B&W 804 D4 review and measurements by Stereophile

[thewas]

has the best gear, room treatment and professional aid. but he still can't match 2 rooms in his studio. he blames the tweeters btw. the monitors are diferent. not sure he is right

He should have kept his Genelecs, then he possibly wouldn't have these problems https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ike-to-see-reviewed.10943/page-25#post-359319

 

[dasdoing]

He should have kept his Genelecs, then he possibly wouldn't have these problems https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ike-to-see-reviewed.10943/page-25#post-359319

he has the Kii 3 in the other room. here is the topic https://www.facebook.com/bobkatz24b...7AxRdRSB8ZLbW6BKPX94vCnGHAzfKLaxVKiJGVvEnZMXl

 

[dasdoing]

personaly I stay firm to my hyposteses that targets on smoothed graphs make no sense. two equal smoothed FRs can't sound the same in diferent rooms

 

[thewas]

Of course they won't, even two loudspeakers with different directivites will always sound different, even in the same room.

 

[dasdoing]

Of course they won't, even 2 loudspeakers with different directivites will always sound different even in the same room.

directivity would need to be standardized, too

 

[dasdoing]

also the distance.
and so many other things lol. It really is a very dificult task to norm this

 

[mikelevitt]

I think there is a common misunderstanding about the purpose of control rooms in recording studios. I was recently in the control room at Abbey Road Studio 1. The B&Ws in there(800 D3) sound fine, they get the job done. They're certainly not amazing, and the room itself is a bit too dead to really sound good for stereo anyways. That probably helps the speakers since off-axis response doesn't matter as much. The seating positions of the various people working on the recording are all over the place. The room is not optimized for great sound either, as stated by the senior recording engineer on duty at the time. Not my opinion. The large glass window causes undesirable reflections and the large console causes bass issues.

During the process of recording, they're not EQing the sound or adjusting microphones based on what comes out of those speakers. They're for monitoring the music that is being recorded -- what typically gets adjusted is the musicians playing the music.

The place where the sound of the final output is decided is the mixing/mastering studios. Some of those(especially classical ones) do still use B&Ws, but many do not. And in general, most competent studios are going to check music on several different models of speaker before finalizing it, not just 1.

This is astonishingly wrong. The studio 1 control room is used for tracking (groups/orchestras), overdubs, and mixing. It's huge, and therefore usually chosen for film scoring, choirs, orchestral sessions, or other things that require a huge room. There are dozens of different preamps, compressors, reverb units, equalizers, and of course the console - which has EQ on each channel. There's no way to know exactly, but my guess would be that during tracking, at least half the mics will have EQ applied before going to "tape" (protools). I would guess that 90% of vocals, basses, drum overheads, horns, pianos have some form of compression applied. That's after the engineer chooses the mic and which preamp to use (or the console channel) and positions it.

Listening is absolutely critical at this stage. Having a speaker that you know and trust is critical. Which is why the most popular speaker in the history of recording is the Yamaha NS-10. The first run had a very pronounced high end, which is why Bob Clearmountain (who essentially popularized them) taped tissue over the tweeter. Subsequent versions had the highs toned down a bit. Why are they so popular? Because they reveal the mids like nothing else and their time alignment is superior. They TRANSLATE. And they sound UGLY. A lot of people say that if you can make a mix sound good on NS10s, it will sound good on anything. Here's a great article on why engineers still use them even though they have been discontinued for a few decades now. https://www.hificritic.com/uploads/...-yamaha_ns10_phenomenon_phil_ward-feature.pdf

Back to Abbey Road. They list 6 NS-10s on the equipment list for Studio 1, in addition to the B&Ws. And it's common for engineers to bring their own preferred nearfields and amplification if they like. Completely normal for a studio to accommodate this. No control room is perfect, but there is a lot of money spent getting it as perfect as possible. The console does not cause bass issues. Bass issues come from the shape of the room, and are controlled with traps and absorbers. Assume that the Abbey Road control room is pretty much flat everywhere. The problem with the console is early reflections and comb filtering off the slab of the control surface, which they really can't do anything about. If the window was a real problem they would get rid of it.

Most engineers that I've known track at low volume on nearfield speakers, then occasionally turn on the "big speakers" to check the bass, and see how things sound loud. Probably 90% of the time is spent on the nearfields.

Just to give another example, Blackbird studio A has ATC300s as the big speakers, with NX10s and Genelecs on the meter bridge. Most of them time the engineer will use the nearfields supplied or something they bring.

That's the reality.

 

[Tangband]

This is astonishingly wrong. The studio 1 control room is used for tracking (groups/orchestras), overdubs, and mixing. It's huge, and therefore usually chosen for film scoring, choirs, orchestral sessions, or other things that require a huge room. There are dozens of different preamps, compressors, reverb units, equalizers, and of course the console - which has EQ on each channel. There's no way to know exactly, but my guess would be that during tracking, at least half the mics will have EQ applied before going to "tape" (protools). I would guess that 90% of vocals, basses, drum overheads, horns, pianos have some form of compression applied. That's after the engineer chooses the mic and which preamp to use (or the console channel) and positions it.

Listening is absolutely critical at this stage. Having a speaker that you know and trust is critical. Which is why the most popular speaker in the history of recording is the Yamaha NS-10. The first run had a very pronounced high end, which is why Bob Clearmountain (who essentially popularized them) taped tissue over the tweeter. Subsequent versions had the highs toned down a bit. Why are they so popular? Because they reveal the mids like nothing else and their time alignment is superior. They TRANSLATE. And they sound UGLY. A lot of people say that if you can make a mix sound good on NS10s, it will sound good on anything. Here's a great article on why engineers still use them even though they have been discontinued for a few decades now. https://www.hificritic.com/uploads/...-yamaha_ns10_phenomenon_phil_ward-feature.pdf

Back to Abbey Road. They list 6 NS-10s on the equipment list for Studio 1, in addition to the B&Ws. And it's common for engineers to bring their own preferred nearfields and amplification if they like. Completely normal for a studio to accommodate this. No control room is perfect, but there is a lot of money spent getting it as perfect as possible. The console does not cause bass issues. Bass issues come from the shape of the room, and are controlled with traps and absorbers. Assume that the Abbey Road control room is pretty much flat everywhere. The problem with the console is early reflections and comb filtering off the slab of the control surface, which they really can't do anything about. If the window was a real problem they would get rid of it.

Most engineers that I've known track at low volume on nearfield speakers, then occasionally turn on the "big speakers" to check the bass, and see how things sound loud. Probably 90% of the time is spent on the nearfields.

Just to give another example, Blackbird studio A has ATC300s as the big speakers, with NX10s and Genelecs on the meter bridge. Most of them time the engineer will use the nearfields supplied or something they bring.

That's the reality.

For me, when I hear that Yamaha ns10 still are used as mixing speakers , - thats proof enough that ” the circle of confusion” is very real.

You are absolutely right though, that compression and eq and other effects are standard in most modern music productions, even before the mixing and mastering is done . Unfortunately this is sometimes done also when recording classical music .

Personally, doing only recordings with 2 good omni mics and classical music in smaller groups and Church organs , I try to avoid the whole mixing process*, no eq or compression applied , just one manipulation or two and thats normalisation to -1 dB and sometimes downsampling from the original 96 KHz to 44,1 KHz . My recordings have true stereo information down to 10 Hz , and the mics are flat within 1 dB from 20-20000 Hz .
This takes time to find the exact balance of critical distanse in the concert hall, but the result can be very good sounding .

*In this way , I avoid any bias from mixing monitors.

 

[sarumbear]

For me, when I hear that Yamaha ns10 still are used as mixing speakers , - thats proof enough that ” the circle of confusion” is very real.

They are used to check how the mix sounds on non-Hi-Fi settings. Their sound is so known among the artists and engineers that they are used as a least common denominator case. Nobody mixes only on them!

 

[mikelevitt]

They are used to check how the mix sounds on non-Hi-Fi settings. Their sound is so known among the artists and engineers that they are used as a least common denominator case. Nobody mixes only on them!

Exactly. They are a known reference, with outstanding time alignment, and revealing midrange. And they are everywhere. You would have a hard time finding a professional studio anywhere in the world without them. They are not the only speakers used.