Hi end professional studio monitors vs hi end "hi-fi" speakers

[Tryphon]

This list would be just as useless as a list of the most iconic photos and the camera used to take them. Or to make it more clear a list of the finest fiction books and the typewriter/pen used to write

Yes and no. On one end, listing gear used for "Kind of blue" (as an example of an album many people like) will be more archeology than practical information. But on the other hand we are in the middle of the "circle of confusion" as per Floyd Toole where as end user we rely on decision made using unnormed listening gear.
Btw; the analogy with photography (in the pre digital fine arts world) will be about the paper and masking done for the original print (see for example price gap between prints done by Edward Weston and the ones by his son Cole).

Because they can. High-end speakers with good amplification is a nice solution, but extremely expensive in terms "performance per dollar".

You are probably right in that. To take again the example of Galaxy studios, when you build a hall of a few hundred square meters and a few dozen of concrete tons on spring for isolation, high-end speaker are pocket money.

 

[DSJR]

Back in the 90's, when pro choices weren't really available at all to UK domestic consumers (I think it was big in-wall JBL and Tannoy models back then with a smattering of Westlake and so on), one chap I remember just went out and bought a pair of original issue (so more 'neutral') B&W 801's as so many CD's were mastered using these. At least the larger bass driver over typical domestic passive models back then would have given some more 'impact' and hearing a pair later on in a domestic environment, rather than a treated mastering room or large dem room full of speakers, I can see then at least good judgement - he loved them!

Today, with speakers at all price points performing better than ever, I feel the more open a window into the mastering session we can achieve (I don't think we can go back any further really), the better the music may sound. Recording and mastering engineers do seem to be able to hear through their preferred monitors well, so the boxes themselves need not be an impediment as we know from the rather good 1950's classic recordings.

 

[lowkeyoperations]

I have a question more or less related to the topic (and challenging the "professional" or "amateur" qualification of these two type of speaker) :
Why so many mastering studio use high-end hifi speakers as their monitors ? In particular the most regarded/wealthy/award winning ones.
To take just one example, just have a look at Galaxy studio. Mixing rooms are stuffed with big Genelec but the mastering suite have Eggleston Works speakers.
Does the professional members of the forum have some ideas on that ?

There are a few factors:-

Mixing and Mastering are quite different tasks. Firstly, mixing studios have traditionally been based on a mixing room that is visually connected to a performance room with a window. The mixing room has a huge mix console. This has meant that monitoring in mix rooms has often been a pair of nearfields placed on the meter bridge and a big pair of soffit mounted mains on each side of the window to the performance room. In this arrangement, the space for a decent pair of mid-far field monitors often does not exist.

Mastering has most often been done in rooms that dont require a huge mixing console as most of the time its only a small number of tracks being required. Many mastering rooms try to keep interference from the console and studio furniture to a minimum by removing those elements. The rooms arent connected to a performance room, so there is no restriction on how the monitors are to be placed. That opens up the possibility of mid-far field monitors.

For example B&W 802's or big Duntechs have been very popular in Mastering studios. Theres really no way those types of speakers could fit in a mixing studio.

Generally speaking, mixing rooms have also double as tracking rooms, where recording the band and mixing their songs has happened together. That's kind of the creative process and it's often got several people in the studio, including the band members...who want to hear what it sounds like LOUD, hence the soffit mounted mains.

Mastering tends not to have the whole band present. Possibly just the mastering engineer and maybe the producer. So a big expensive pair of soffit mounted mains isnt required [which are usually more expensive than even quite high end hifi speakers]. Also, Mastering engineers value their hearing more than drummers and guitar players, so they don't monitor as loud. Most nearfields don't have fully extended bass, so being able to master tracks with a good understanding of the 20-40 Hz range isn't necessarily best done on a pair of nearfields with 5" mid woofers.

So mid to far field speakers come in to play because the mastering room usually isn't full of consoles and band members. The volume of soffit mounted mains isn't required, but a full range playback system, beyond the capability of a pair of nearfields, is required. And because there are way fewer mastering studios than mixing studios, the studio monitor manufacturers have not focussed their attention on that segment.

Then there's the case that mastering engineers are 'really' into listening to the details...because that's their job. So it's not surprising that many are really into hifi as well. Or at least really into the pursuit of sound quality.

 

[Inner Space]

This list would be just as useless as a list of the most iconic photos and the camera used to take them. Or to make it more clear a list of the finest fiction books and the typewriter/pen used to write them.

I disagree. It would show numerous "impossible" results - i.e. ASR-approved recordings mixed on ASR-disapproved monitors. It might make people think.

 

[dfuller]

I have a question more or less related to the topic (and challenging the "professional" or "amateur" qualification of these two type of speaker) :
Why so many mastering studio use high-end hifi speakers as their monitors ? In particular the most regarded/wealthy/award winning ones.
To take just one example, just have a look at Galaxy studio. Mixing rooms are stuffed with big Genelec but the mastering suite have Eggleston Works speakers.
Does the professional members of the forum have some ideas on that ?

So... A lot of mastering studios don't, and are using actives. Often the big box active ATCs. For those using passives, they're doing so because they find the particular speakers to be a good tool. The big Revels see use in mastering rooms not because they're passive hi-fi speakers, but because they're super well behaved on and off axis and low distortion.

 

[Petronius]

Colleagues, this topic amazes me and frustrates me. I have always thought that the the purpose of any audio system was faithful playback of of the recorded signal. What you hear is the recording. Nothing more, nothing less. I have for the past 40 years, listened to genuine studio monitors with subs. for the record my front speakers are 3 JBL 4410's set up in 3 channel for multi channel listing. I do not find them fatiguing unless the recording is recording is fatiguing, of which there are many. I am a trained classical musician, and that is what I listen to 90 to 95 % of the time at concert hall volume. For me there is no "relaxing " listening. I don't play music while driving either. That's a receipe for disaster.

That being said, here for your preview, are some frequency vs. amplitude plots. I will reveal the identities later.

Oops it looks like the identities are already there. which one is hte most preferable to you?

 

[Rednaxela]

Based on just graphs I think I’d go for the one with the smoothest directivity as those are the easiest to EQ effectively.

 

[kemmler3D]

It would show numerous "impossible" results - i.e. ASR-approved recordings mixed on ASR-disapproved monitors. It might make people think.

Stanley Kubrick probably worked with displays that were much worse than mid-tier TVs you can get at Best Buy today. People can certainly compensate for subpar monitors if they are used to the sound and have good references to work from. This is much more a credit to the mixing / mastering engineers than it is to the speakers.

e: randomly, a co-worker showed me some music he'd produced and also the speakers he'd mixed them on. Some of them were done using coaxial speakers from a car mounted in a box, in an untreated room, some were done on $150 edifiers. Then he upgraded to some KRKs. I will say the upgrade helped but in all cases the mix sounded better than you'd expect from looking at the monitors.

 

[dfuller]

Colleagues, this topic amazes me and frustrates me. I have always thought that the the purpose of any audio system was faithful playback of of the recorded signal. What you hear is the recording. Nothing more, nothing less. I have for the past 40 years, listened to genuine studio monitors with subs. for the record my front speakers are 3 JBL 4410's set up in 3 channel for multi channel listing. I do not find them fatiguing unless the recording is recording is fatiguing, of which there are many. I am a trained classical musician, and that is what I listen to 90 to 95 % of the time at concert hall volume. For me there is no "relaxing " listening. I don't play music while driving either. That's a receipe for disaster.

That being said, here for your preview, are some frequency vs. amplitude plots. I will reveal the identities later.

Oops it looks like the identities are already there. which one is hte most preferable to you?

They all have flaws, though I will note that the flaws are different.

The first one lacks low end extension making it rather useless as a full range design but probably is fine if paired with subs (especially considering its smooth, even roll-off).

The second, third, and fourth all have much greater low end extension.

Two and three have major issues in their axial response; two has a greatly elevated high end and a presence dip that is probably there to attempt to counteract the dispersion mismatch between tweeter and mid, where 3 has a bunch of issues with diffraction off of hard corners as well as a pretty serious resonance leaking out the port.

The fourth one is not a valid comparison as that is an in-room measurement rather than a free-field one.

If we're comparing apples-to-apples, this is the right graph (courtesy Stereophile). Note that the ~100hz hump is probably not present on any of these in reality.

 

[Petronius]

You are partially correct. the first curve is a Klippel curve done by JBL, and indeed it is part of a system that includes a low frequency speaker. The other 3 were done by Stereophile and were measured in room. The revel was measured in 2 different rooms, hence the blue and red trace.

 

[Petronius]

OOps bad fingers here is the complete curve of the JBL, and also a curve of the Wilson Alesia V.

 

[Petronius]

I think these things are around $70,000 a pair. this is a Stereophile room measurement

 

[dfuller]

You are partially correct. the first curve is a Klippel curve done by JBL, and indeed it is part of a system that includes a low frequency speaker. The other 3 were done by Stereophile and were measured in room. The revel was measured in 2 different rooms, hence the blue and red trace.

It wasn't done with a NFS - the Spinorama measurement has been around quite a bit longer than the NFS. JBL/Harman have a pretty sizeable anechoic chamber.

As far as the other ones, they're not in-room, they're gated LW + nearfield low end stitch without the correct baffle correction.

 

[Petronius]

I'm not sure I understand. The Stereophile curves were done in a normal room with a system that is supposed to negate the effects of the room right?
The reviewer always starts off by saying that the measurements were taken in someones listening room........ so doesn't that negate room effects?
I have always wondered why /stereophiles measurements have a hump in the 100Hz regions, now I think I know.
In any event I need to examine the methodologys so I understand your response.

 

[Purité Audio]

No system can completely negate the effect of the room, JA uses a composite quasi anechoic technique I believe.
Keith

 

[Petronius]

I think your are correct, although I need to do some reading and watching some of Amirs videos. but if my current understanding is correct, that makes the Wilson Alexia at $70.000 pr. a dubious purchase.

 

[Palmer]

Times have changed, and so have methods and preferences for the various stages of music production / reproduction.
I'd say before the early nineties the main (no pun intended) criteria (also no pun) was repeatability for the personnel involved, namely the engineer and the producer.
You'd be in different facilities all the time, and therefore needed mains that would give expected reproduction, wherever you went.

Not too much variety was therefore encountered in these days, I had to work in a room with Tannoy mains for two years, drove me crazy as I consider them a little too "sweet" for a recording studio main.

One knew what to get from those speaker(s), and work with them accordingly. Nearfield monitoring rose up with the Yamaha NS10M - but everybody kept the trusty Auratones around, again - repeatability. Somewhat the same in the Mastering world, but adjusted for what the consumer would likely run in the home.

Now, nobody would have Westlakes or Augspurgers in the home for obvious reasons, not least because they perform best when Soffit-mounted and in a Live End / Dead End (LEDE) room, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread.

If you are Rick Rubin or Hans Zimmer and have the space (and money) to put up some Dunlavys, that's nice. With the proliferation of, yes, Genelec, Amphion, Focal, Neumann and so forth, and the workflow now way more reliant on mid- to nearfield monitoring, studio designs have changed acoustically somewhat.
Also, everybody started working from home a lot.

There's now a plethora of "Studio Monitors" that make sense to buy instead of "HiFi" speakers, if just for the available data on the speakers from the manufacturer, quality control, eq tools specific to the product, alone.

To me this is the big change between those days and now - The "HiFi" world had to clean up its act quite a bit to be still competitive, and the professional world got richer by having more competition in the market for the studio.

 

[dshreter]

I think that many are confused in their interpretation of the circle of confusion and it’s importance (or lack thereof).

Imagine for a moment ideal speakers (infinite flat frequency response) with smooth off axis response. Now place these ideal speakers in an acoustically ideal room with ideal acoustic treatment. It would of course sound excellent.

Now turn up the bass (or the treble, whatever) with tone controls. The circle of confusion is broken and your playback should now be significantly different than however it was mixed.

But guess what? This imaginary system would still sound great, with spectacular imaging and a perceived high quality experience. It will sound better than lesser but neutral speakers without tone adjustment. And those imaginary speakers with tone adjustment will sound better in an ideal room than if they were played neutrally in a bathroom.

Quality is elusive and difficult to measure.

 

[EERecordist]

Times have changed, and so have methods and preferences for the various stages of music production / reproduction.
I'd say before the early nineties the main (no pun intended) criteria (also no pun) was repeatability for the personnel involved, namely the engineer and the producer.
You'd be in different facilities all the time, and therefore needed mains that would give expected reproduction, wherever you went.

Not too much variety was therefore encountered in these days, I had to work in a room with Tannoy mains for two years, drove me crazy as I consider them a little too "sweet" for a recording studio main.

One knew what to get from those speaker(s), and work with them accordingly. Nearfield monitoring rose up with the Yamaha NS10M - but everybody kept the trusty Auratones around, again - repeatability. Somewhat the same in the Mastering world, but adjusted for what the consumer would likely run in the home.

Now, nobody would have Westlakes or Augspurgers in the home for obvious reasons, not least because they perform best when Soffit-mounted and in a Live End / Dead End (LEDE) room, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread.

If you are Rick Rubin or Hans Zimmer and have the space (and money) to put up some Dunlavys, that's nice. With the proliferation of, yes, Genelec, Amphion, Focal, Neumann and so forth, and the workflow now way more reliant on mid- to nearfield monitoring, studio designs have changed acoustically somewhat.
Also, everybody started working from home a lot.

There's now a plethora of "Studio Monitors" that make sense to buy instead of "HiFi" speakers, if just for the available data on the speakers from the manufacturer, quality control, eq tools specific to the product, alone.

To me this is the big change between those days and now - The "HiFi" world had to clean up its act quite a bit to be still competitive, and the professional world got richer by having more competition in the market for the studio.

Good summary. My formative listening years were in Westlake-Hidley rooms with soffit-mounted mids. I was able to listen in the studio and concert hall which were also very good. There are several ASR participants with professional recording experience.

A friend of mine today has a small successful Grammy studio. Their long time monitors were ProAc. Then they added ATC 25 and 45. For a time, they used the ATCs to find mix problems, then settled back to the ProAc for translation. They now have transitioned to the ATC.

Few end consumers have the ATC 3-ways. Tracking, mixing, and mastering engineers want accuracy ("articulation", "texture") as defined in relation to listening by ear to the instruments in the tracking room or concert hall.

I listen to string sections, string instruments, woodwinds, cymbals, percussion toys, piano, voice, and hall sound to judge recording accuracy. I am not happy with artificial strings in film scoring today, but my opinion is not going to keep scoring musician friend's jobs.

 

[Palmer]

Good summary. My formative listening years were in Westlake-Hidley rooms with soffit-mounted mids. I was able to listen in the studio and concert hall which were also very good. There are several ASR participants with professional recording experience.

A friend of mine today has a small successful Grammy studio. Their long time monitors were ProAc. Then they added ATC 25 and 45. For a time, they used the ATCs to find mix problems, then settled back to the ProAc for translation. They now have transitioned to the ATC.

Few end consumers have the ATC 3-ways. Tracking, mixing, and mastering engineers want accuracy ("articulation", "texture") as defined in relation to listening by ear to the instruments in the tracking room or concert hall.

I listen to string sections, string instruments, woodwinds, cymbals, percussion toys, piano, voice, and hall sound to judge recording accuracy. I am not happy with artificial strings in film scoring today, but my opinion is not going to keep scoring musician friend's jobs.

You are braver than me: JBL 4312x was my nemesis in the early eighties, but if it worked on that speaker, it most likely worked on almost anything else.
I was always happy to get into a real room to get away from them, my favorite in these years was the UREI 813C
Coincidentally the mid-range in my Edgarhorn Slimline is the JBL 104H-2, which are getting hard to come by - shame on you JBL... in a Tractrix Horn.