Extremely important choice, can you help?

[Smaestro]

I had thought of this solution just five minutes ago, but I wouldn’t have known how to articulate it so well; thank you. My only doubt is: what should I use for test tones? A piano? A basic sine wave?

The basic sinewave is the only sound that has no harmonics, so it will give the purest result. All other sounds, like a piano, have higher harmonics, so it can become a bit difficult to tell what part of the piano's sound is more left or right. But all in all, you should not make extreme EQ curves, only gentle slopes, so therefore a piano can work too and is maybe easier to hear.

Do you know of a guide or link on how to do this? I already have an omnidirectional microphone, so I can consider this option. Is it really that much more beneficial than the other options?

Measuring your room and adjusting your damping materials, seating position, speaker position and speaker EQ is the best thing you can do as a producer / mix engineer. You make all decisions based on what you hear, so the more neutral your monitoring is, the better decisions you can make. It is also not hard easy to set up, the biggest part is getting the microphone.

Basically:

1. You install REW https://www.roomeqwizard.com/
2. Read the manual or this video
3. Do the test tones and measure with your mic
4. Change something

Knowing what to change isn't always straightforward but you show your measurement results and then ask on this forum or on the official REW forum www.avnirvana.com for more help.

Headphones are a little different in that aspect. On one hand it's easier (no room to deal with), but on the other hand it has issues with that everyones ear canals and head shape are a different size, which matters more, and you lose natural stereo cross-over and the feeling of bass in the body. So if you first optimise your speakers, then you have a solid foundation of what 'good sound' is. Then it's easier to tailor your headphones to that sound, if you want to.

 

[Paolino]

Thanks a lot man, I'm gathering more information about the speakers. Thanks really, I was about to do a poor choice.

The Yamaha HS3 and HS4 are pretty poor speakers with fundamental design flaws:

Yamaha HS3 리뷰 - Audio-re

2way ported, 77.7 Hz (-6dB)

audiore.kr

Yamaha HS4 리뷰 - Audio-re

2way ported, 77.7 Hz (-6dB)

audiore.kr

They're carried hard by word of mouth and brand recognition.

For 300-400€, one can get competent monitors. See here:

Thomann Aktive Nahfeldmonitore online günstig kaufen bei Thomann

Aktive Nahfeldmonitore + Zubehör online kaufen bei Europas größtem Musikhaus - Schneller Versand, 30 Tage Money-Back und 3 Jahre Thomann Garantie

www.thomann.de

For music production, I'd choose one of these over the HD650 any day.