Best 'hi-fi' audiophile bookshelf type speaker to pull mixing/mastering duties in a studio?

[TheHighContemplator]

Spent all day yesterday just getting everything setup right in the room and doing measurements. Today I just started really getting to listen. All I can say is WOW! They are different enough in tamber to definitely warrant using as an A/B pair in a mixing/mastering scenario. The imaging and clarity of both is beautiful. The smoothness of the frequency response of both is spooky good.

Awesome! I just read the entire thread. Looking forward to your impressions. If you're a fan of any Pink Floyd songs, I'd love to hear how the identical song compares on both speakers, as I'm most familiar with their music. Practically everything I listen to is Bach or Beethoven, which isn't everyone's cup of tea.

 

[TNT]

Spent all day yesterday just getting everything setup right in the room and doing measurements. Today I just started really getting to listen. All I can say is WOW! They are different enough in tamber to definitely warrant using as an A/B pair in a mixing/mastering scenario. The imaging and clarity of both is beautiful. The smoothness of the frequency response of both is spooky good.

What is "tamber"?

//

 

[Frank Dernie]

What is "tamber"?

//

Probably a phonetic spelling of timbre is my guess.

 

[Chrise36]

Spent all day yesterday just getting everything setup right in the room and doing measurements. Today I just started really getting to listen. All I can say is WOW! They are different enough in tamber to definitely warrant using as an A/B pair in a mixing/mastering scenario. The imaging and clarity of both is beautiful. The smoothness of the frequency response of both is spooky good.

What about the midrange?

 

[ferrellms]

As the title suggests, I am looking for recommendations from all the speaker nuts on what they think would make the best mixing/mastering passive speaker for a recording studio? Things I am looking for are a '3D-like' holographic presentation. Something that is extremely flat and very transparent that has phenomenal separation and definition. I don't want a speaker that will lie to you about what is going on in the music. I am very much into the wicked phantom center effect that you can get from speakers like Amphion and Genelec The Ones. I am also looking for a very fast speaker with super low distortion.

So to sum it up; I am looking for a passive bookshelf size (think a maximum of 10" wide) speaker that is all about the details of the music. Budget = $3000-$6000 (I already have a Bryston 4B3 amp). Of course I am also open to regular active 'studio monitor' suggestions, but I would prefer to go the 'hi-fi' route as there are many more options.

Thanks in advance!

Forget Genelecs. They are not passive. Check out SoundOnSound magazine. The magazine is for pro/semipro audio engineers. They review tons of monitors and are always up to date with the latest gear. The reviews are are almost always positive (don't offend those advertisers!), but pretty reliable if you read between the lines.

 

[madchillunited]

And here we are...

View attachment 90036

Hi that looks amazing!

what sub config are you using atm?

 

[LuminousMoth]

Spent all day yesterday just getting everything setup right in the room and doing measurements. Today I just started really getting to listen. All I can say is WOW! They are different enough in tamber to definitely warrant using as an A/B pair in a mixing/mastering scenario. The imaging and clarity of both is beautiful. The smoothness of the frequency response of both is spooky good.

Any updates on this now that's you had them for a while? Do you still have both? Do you prefer one over the other?

 

[NiagaraPete]

I guess I should have mentioned that I already have a new Bryston 4B3 amp.

You did already. Awesome amp but in my opinion put it aside and go for Genelec or Neumann.

 

[DevinCortno]

What about Dynaudio? They don’t seem to get much love.

I find most of their new monitors (LYD and Core) have terrible hissssssss that would be annoying in the nearfield. It's so loud I could hear it over noise floor of a retail store... so, very bad.

LYDs have very pleasing tonality though, but I'm not sure about them as serious studio tools. The bigger the speaker gets, the less linear the response.. so the 5 is the best in that range and it drops off as the size goes up. The 8 especially, not good. The 7 is not bad but leans hi-fi and less studio tool. 48 is very intriguing at that price, 3 way where everything else is 2 way, but I still haven't heard a pair