocated just the same by our audio luminaries.

They put on the show but not the substance and as a result, create rooms with poor response that then impact the recording we get.

 

[amirm]

Now lets talk about the real problem with a good mix. The recording. The room the instruments are recorded in are much more important than the mix room, especially drums. The way the musicians play is huge, an unmuted bass E string will muddy up the bass. Incosistant drum hits, you cant just turn up a low snare hit, it will sound different. New strings on a guitar make a huge difference. The arrangement. Too many instruments in the same freq. range destroys detail in that range. Why small groups are much easier to mix than large groups. To name a few.
You can't turn a pigs ear into a silk purse, stop blaming the mixer/masterer for all the bad mixes.

I am not qualified to comment on those problems. I am qualified to talk about the large crossover we have between us which is the spectral balance of the music. This, can be easily fixed today with some leadership and willingness. I don't know what it takes to fix the issues you mention. Maybe they are not fixable in which case, we will deal with them as we do today: if the mix doesn't sound good to us, we go listen to something else.

 

[lowkeyoperations]

Please don't make claims you can't back up.

I would say there is far, far more awareness and knowledge of room impact in this forum than there is in the Pro industry. We are absolutely ahead of the production field when it comes to knowledge and tools of high fidelity sound .