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Best Speakers (Studio Monitors) to Hear Reverb

Frgirard

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auraluxstudio

auraluxstudio

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This place is alive and your question is weird, very weird. Not dozens of answers in the hour, it's painful.


Any studio monitor in any price range do the job.
the keys: Room, listening distance, spl level and Bias.


I’ll take your insulting response that my question is weird as a compliment coming from you. Did your momma not hug you enough? Don’t be a dick! The internet is full of people like you.
 

darakon

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hi auralux,

I get your point / question.
I listened to many different speakers: studio monitors, hifi speakers, diy speakers in different rooms. in different distances. Produced music my self. By now only enjoy listening and building speakers.

I can only agree with you: One main difference about differnt speakers is the ability to reproduce transients and reverb tails (independent of room and distance).
The problem is: so far I have not found any parameter to measure this abilities.

A few hints to go in the right direction might be:
- wide and equal dispersion (like the ATC mid dome should deliver)
- a light membrane for mid range for maximum details (good for transient and reverb)
- as close as possible to a point source (for mids and hights)
- low IMD for better datail in midrange. so 3 way (or 2 way plus sub) is to prefer

Had good experience with KS digital speakers.

And surprisingly also with Harbeth Hifi speakers. Also they not match all the criteria above and are clearly more 'hifi' than studio sounding, but they have nice reverb tails. maybe more than there is on the recording.
 

NiagaraPete

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I think a lot of the answers above did answered your question, if you found genelec and neumann sounds dry and the vocals stopped without reverb, it likely means in the recording the reverb didn't exist, a speaker adding reverb into the mix when you try to mix based on that isn't a good idea for studio
I'd have to agree with this completely.
 

Robin L

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Maybe you missed the "Studio Monitors" part...? For mixing and mastering, you need to hear reverb tails, delays and other FX well.
In my personal experience, if I wanted to listen to reverb tails, I'd be using Stax earspeakers. Nothing else I've heard or used was so definitive about musical rests. When it comes to monitoring with speakers, the room seems to be the bigger issue.
 

darakon

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most neumann and genelec follow the target to have constant directivity, but not a wide dispersion, due to small baffles and waveguides.
Neumann and Genelecs are nice speakers, but actually more on the analytic and dry side.
If they reveal less or the right amount of reverb referring to the source, I can not say.
 
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auraluxstudio

auraluxstudio

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most neumann and genelec follow the target to have constant directivity, but not a wide dispersion, due to small baffles and waveguides.
Neumann and Genelecs are nice speakers, but actually more on the analytic and dry side.
If they reveal less or the right amount of reverb referring to the source, I can not say.
Best response yet. Dry is exactly how I describe them. Thanks!
 

sigbergaudio

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This is a bit of a counter intuitive subject. The less reverb you have in the room, the more of the reverb from the actual recording can be heard. @Duke's answer is pretty much on the money.

As we've been developing our cardioid speakers, the feeling of "more reverb" is actually one of the factors that are interestingly inherently different from a traditional speaker. Again due to the above. Instinctively you'd expect less reverb, but you get more. Less reflections activated in the room = easier to hear the reverb from the actual recording.

So something like the DutchDutch 8C (which is cardioid and have even off-axis respons) would probably be interesting for you to test.
 

YSC

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This is a bit of a counter intuitive subject. The less reverb you have in the room, the more of the reverb from the actual recording can be heard. @Duke's answer is pretty much on the money.

As we've been developing our cardioid speakers, the feeling of "more reverb" is actually one of the factors that are interestingly inherently different from a traditional speaker. Again due to the above. Instinctively you'd expect less reverb, but you get more. Less reflections activated in the room = easier to hear the reverb from the actual recording.

So something like the DutchDutch 8C (which is cardioid and have even off-axis respons) would probably be interesting for you to test.
Could be the cause, but I would really suggest the OP to try eq and boost the mids for a try if it magically turn the dry speaker to one with clear reverb. That’s how science do imo. If in same room you change a complete new speaker at same spot, you have a ton of variables so nothing really conclusive can be made, say if shelving the mids don’t have any effects then try say use the ATC and eq it to anechoic flat as the Genelecs and see if it suddenly gets dry, so one can know if it’s more likely the FR boost or the dispersion or cardioid speaker in effect
 

goat76

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Best response yet. Dry is exactly how I describe them. Thanks!
I do understand what you are talking about. Adding reverb to a recorded track is a really fine line between too much and too little, you need to trust what you hear and the reverb you add needs to translate to other speakers/systems without sounding over the top. Some speakers are just not good tools for this, I don't know why that is?

I don't think the word "dry" is the best way to describe it, and probably the reason people seem to misunderstand what you are trying to say. ATC speakers are often described as "dry" sounding speakers, they don't add anything that makes the sound "wet" by any means. You can trust what you hear and the sound translates well to other speakers in a fairly consistent way.

Save up and get the ATC's, you know they work the way you need them to work. :)
 

Da cynics

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Either "room reverberation and directional control" or "emphasis on specific frequency bands" is probably the correct answer. If none of these are correct, what is the logic behind the difference?
 

mightycicadalord

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All the speakers I tried with waveguides delivered a pretty poor sense of space and reverb that was too dry, so 8030,kh120, 20301a.

All the ones I have that don't have waveguides deliver a better sense of space, reverb sounds right to me, atc scm12, classix ii and amiga diy, and bagby mandolin.

Tried them all in different rooms and the effect was the same.

I'm a broken record at this point but I think waveguides hurt more than they help, I am prepared to die on this hill lol.
 

ernestcarl

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waveguides hurt more than they help

So you basically view waveguides as an error/grossly misused in audio reproduction? I can accept that as being your subjective opinion. However, it would be more useful to the rest of us if you could outline objective references to back that up.
 

sigbergaudio

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All the speakers I tried with waveguides delivered a pretty poor sense of space and reverb that was too dry, so 8030,kh120, 20301a.

All the ones I have that don't have waveguides deliver a better sense of space, reverb sounds right to me, atc scm12, classix ii and amiga diy, and bagby mandolin.

Tried them all in different rooms and the effect was the same.

I'm a broken record at this point but I think waveguides hurt more than they help, I am prepared to die on this hill lol.

I'm sorry to see you die on the hill, but we use coax drivers which are inherently waveguides, and the sense of space and reverb combined with imaging / stereo perspective is one of the strengths that are most often mentioned. So I don't think this is an inherent problem with waveguides.

You need consistent off-axis response for this to work properly, which is actually one of the strong points of a waveguide if done correctly. With a coax it's even easier of course, but even with a separate tweeter with a waveguide, one of the main benefits is matching directivity with the midrange driver.

I suspect your experience is due to other reasons than the waveguide.
 

dasdoing

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Less reflections activated in the room = easier to hear the reverb from the actual recording.

I don't find it counterintuitive, but just to underline this: I just moved up two floors in the same building. my listening room is basicly the same (ceiling a little lower though). my room in the 3rd floor had a lot of absorbtion, but since I am now starting from scratch I will take my time intrducing the absorbtion slowly. last two days I listened to my speakers in the bare room (after 10 years or so with treated rooms, 2 years in this building). The room actualy seams smaller without the treatment. and the ambience in the recording is strange...it is somehow like I am hearing into this virtual room from the outside. and yea, it is hard to tell what ambience I am hearing, my room, or the room in the recording
 

mightycicadalord

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I'm sorry to see you die on the hill, but we use coax drivers which are inherently waveguides, and the sense of space and reverb combined with imaging / stereo perspective is one of the strengths that are most often mentioned. So I don't think this is an inherent problem with waveguides.

You need consistent off-axis response for this to work properly, which is actually one of the strong points of a waveguide if done correctly. With a coax it's even easier of course, but even with a separate tweeter with a waveguide, one of the main benefits is matching directivity with the midrange driver.

I suspect your experience is due to other reasons than the waveguide.

Waveguides can offer a particular type of imaging, but I've never considered imaging as strength, they always make sacrifices there to my ears. Non-waveguided tweeters generally offer wider dispersion and one that narrows towards the top and the result is a more defined image that expands out beyond the speaker. For example the center image on my amiga's is very strong, you can't ignore it, while the 8030c effectively has no center for the most part.
 

BrokenEnglishGuy

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Waveguides can offer a particular type of imaging, but I've never considered imaging as strength, they always make sacrifices there to my ears. Non-waveguided tweeters generally offer wider dispersion and one that narrows towards the top and the result is a more defined image that expands out beyond the speaker. For example the center image on my amiga's is very strong, you can't ignore it, while the 8030c effectively has no center for the most part.
imho..
coax + good implementation of waveguide = perfect image
 
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auraluxstudio

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All the speakers I tried with waveguides delivered a pretty poor sense of space and reverb that was too dry, so 8030,kh120, 20301a.

All the ones I have that don't have waveguides deliver a better sense of space, reverb sounds right to me, atc scm12, classix ii and amiga diy, and bagby mandolin.

Tried them all in different rooms and the effect was the same.

I'm a broken record at this point but I think waveguides hurt more than they help, I am prepared to die on this hill lol.
We must hear the same way, cause I tend to agree with you.
 

YSC

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Waveguides can offer a particular type of imaging, but I've never considered imaging as strength, they always make sacrifices there to my ears. Non-waveguided tweeters generally offer wider dispersion and one that narrows towards the top and the result is a more defined image that expands out beyond the speaker. For example the center image on my amiga's is very strong, you can't ignore it, while the 8030c effectively has no center for the most part.
wonders how you setup your speakers... pointing towards your MLP? toe-in? coz back when I tried focals without waveguide and slight toe in in my own setup, compared to KEF X300A and the current 8030C the imaging was actually best for X300A->8030C->Focal Alpha 50.
 
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