It’s just a work tool. Sometimes I use a circular saw, sometimes I used a band saw, sometimes I used a router, sometimes I use a table saw. Sometimes I can’t be bothered and just use a hacksaw or small branch pruner(!).
Whether I make better or award winning furniture or crappy furniture than you may have nothing to do with what I’m using.
Maybe I just have more patience or experience or skill (or less) than you. Or a moment of inspiration? Or elbow grease?
Or it came to me in dream or a vision?
You don’t need a Mont Blanc to write Purlitzer Prize winning novel. And although some swear by their typewriter or MacBook they are neither necessary or sufficient.
The analogy in song writing or production that the kids who think they need a ProTools or Logic Pro setup and the latest “state of the art” monitor like the KH150 to write; just like their favourite musician/producer.
Give the guy a break…
I don't know if I already replied to this but I'm reading it differently right now. What I'm hearing you say is that it's the craftsperson's skill, not the particular tool. Mostly I agree: some jobs do require specialized tools and, in the details of the work, you may see differences in the end.
But why I'm here is because Harman said, "Speaker preference is not what you think and here's why." What I want is to snap my fingers, not even that really because less effort would be better, and have someone do that same research into 'translation'. Similar to how Harman's 'trained listeners' had more consistently identified and preferred the kinds of speakers you see rated highly via that score today, I wonder if there could ever be a 'translation score' for speakers that, with a large sample size, produce subjectively better mixes. 'Trained mixers' will probably perform better on and be able to identify such speakers just as 'trained listeners' could identify speakers they simply enjoyed listening to. I would say the score should obviously be the same but I find disagreement that 'flat speakers' are best to mix on.
Why do mixers disagree with Harman?
Maybe these people have hearing damage. For sure, Mr. Toole said, "If your hearing is even minimally damaged, your ability to discern the quality of the loudspeaker is diminished." I believe he said this in his video interview with Erin's Audio Corner. Hearing damage is conceivably the norm in pro audio. This could explain why some mixers don't think they can mix on flat speakers: they can't hear right and need compensation. Let's call this the "The ATC SCM25A is a $4k Hearing Aid" hypothesis.
Or, perhaps, some of the Harman data does not apply to nearfield. Some of Amir's posted measurements don't, or at least do less. Amir sometimes calls for absorbing or preserving specific sets of early reflections; "preserve sides, absorb ceiling" etc. The corollary is that indiscriminately removing all of them will alter the tonality of the speaker. Ideally, a pro audio room has not been "indiscriminately" treated but may have been designed independently of the current loudspeaker that lives there. In any case, nearfield is different than far field so that can poke holes in the applicability. This isn't a new idea here, I've read it on this site many times. This means that the pro mixers who think Spinorama is garbage could be simply not accounting for the change in use case. We can map this discrepancy to any of the Spinorama data points as to why they don't apply to nearfield mixing - not just enjoyment. This we can call the "Speakers 2 Close 2 Spin" hypothesis.
I'm feeling tired of typing and forgot the original point. Oh, right: tools vs skill. No doubt but they might not cancel each other out as in the oversimplifying statement, "It's your ears not the gear." Andrew Scheps, who I can specifically recall saying this in one of his
videos with Fab DuPont, then goes on to say he listens back on his Tannoys after mixing in headphones. Now that I review the video, he talks a lot about getting your monitoring situation into something that works no matter how many or few monitors it takes. That's not the video where he says "ears not gear" but no matter. Fab does say that some control rooms have their mains EQed to match certain mixing engineers by which Scheps seems appalled. Also he talks about the "midrange push" which I assume to mean in pro monitors and how, without it, a speaker sounds "bright". That could be a clue into my quest for a 'translation' score. In fairness, Scheps has some unique perspectives on room acoustics and speakers that I haven't heard anyone else express so maybe he's not the best example for this kind of thing. He does make good mixes though.
Let's just agree on a middle point of gear matters a little but it doesn't do much all by itself.
Hell, NO!
