Is a totally flat speaker really what we want for home reproduction?

[Zensō]

Where has this been evidenced?

Have you perused Gear Sluts, or whatever it’s now called? Pros seem to be as susceptible to woo as the average audiodork…

My experience is that the average person doesn't think about sound quality at all (not talking about "audiophiles"). Among my circle of producers/engineers there seems to be a pretty high level of concern about sound reproduction and sound quality, which I believe naturally elevates their level of ability (like with almost anything, practice leads to improvement). This is anecdotal though, and listening studies actually show that "pros" don't necessarily fare better than laypeople, so I may be mistaken.

 

[Inner Space]

If only it was the case that recordings (and masterings) are being produced in the hope of sounding good on our speakers. I think there's almost no chance of that, perhaps with the exceptions of classical music and some acoustic jazz. The listening environments that matter economically are ear pods/buds, headphones, Echo/Homepod, and car audio. Most home speaker listening consists of movies and television. Dedicated audio listening has become a niche market, and I'd be surprised if most recording producers don't treat it that way.

My method is to be aware that dedicated audio listening is a tiny niche, which I have to be, because obviously it is, sadly, but I don't necessarily treat it that way, because these days I'm also aware that dedicated audio listeners have become pretty EQ-savvy. Which means, for instance:

What 99% of consumers think of as "bass" is in the 100Hz - 125Hz region. That's the chest-thumping nightclub stuff. So that's where the money is for me. I make that a mix of second and third harmonics of a missing fundamental, and 99% of people have a great time with it. But I leave a trace of the real fundamental in the two octaves below. If the dedicated listeners know they have enough watts in their amps and excursion in their speakers, they can then EQ the bottom octaves up about 6dB, and the third octave down about 3dB, and they're happy too.

And so on, through the spectrum. Gotta say, knowing that EQ is out there eases my conscience considerably. My experience is that more and more producers are thinking the same way.

 

[Inner Space]

Have you perused Gear Sluts, or whatever it’s now called? Pros seem to be as susceptible to woo as the average audiodork…

Undoubtedly true, but often a bit post-ironic, in my experience, and always subject to a sort of self-corrective feedback loop. The problem with audiophilia is that the stakes are so low. The stakes are non-existent, in fact. What happens if an audiophile improves his system? Nothing, really. He thinks he's improved it, that's all, which means zero, in the grand scheme of things.

Whereas what happens if a pro improves his system? He sells more units and makes more money, that's what. There are actual stakes, that can be assessed. It's yes or no. Which means useless woo has a short life in the pro world. You get (literally) disillusioned fast, if you're still broke next month.

 

[Digby]

What 99% of consumers think of as "bass" is in the 100Hz - 125Hz region. That's the chest-thumping nightclub stuff. So that's where the money is for me. I make that a mix of second and third harmonics of a missing fundamental, and 99% of people have a great time with it. But I leave a trace of the real fundamental in the two octaves below. If the dedicated listeners know they have enough watts in their amps and excursion in their speakers, they can then EQ the bottom octaves up about 6dB, and the third octave down about 3dB, and they're happy too.

And so on, through the spectrum. Gotta say, knowing that EQ is out there eases my conscience considerably. My experience is that more and more producers are thinking the same way.

This is very interesting. So, essentially, you are constrained by what sells and what is appreciated in certain settings. This is entirely understandable, but do people know that you'd prefer EQ applied to your productions, if listening on a capable hi-fi system?

What music type is this and would you say this is common among producers of this music? Circle of confusion, indeed.

 

[Mart68]

My experience is that the average person doesn't think about sound quality at all (not talking about "audiophiles").

I agree that the typical music-loving civilian probably don't think about it, but they might like a record more if it has a showcase production, even if it's sub-consciously.

 

[Tom C]

Dr. F. Toole’s advice given in his book makes the most sense to me. Use speakers with flat FR and well behaved in-room response, along with tone controls, and that’s the best you can do. Because those old recordings are not all flawed in the same way, so you’ll want to be able to compensate some in different areas for different recordings.

 

[dc655321]

Whereas what happens if a pro improves his system?

I’m more concerned about the pro that thinks they’ve improved their system, without evidence to confirm.

I suppose, worst case, purchasers of said pro’s wares take the loss.

 

[Chromatischism]

Just been doing some thinking, so thought I would try thinking out loud with the help of the forum, those of you in a helpful mood anyway .

A lot of music, older music in particular, is not mastered on speakers that are as flat in FR as we might want. If the engineer is mastering to what sounds good on his speakers - which I suspect, more often then not likely had some kind of dip in the mids (BBC dip) and perhaps a bit of bass boost - could it be that on reproduction of this music on a speaker with flat FR, it may be lacking in bass and too forward in the mids?

A flat FR is accurate to the recording, but is it accurate to the balance the mastering engineer was trying to achieve, if he was using speakers that are not completely flat. Perhaps accuracy shouldn't be to the recording as such, but to the intent of the engineer (much harder to quantify, I know) and does a ruler flat FR get us nearer to or further away from this. I hope this makes sense.

Thoughts?

You will never know the answer to this and it's going to vary with every album you put on, so you would never be able to choose speakers with these considerations.

Therefore, you get sonically flat speakers. That is, speakers that play all frequencies at the same level, following the same balance off-axis as much as possible.

Bass should be corrected for the room with bass traps, subs, and EQ, and treble can be tilted or shelved broadly up or down to account for recording and/or hearing differences among individuals.

 

[ADU]

Just been doing some thinking, so thought I would try thinking out loud with the help of the forum, those of you in a helpful mood anyway .

A lot of music, older music in particular, is not mastered on speakers that are as flat in FR as we might want. If the engineer is mastering to what sounds good on his speakers - which I suspect, more often then not likely had some kind of dip in the mids (BBC dip) and perhaps a bit of bass boost - could it be that on reproduction of this music on a speaker with flat FR, it may be lacking in bass and too forward in the mids?

I hadn't heard of the BBC dip before you mentioned it. But yes, I think it is quite possible for recordings to be mixed/mastered too hot in the upper mids around 2 to 2.5 kHz, either by design (as seems to be the case with the BBC dip) or by accident, because there is often a depression in the off-axis response in that range on speakers with more average or inferior cross-over designs. I think this can even happen now with alot of content that is produced on gear purchased from places like Guitar Center. Most home audio producers probably don't even know the difference between a speaker's direct and off-axis response. And are likely incapable of compensating for such errors in their gear.

However, many older recordings were also deliberately mixed on speakers that were more mid-centered by design, using something called a "grot-box". These kinds of speakers usually had a peak somewhere around 1 khz, and were more rolled off in the bass and high treble than a normal speaker. And there are devices which are still in use like this today by some studios for a similar purpose. Like the Avantone MixCube, for example, which is basically an updated version of the classic Auratone grots.

Because of the continuing popularity of these devices for certain mixing jobs, I believe Auratone also recently released a new, and more updated version of one of their classic speakers not too long ago as well. The Yamaha NS10 would be another popular example of a speaker of this type, often used by professional engineers.

I do not work in the audio engineering field (at least not directly). But audio engineers are basically paid to make their mixes sound good on whatever people are listening to at the time, as Inner Space said. And to keep their clients happy, and coming back for more. So they will often have to "battle test" their recordings on less than stellar-sounding gear, and try to make them sound at least passable on that as well.

I know this will come as a big disappointment to some of the more starry-eyed enthusiasts here. So I'm sorry bout that.

 

[ADU]

This is the in-room response curve that one fairly prominent audio engineer in the field uses, and recommends to other engineers btw. And it is obviously a far cry from the estimated in-room responses of a lot of higher-end gear, which generally has a either a more linear slope (usually somewhere on the order of -1.0 dB per octave), or even a bit of a dip in the mids, rather than a 1 kHz peak like the one shown below...

Recordings made on a piece of gear which is tuned like this will invariably come out with less mids and a more pronounced bass and treble, giving it a greater sense of depth and punch on cheaper, and more inferior-sounding average audio gear, which is more limited in its extension, volume, and dynamic range. And I believe that is probably exactly the engineer's intention. It's probably either that, or maybe he's trying to compensate for some midrange hearing loss, which is one of the unfortunate occupational hazards for alot of folks working in the music production business.

 

[ADU]

Just been doing some thinking, so thought I would try thinking out loud with the help of the forum, those of you in a helpful mood anyway .

A lot of music, older music in particular, is not mastered on speakers that are as flat in FR as we might want. If the engineer is mastering to what sounds good on his speakers - which I suspect, more often then not likely had some kind of dip in the mids (BBC dip) and perhaps a bit of bass boost - could it be that on reproduction of this music on a speaker with flat FR, it may be lacking in bass and too forward in the mids?

This "BBC dip" also seems to be alive and well in alot of recent mid and hi-fi headphone designs as well. Especially some of the more popular planar-magnetic models by HiFiMan, and also some by Neumann.

 

[Mart68]

If the loudspeaker/room has flaws some recordings will emphasise them. That doesn't mean they are 'bad' recordings. It's the playback system that's at fault. Solve those problems and you will no longer suffer from 'bad' recordings.

IME studio personnel know what they are doing. This business of 'Maybe he has HF hearing loss that's why it's so bright' - is balls. You don't really think the mixing or mastering engineers were the only people to critically listen to the recording do you?

Having said that I never listen to classical music so for all I know those recordings have a whole different set of issues. Or not. I don't know.

 

[charleski]

If the engineer is mastering to what sounds good on his speakers - which I suspect, more often then not likely had some kind of dip in the mids (BBC dip) and perhaps a bit of bass boost

The ‘BBC dip’ turns out to be a persistent myth. There’s no evidence that it was ever deliberately incorporated into a BBC speaker design. It was at best as an unfortunate side-effect from persuing other design goals, or a deliberate degradation of speaker performance in order to simulate the poor speakers built into TVs.

Gundry Dip or BBC Dip?

Gundry Dip or BBC Dip?

hydrogenaud.io

 

[TLEDDY]

We will never know what the mastering engineer was trying to achieve.

This!!

Caveat: Unless you were the mastering engineer…

 

[DWI]

I’ve listened to speakers with similar tonal balance for ever. Always avoided over-etched sound and deep bass, which I do not like at all. Never played music very loud. The only speaker I was dissatisfied with was quite poor at low volume levels. Now on my 6th pair since 1985, usually changed for room, practical (kids) or aesthetic reasons. Never looked at a chart.

 

[Aerith Gainsborough]

No, we don't have a fear of EQ to taste. We have an understanding that once properly set up for balanced sound reproduction, the need for EQ to taste is greatly diminished. In my personal case...it's non-existent. I never feel the urge to twiddle the bass and treble knobs.

Pretty much sums up my experience as well. The only outlier are really shoddy/old recordings that sound super harsh. These do make me grab for the treble knob, in order to tone it down a notch.

Most recordings sound fine as-is and if the bass is a little weaker, I just interpret it as the artists intention.

@Digby : I was under the impression, that a good sound engineer doesn't just listen and mix on one system but rather listens to all kind of systems and tries to strike a balance in his mix that will translate well to as many scenarios as possible. That would include: low end, high end, car systems, headphones etc.

If the dedicated listeners know they have enough watts in their amps and excursion in their speakers, they can then EQ the bottom octaves up about 6dB, and the third octave down about 3dB, and they're happy too.

Meh, I don't like this approach at all. How exactly would I know that this is the intent of the artist? Do you put a manual inside the record, telling people to do that?
Unless I know you and your style of mixing/expectations, there is -0- chance that I would even consider to employ such drastic measures in order to change the sonic signature of the track in question.

 

[tuga]

Just been doing some thinking, so thought I would try thinking out loud with the help of the forum, those of you in a helpful mood anyway .

A lot of music, older music in particular, is not mastered on speakers that are as flat in FR as we might want. If the engineer is mastering to what sounds good on his speakers - which I suspect, more often then not likely had some kind of dip in the mids (BBC dip) and perhaps a bit of bass boost - could it be that on reproduction of this music on a speaker with flat FR, it may be lacking in bass and too forward in the mids?

A flat FR is accurate to the recording, but is it accurate to the balance the mastering engineer was trying to achieve, if he was using speakers that are not completely flat. Perhaps accuracy shouldn't be to the recording as such, but to the intent of the engineer (much harder to quantify, I know) and does a ruler flat FR get us nearer to or further away from this. I hope this makes sense.

Thoughts?

What really matters is what kind of speaker you want. Go out and listen to a few different pairs and topologies.

Chasing "what the engineer or artist wanted you to hear" is just empty, fairy-world rhetoric...

 

[DSJR]

Have many of you lot listened to the same speaker in different domestic rooms? I'm not being patronising, but the flattest model will change its sound vastly depending on the room and positioning within it. Some tauter less boomy types do seem better in a wider range of rooms, but the current small box over-ported designs can suffer I've found - and our rooms here in the UK tend to be smaller 'concrete box' types, making it worse.

Bearing in mind the above, my take is to try for speakers with the least added 'character' of their own if possible and then adjust them if possible to the room they're in. Not all of us can tinker hugely with room decor and furnishings unless we have a 'man cave' and shut ourselves away from the family for music listening.

 

[Aerith Gainsborough]

Have many of you lot listened to the same speaker in different domestic rooms?

Yop, the differences can be rather hilarious and make or break any speaker.

A bit of room treatment, good subwoofer placement and Room correction DSP (especially important if WAF or physics don't allow for room treatment) eliminate most of these issues, though.

 

[kongwee]

When someone say I like bigger vocal, it is not gonna be flat respond earthing.