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

[Yorkshire Mouth]

I know what you're saying, so you don't have to say it again. I also know what I was saying, which is standards would improve the situation, (athletic analogies don't change that).

On that we’re agreed.

As I say, people appear to be setting up a strawman criticism of producers using these speakers.

Criticism of the speakers, I’d hope we’re all agreed.

But it’s not for us to dictate to experienced producers how to work, even if we agree that speakers with a flat response with low bass response would be great.a lot of producers who use these know what a good speaker is, and the Yamaha’s flaws.

 

[dfuller]

Yes indeed, although as an additional positive benefit it should mean better mixes/recordings being made which can contribute to increased sales.....

Unfortunately this correlation is not there.

 

[PeteL]

First of all, tone controls have long been erased from hifi gear. The problem here is precisely the issue we are discussing, i.e. wild west of tonality as delivered by the music production industry. From Dr. Olive's paper on Room EQ and topic of target curve: The Subjective and Objective Evaluation of Room Correction Products,

"The lack on consensus regarding room correction target function is evident in these experiments.

[...]
A more pragmatic approach in defining the in-room target function would be to use the same target function in the home as used in the monitoring and mixing of the recordings in the control room. This ensures consumers will hear the recordings as the artist intended. Unfortunately, there are no current recording industry standards that provide quality controls in the rooms and monitors used to make recordings. Surveys of professional control room monitoring chains indicate no evidence of quality control below 200 Hz in the sounds heard by recording engineer [5]. Given that most recordings are optimized over monitors where the room gain is left intact, the recordings will sound most natural when played back through room corrections that leave the room gain alone."

Therefore you have no choice but to use the corpus of music you listen to and try to come up with an average or two (or whatever your EQ system allows). The slope of what someone listening to classical music predominantly will be different than someone listening to pop and rock. The industry has created infinite variety here resulting in no single curve to ever be correct. You have to live with a compromise or degraded fidelity.

There are also issues with measurements due to psychoacoustics which I won't get into seeing how this simple concept is not understoond.

Really, complain less and learn more. I gave you the link to this paper already. Read it before making insulting posts like this.

Are you also going to blame the recording Industry for the disappearance of tone control on integrated amps? There is still all sorts of ways to EQ your music if don't like what the mastering has done and there are no way to know how loud someone will listen to their music so the perceived tonality will differ just based on that. Are you going to implement this standard too where your system can only play a fixed volume at 85 dB SPL not allowing you to turn it down or up?

You keep referring to a 2009 article as the bible, that's 14 years ago. and you take bits and pieces and make your own interpretation.
I am sure you know also of this one from The great Dr. Toole, it's not as old, 2015: The measurement and calibration of sound reproducing systems.

https://www.aes.org/tmpFiles/elib/20230813/17839.pdf

Right in the abstract
At present most of the industry follows a common philosophy but movie sound is a problematic exception. Some changes to current practice are indicated.


Yes, believe it or not, the industry evolves, and it also evolved since this publication... You have been suggested to go see what is the state of the art in the recording industry but you keep dismissing that as unneeded as if you have all the info you need. Great way to encourage the "circle of confusion"

You also keep to referring to this circle of confusion. We all agree on the circle of confusion but you seem to again misinterpret what is the definition of what a vicious circle is to feed your irrational feud against the recording industry. Toole also explain this circle of confusion. It's a conundrum. It's a challenge.
but the circle of confusion, in its essence is based on: . There is a requirement for mixing and mastering engineers to hear what their customers are likely to hear.

We don't have that, the challenge is universally recognized, and this article does recognize the limitations that we are faced with, not just simply dump the responsibility on what the monitoring conditions are in recording studios but you really like this us against them fight do you?

He does however proceed to have recommendations on room equalization if you care to read them and no, using your taste in music isn't one....
Yes room modes, standing waves are a problem, we all know that but it is what it is, they have to be measured in situ. and you certainly should trust a measurement microphone instead of "leaving them alone" or "see if your favorite track if it sounds good" Yes, the industry knows the problem with bass. But you will never be able to know what the end customer listening condition are. It's impossible and utopic. And no, a handful of generic EQ profiles will not solve that if you really read the fundamentals of this article.

 

[andivax]

Thank you very much for this review, Amir!
If you will consider NS-10 as SHIT CONTROL for mixing you will love it.
The problem is 99% of people here want linear sound or Harman Curve.
In case of NS-10 it's impossible. It's like desire of ideal sound from Smartphone speaker.

The review is awesome! Two last questions:
1) How is the mixing on CLA-10
2) How CLA-10 compares with NS-10's. I was pretty impressed with the similar IR!

PS I often mix on my iPhone using free Sonobus app to directly send the signal from DAW to Smartphone. LOL

 

[lowkeyoperations]

Unfortunately this correlation is not there.

unfortunately not.

Someone mentioned earlier in the thread The Sign by Ace of Bass being the worst song they have ever heard from an audio quality point of view.

It sold over 2m copies.
Went to number 1 in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Spain, Australia, Israel, New Zealand Canada, Zimbabwe and the USA.

It was the top charting song of 1994.

Go figure.

 

[Robbo99999]

Unfortunately this correlation is not there.

unfortunately not.

Someone mentioned earlier in the thread The Sign by Ace of Bass being the worst song they have ever heard from an audio quality point of view.

It sold over 2m copies.
Went to number 1 in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Spain, Australia, Israel, New Zealand Canada, Zimbabwe and the USA.

It was the top charting song of 1994.

Go figure.

Catchy music or other qualities that a piece of music can have can override a bad recording I guess (I've not listened to that Ace of Bass track since the 90's so can't comment on that one) - but it's possible that if these monstrosities had been recorded better they may have done even better. I don't think it's logical to say that a poor quality recording is a positive attribute that will increase sales, but it's obvious to me that good quality recording could increase sales.

 

[Cbdb2]

There is no "current practice." It is wild west. You can't even be bothered to measure the room you are in and compare it to other and try to reason how you are getting consistent work done in that situation.

Wild west seems a bit exaggerated. You really think engineers dont think about the room? Maybe in basement studios. 30 years ago I started working in a studio that had Meyers in all the edit suits (HD-1s) and large Meyers in the mix rooms. Every speaker they sold had a tech from Meyer come in and EQ the room they were in with there own hardware EQ.
You keep showing that Genelec room graph and saying you cant get a proper tonal ballance in most of them. The only way you can prove that is to listen to mixes from those rooms. I would bet most of those rooms have had terrible mixes and great mixes and the room is not as important as the mixer.

 

[amirm]

There is no real demand beyond a few Hifi enthusiasts seeking audio nirvana.

Maybe, maybe not. We have 2 million visitors a month here who clearly value fidelity. Labels go through the expense to produce LP masters. Surely that falls in the category you mention.

But even if that is so, ultimately you have to decide if you are just trying to make a buck or also standing up for quality. I used to manage a team in Windows that produced software that got shipped to half a billion users a year. In that context, hardly anything mattered but I still made my team to put in features that audiophiles cared about such as Room EQ.

Good news here is that what we want is not cross purpose with consumers. Testing shows that non-audiophiles appreciate a good sound as much as trained listeners. We are not talking about high sample rate stuff which has also been implemented by streaming services. Clearly there is more value here than any of that.

 

[amirm]

Wild west seems a bit exaggerated. You really think engineers dont think about the room? Maybe in basement studios. 30 years ago I started working in a studio that had Meyers in all the edit suits (HD-1s) and large Meyers in the mix rooms. Every speaker they sold had a tech from Meyer come in and EQ the room they were in with there own hardware EQ.

Oh, they absolutely "think about the room." Problem is they farm out the work to an acoustician that is following old school strategies that are simply not backed by modern science. Look at the work that Keith Yates did for us in those CFD simulations and compare it to credentials and tools that Pro acousticians deploy. It is night and day.

Ultimately though, if they had done a great job here, we wouldn't have the problem we have. Or see reports like that Genelec with all the variabilities. And they would proudly talk about the response of their rooms.

Instead what permeates is "I know what I am doing, how dare you question me. Here are all the albums I have produced." I know because that is how the last discussion went that I had on GS forum. In a discussion of lossy audio for example, the engineer had zero knowledge of the technology and just made up stuff about what AAC compression did (and in an interview no less). No amount of explaining the reality of that coming from someone who spent a decade managing development of the same (me), would register with him. Somehow they think ability to produce music gives them true knowledge of audio science and engineering by osmoses.

And oh, this notion of "how it translates" was constantly used to justify using whatever monitors they had with claims that using Genelecs won't do it.

To top it off, one of them registered on a throw-away mail service and sent me a death threat in email claiming because I talked about Genelec, he is going to come over and go after my wife and I in gory detail. He said some things that made it easy to identify who he was on GS forum which turned out to be a very senior member and in that argument with me. Here is a bit of what he wrote:

So please excuse me if I don't much weight about industry claims of knowing what they are doing.

 

[Blumlein 88]

This has been a busy thread, but I've wanted to post something about being familiar with a speaker and being able to compensate. Does it happen, can mixers do it? Yes, somewhat. Can they do it with much precision? No, not in my experience. So resisting some basic standards and using poor speakers does not make much sense.

One example of a local studio. The guy uses some pretty capable monitors. He EQ's them in a very rolled off manor. Told me he listens to music all day and has to hear it loud to get details right so this protects his hearing. He's done it this way for 20 years and can compensate so it is not a problem. When you hear his playback it sounds like the tweeter has blown and is silent and maybe even the midrange isn't going full strength. What do his mixes have in common? They are bright, quite bright usually.

Human hearing is amazing in some ways and not so precise or repeatable in others. Making your hearing work harder to compensate for such bad response is just over-whelming what hearing and brain processing can do. Why make it harder rather than easier? Use some basically good speakers. Do a bit of filtering to highlight this or that portion when needed. Yes I know you will need to do this with dense mixes.

Don't use poorly designed speakers. There is so much just base level illogical and unreasonable about it the resistance to continue it is amazing. Plus more than ever some basically honest monitors are available for not much money. The idea meeting some basic criteria is going to be costly simply does not hold water. From the reaction I suppose lots of veterans have done it this way, and been positively reinforced with the results so they don't realize how biased they are to continue when it just plain makes no sense. I don't know if it ever did, but in these times it does not. There is more variability in playback quality than ever. Earbuds, to fine phones, cheap crappy speakers, smartphones, laptops and superb large speakers better than ever. The idea using a borked speaker or two greatly improves the mix is ludicrous.

 

[Doodski]

Oh, they absolutely "think about the room." Problem is they farm out the work to an acoustician that is following old school strategies that are simply not backed by modern science. Look at the work that Keith Yates did for us in those CFD simulations and compare it to credentials and tools that Pro acousticians deploy. It is night and day.

Ultimately though, if they had done a great job here, we wouldn't have the problem we have. Or see reports like that Genelec with all the variabilities. And they would proudly talk about the response of their rooms.

Instead what permeates is "I know what I am doing, how dare you question me. Here are all the albums I have produced." I know because that is how the last discussion went that I had on GS forum. In a discussion of lossy audio for example, the engineer had zero knowledge of the technology and just made up stuff about what AAC compression did (and in an interview no less). No amount of explaining the reality of that coming from someone who spent a decade managing development of the same (me), would register with him. Somehow they think ability to produce music gives them true knowledge of audio science and engineering by osmoses.

And oh, this notion of "how it translates" was constantly used to justify using whatever monitors they had with claims that using Genelecs won't do it.

To top it off, one of them registered on a throw-away mail service and sent me a death threat in email claiming because I talked about Genelec, he is going to come over and go after my wife and I in gory detail. He said some things that made it easy to identify who he was on GS forum which turned out to be a very senior member and in that argument with me. Here is a bit of what he wrote:
View attachment 305637

So please excuse me if I don't much weight about industry claims of knowing what they are doing.

That's horrible @amirm. Some low life sending you his diatribe. I hope you sent the details along to the coppers.

 

[Ported]

Oh, they absolutely "think about the room." Problem is they farm out the work to an acoustician that is following old school strategies that are simply not backed by modern science. Look at the work that Keith Yates did for us in those CFD simulations and compare it to credentials and tools that Pro acousticians deploy. It is night and day.

Ultimately though, if they had done a great job here, we wouldn't have the problem we have. Or see reports like that Genelec with all the variabilities. And they would proudly talk about the response of their rooms.

Instead what permeates is "I know what I am doing, how dare you question me. Here are all the albums I have produced." I know because that is how the last discussion went that I had on GS forum. In a discussion of lossy audio for example, the engineer had zero knowledge of the technology and just made up stuff about what AAC compression did (and in an interview no less). No amount of explaining the reality of that coming from someone who spent a decade managing development of the same (me), would register with him. Somehow they think ability to produce music gives them true knowledge of audio science and engineering by osmoses.

And oh, this notion of "how it translates" was constantly used to justify using whatever monitors they had with claims that using Genelecs won't do it.

To top it off, one of them registered on a throw-away mail service and sent me a death threat in email claiming because I talked about Genelec, he is going to come over and go after my wife and I in gory detail. He said some things that made it easy to identify who he was on GS forum which turned out to be a very senior member and in that argument with me. Here is a bit of what he wrote:
View attachment 305637

So please excuse me if I don't much weight about industry claims of knowing what they are doing.

That is appalling.. Amirm

I know it's been covered many timed before but of all the recordings I have made the LP master is the one sounding furthest from the day of the mix! I'm not sure it's a push for fidelity.. just a market opportunity.

 

[maverickronin]

To top it off, one of them registered on a throw-away mail service and sent me a death threat in email claiming because I talked about Genelec, he is going to come over and go after my wife and I in gory detail. He said some things that made it easy to identify who he was on GS forum which turned out to be a very senior member and in that argument with me. Here is a bit of what he wrote:

So please excuse me if I don't much weight about industry claims of knowing what they are doing.

That's nuts...

He's acting like Genelec killed his family first.

 

[Deleted member 21219]

View attachment 305637

So please excuse me if I don't much weight about industry claims of knowing what they are doing.

Ouch!

Some people are just rabidly and unreasonably opposed to change ..... that's all there is to it. It's an emotional reaction.

When they come out with crap like that, you know for sure that logic won't have any effect on them.

Jim

 

[goat76]

Ultimately though, if they had done a great job here, we wouldn't have the problem we have. Or see reports like that Genelec with all the variabilities. And they would proudly talk about the response of their rooms.

Personally, I think the majority of mixes sound fine, they may follow certain recipes depending on mixing trends for particular genres, and I may find a certain mix more appealing than another, but that got more to do with my subjective view on the matter.

Can you give a few examples of songs you find the mixing engineers did a lousy job on?

 

[GabrielBurger]

its what hit those certain tones back when 'that' type of music being made... like the beatles and shit, SIGH.

and those producers still living or working from that era have a reference AND re-reference if you get my drift to those times, so they can actually reference what the truest and best signal is.

i DONT use them.

 

[lowkeyoperations]

Isn’t it about time we hear what your concept for “the standard” is.

“The industry is broken, a standard will fix it” needs a bit more detail for people to get on boards.

Is it a speaker and room measurement in place?

 

[GabrielBurger]

whatever you prefer really,

but if you're talking about accuracy and keeping to it,

then you know the flat line from 0 to 20khz

thats the current standard basically

however you get there, whether it be pure dsp or just analog + room treatments, or a hybrid of both...

whatever brand 'studio monitor'/speaker you use, although preferably studio monitors because theres an agreed upon standard.. that is... the flat line.

mainly use it on bass and midrange, treble dsp gets more finicky the higher up you go.. your head movement becomes more constrained

my home set up is currently 8030b (with analog volume dial on front) to onboard pc audio via some cable

well we can get into the home speaker segment again at apple but market segments and all that preclude us from intruding into say... genelec's sector

 

[GabrielBurger]

these days your home speakers 1000% should be using DSP to adjust the bass and midrange frequencies to a flat tone, or a slightly bumped bass tone.

 

[Doodski]

these days your home speakers 1000% should be using DSP to adjust the bass and midrange frequencies to a flat tone, or a slightly bumped bass tone.

As is being done here almost daily.>

EQ Software for Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS/iPadOS and Android.

Any suggestions are welcome. Post suggestions here. I will gather the details and add them. Thanks. :D This will be organized as results come in. @sweetchaos made a guide for PEQ filter data input and operation. For crossover software go here. Windows: AutoEQ four easy steps to make your...

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