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

[lowkeyoperations]

Currently, It seems to me that you are fighting tooth and nail not to tell us what the standard would include.

Either there’s a concept or not. Which is it?

 

[amirm]

This is starting to feel like a personal vendetta against engineers. And now acousticians. Im very sorry one person got so angry but when you slam an entire industry from the outside what do you expect. There are as many engineers that know as much or more about audio than you. There the ones you dont notice cause they agree with most of what you say and don't post.

I have no vendetta against anyone. It is one thing you can take to bank from me is that no matter how miserable you, even if you make death threats and such, I will stay calm and stick to reason and logic. To be clear, I have gotten death threats from others as well.

I have spent a lifetime in technology world were standards are critical to many aspects of what we do. And so is excellence in engineering and science. Did you know that the Blu-ray format originally only supported an obsolete video codec called MPEG-2? They wanted that because the core members made huge royalties from that and it was the bitstream they wanted to record in Japan (broadcast). It took my team and our technology for 2+ years battling some of the largest companies out there to accept advanced new video codecs like VC-1 and H.264 (and now H.265). This happened by us winning blind tests of video codecs and using every bit of our negotiation power to make the change happen. We also forced the cost of these new codecs to be a fraction of MPEG-2 and with it, sharply reduce the royalty burden of AV products. In other words, I am not afraid of pushing for change no matter how unpopular or political it is. If it is right, it is right.

I also have made no claim of knowing more than everyone else in audio. I have said, and will defend it with ease, that as a rule, audio research or even measurements are not something that part and parcel of being a "pro" whereas it is now even among enthusiasts here. Look at who has been quoting research. Is it me or the others fighting standards that benefit the customer? Can you point to even one paper that a study was done to find out what makes a "good translation" vs "bad?" Can you point to a single research paper that NS-10m made a proper contribution instead of the opposite? Where is the frequency response of all of these studios? Shouldn't that be part of their resume and be front and center on their website?

I have had many Pros as customers of technologies developed in my teams. I don't poke them without thinking through of them feeling bad. Fortunately now I am retired and I can freely state what I think needs to be done. And bring strong back up in the form of luminaries that have repeated said the same thing. I mean google for Circle of Confusion. You will get massive list of hits.

As to acousticians, it is just a fact that many do things that are against audio science as we know it. Their beliefs are accepted with impunity especially in Pro world because it is mandatory for them to "treat" their rooms as to look like a studio. Spend a few minutes with Dr. Toole and you will see him stressed out over what they do as much you see from me. We have to do our part to right this ship and get the proper information out. Until then, I will be damned if I am going to back off just because it hurts people's feelings. As I said, I am retired and have the freedom to state what needs to be done.

 

[amirm]

Currently, It seems to me that you are fighting tooth and nail not to tell us what the standard would include.

I have put up no such fight. It takes an investment in time to explain it here and I want to make sure before we do that, that we are past the phase of, "all is well, only 1% of the content is broken; who cares about this other than the few of you." Are you done with these excuses and are on board that we have no ability to translate the sound from one room to another whether it is a studio or consumer's home? Cause if you are not, then you won't understand the solution either.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Because anyone would understand that in the studio, not all tasks are about adjusting the frequency.

No way would I master on NS10s.
But compiling vocals, yes.

But why? Why use a poor device. What about a crappy speaker enhances mixing of vocals vs a pretty good speaker and some basic filtering to highlight the area of concern with vocals? The ideas about transient response and time domain don't hold any water in this case if that is still what you have in mind.

 

[PeteL]

The Hifi Industry and the Recording industry are two sides of the same coin. The recording industry will rejoice if the consumer space trends was steering to better systems. They do wish that a larger percentage of the population could benefit from better systems and would get the full listening experience. They do believe in research on better audio reproduction and are advocating it. All this "my Industry is better than your industry" is, sorry, childish and not helping anything, quite the contrary. It's all the same Industry and they feed on each other. Yes More research are paid for by the equipment manufactures. Of course They sell equipment and they are the one that benefit financially the most from customers buying better equipment. But still, AES is deeply rooted in the professional circles, not the consumers one. Why the heck would Toole would publish is work there if no one cared what he talks about?

 

[lowkeyoperations]

I have put up to no such fight. It takes an investment in time to explain it here and I want to make sure before we do that, that we are past the phase of, "all is well, only 1% of the content is broken; who cares about this other than the few of you." Are you done with these excuses and are on board that we have no ability to translate the sound from one room to another whether it is a studio or consumer's home? Cause if you are not, then you won't understand the solution either.

There are methods used to improve translation of sound from one room to another. You don’t agree with those methods.

You have proposed that an imaginary standard that cannot be disclosed to anyone is a better alternative.

They are empty words until you come up with a semblance of content.

 

[amirm]

There are methods used to improve translation of sound from one room to another. You don’t agree with those methods.

You have provided no evidence of such. Do you have even one study that shows this? What did you improve upon? What was the baseline? How was that verified? Across how much content and how many listeners?

But you see we are back to denial. You think you don't have a problem.

 

[lowkeyoperations]

You have provided no evidence of such. Do you have even one study that shows this? What did you improve upon? What was the baseline? How was that verified? Across how much content and how many listeners?

But you see we are back to denial. You think you don't have a problem.

What I said is 100% true.

1. There are methods used to mitigate those issues.

2. For you, those methods are not backed up by the studies you require. For you these methods are invalid.

Speaking of no such evidence, now it appears that you require people to believe that your new standard will mitigate the issues that are not being addressed adequately, before you will even disclose what the new standard might include.

somehow we all have to adopt a standards that is so effective that no one can know what it is!

 

[amirm]

You have proposed that an imaginary standard that cannot be disclosed to anyone is a better alternative.

I have proposed no standard. I have proposed the need for one just like SMPTE has done by tacitly acknowledging that X-curve is/was a bad idea as a target for compliance.

Remember, it is the job of your industry to discover its problems and propose solutions. Instead, you not only want us to stipulate the problem and now the solution. Dou not care to contribute to anything?

 

[amirm]

What I said is 100% true.

1. There are methods used to mitigate those issues.

No, they are 13% true. Prove me wrong.

 

[lowkeyoperations]

No, they are 13% true. Prove me wrong.

1. The methods used include room treatment, room correction (Trinnov), multiple speakers as different points of reference (nearfield, midfield, farfield, including from Genelec and Neumann, two companies that develop specifically for that purpose). Beyond that there are multiple sound checks on other speakers in various places. These methods all actually exist. If you had stepped into a mixing studio you would know they are there.

2. You don’t believe that is adequate.

Which one of those two points is not correct?

 

[lowkeyoperations]

I have proposed no standard. I have proposed the need for one just like SMPTE has done by tacitly acknowledging that X-curve is/was a bad idea as a target for compliance.

Remember, it is the job of your industry to discover its problems and propose solutions. Instead, you not only want us to stipulate the problem and now the solution. Dou not care to contribute to anything?

I put forward some specific suggestions a few pages ago. Dead air from you about them.

So now it’s up to us to guess what would make you satisfied?

 

[amirm]

1. The methods used include room treatment, room correction, multiple speakers as different points of reference, including from Genelec and Neumann, two companies that develop specifically for that purpose. Beyond that there are multiple sound checks on other speakers in various places. These methods all actually exist. I’m not making them up. If you had stepped into a mixing studio you would know.

2. You don’t believe that is adequate.

Which one of those two points have I misunderstood?

Those and $5 will get you a cup of coffee. You can't just declare stuff like this especially when I have post research that shows these rooms wildly differ in lower frequencies:

And that is if you all used Genelec which is not remotely the case. Many different speakers are used with differing response. And let's not talk about acoustics.

Besides, how would I know if you did all of that or none of that in some music I am playing? Is there something in the metadata that tells me that?

 

[amirm]

I put forward some specific suggestions a few pages ago. Dead air from you about them.

So now it’s up to us to guess what would make you satisfied?

Once more, you are still fighting the notion that there is something broken. If nothing is broken, what have you proposed then? Solution to nothing?

 

[lowkeyoperations]

Those and $5 will get you a cup of coffee. You can't just declare stuff like this especially when I have post research that shows these rooms wildly differ in lower frequencies:

And that is if you all used Genelec which is not remotely the case. Many different speakers are used with differing response. And let's not talk about acoustics.

Besides, how would I know if you did all of that or none of that in some music I am playing? Is there something in the metadata that tells me that?

Ok, So you are confirming that:-

2. You don’t believe the current method is adequate?

 

[lowkeyoperations]

Once more, you are still fighting the notion that there is something broken. If nothing is broken, what have you proposed then? Solution to nothing?

No, I’m asking you for detail beyond “a standard will fix everything”

 

[amirm]

Ok, So you are confirming that:-

2. You don’t believe the current method is adequate?

Are you kidding? You have no "method." It is a free for all with people doing whatever they want. It is absurd that you position it as if something real exists even if imperfect.

A methodology implies rigor, documentation, testing for efficacy, etc. You have zero, let me repeat, zero methodology. You are confusing some commonality among the people that say, use Genelec speakers. But even that stops there.

 

[amirm]

No, I’m asking you for detail beyond “a standard will fix everything”

Oh, the standard won't fix "everything." But it will get us far ahead of where we are now. And that is a low bar because essentially nothing is being done now.

 

[lowkeyoperations]

Oh, the standard won't fix "everything." But it will get us far ahead of where we are now. And that is a low bar because essentially nothing is being done now.

Are you kidding? You have no "method." It is a free for all with people doing whatever they want. It is absurd that you position it as if something real exists even if imperfect.

A methodology implies rigor, documentation, testing for efficacy, etc. You have zero, let me repeat, zero methodology. You are confusing some commonality among the people that say, use Genelec speakers. But even that stops there.

Listening to multiple pairs of speakers in a treated room with trinnov provides zero benefits to listening to only one in a lounge room with no treatment or room correction.

Ok then. Now who is kidding?

As I said. There are methods being used. They are not acceptable to you.

But you won’t give an indication of what standards are acceptable to you.

Shall we just guess??

 

[Deleted member 21219]

There are methods used to improve translation of sound from one room to another. You don’t agree with those methods.

You have proposed that an imaginary standard that cannot be disclosed to anyone is a better alternative.

They are empty words until you come up with a semblance of content.

There has been development of many standards for professionals in audio. The AES has a Standards Committee. https://www.aes.org/standards/ If you look down the page on the left-hand side, you'll see a link marked "AES Standards development." https://www.aes.org/standards/development/
If you click on that link, it takes you to a page that describes the development process as well as who is involved (basically anyone who applies).
About half-way down that page is a link called, "AES Standards, new projects", which leads you to this page: https://www.aes.org/standards/meetings/new-projects.cfm

As for the history of these standards, this page https://www.aes.org/standards/about/ tells you just about everything you need to know. The standards are promulgated by AESSC working groups ..... which are open to, and I quote, " ... any and all."

So no single entity forces their views on everyone. Instead, working groups take input from all (even you guys and us guys) and AFTER A PERIOD OF TIME issue standards.

You can see near the bottom of the page that there are four fields that are the subject of study by the 11 working groups. One of them is "Acoustics: Sound systems, loudspeakers, microphones, and acoustic annoyance." (Bolded by me.)

So no, @amirm has not proposed an "imaginary standard that cannot be disclosed". He has proposed a new standard that invites comment from anyone, and is a process that will go through committee, "probably" changing as it goes. The only "content" that Amir needs to come up with is his suggestions to the Working Group. The same applies to you, to me, and to all of us.

But you knew that, didn't you?

Jim Taylor