Key Requeriments of a Studio Monitor

[Exprymer]

I have been following the evolution of studio monitors for several years, noting the industry's constant adaptation to the demands of media professionals. Recently, the community has been involved in studying and implementing various immersive audio solutions for large venues. These complex systems often require new communication protocols to manage matrices comprising hundreds or even thousands of loudspeaker endpoints.

However, in the studio environment, the pace of change has been different. Aside from the significant shift towards Dolby Atmos mixing for audiovisual content, the integration of digital protocols directly into monitors has been a more gradual evolution. Furthermore, the critical importance of room acoustics has increasingly influenced monitor design. Modern solutions now often aim to compensate for or mitigate room impacts, whether through advanced cabinet geometry, driver configuration, or sophisticated Digital Signal Processing (DSP).

From an end-user perspective, and setting aside the well-documented objective performance metrics gladly discussed here at ASR, I am curious about your preferred features in a modern studio monitor.

Would you consider a monitor without precise directivity control to be lacking?
Is a fully analog active monitor still preferable to a DSP-based one?
Is latency important in your usage?

Let me know of other features that you feel important and I forgot to put as an option.

 

[KSTR]

You may have missed a few points that make an (active) studio monitor different from a regular speaker with the same technology. It is a tool in the kit of professionals to do their job. Therefore you want to have the quality and general standards of any professional and dependable tool.

- Fully documented behavior and honest specs
- Robust and foolproof, user shall not be able to break it by throwing the wrong signal at it
- Long product life with guaranteed application-level consistency, silent upgrades notwithstanding
- Available in single units
- Competent technical support that is easily to reach

Besides that, the required feature set depends on the application field... not any different for like, say, professional pliers.

 

[IngMishael]

Digital Communication (AES, Dante, I2s)
Directivity & Pattern Control
Low Latency operation
Aesthetics (Painting quality, Ergonomy)
Ability to be soffit mounted
Playing loud and without distortion
Apparent neutrality
Exhaustive documentation like CTA dataset and whatnot

 

[DVDdoug]

Key Requirements of a Studio Monitor

The same as any other good speaker...

Flat (or flattish) on-axis response and smooth-flattish off-axis response. Of course that means flat over the full 20-20kHz audio range, and in the particular acoustic space.

And as mentioned above main monitors should be capable of being played very loud and reliably, 24/7.

A lot of small "nearfield monitors" used in bedroom studios are simply small active bookshelf (or desktop) speakers with no grill. And they are generally sold where musical instruments and pro audio equipment is sold, rather than where home audio/video equipment is sold.

Is a fully analog active monitor still preferable to a DSP-based one?

For "home" monitors" there are usually economic trade-offs. DSP can be better but it costs more so you might have to sacrifice something else and the analog monitor may be better. Or if a speaker is well designed it may not "need" DSP.

With main monitors in a pro studio I'd assume the DSP and room correction is usually external.

Is latency important in your usage?

There is no latency with analog and there is very little with DSP (or from a DAC). The latency from the speed of sound is probably worse than anything added by DSP.

But computers have buffers (because the multitasking operating system interrupts the audio). Buffers are also delays so you always get some latency through the computer. And some effects add latency, especially things like limiting which works best with "look-ahead". Often the buffers can be made small enough, and the effects don't add too much latency, so it's not noticeable, but not always.

Usually several milliseconds of latency is ONLY a problem if you are monitoring yourself through the computer and the delay is too long, making it difficult to perform. Or it can be a problem you are working with audio/video and the audio & video have different latencies and they are out-of-sync. Or it can be a problem when gaming.

If you are mixing or mastering there may be hours, days, or months of "latency" since the recording was made.

 

[LuckyNat]

The same as any other good speaker...

You wouldn't have different dispersion requirements for a treated studio where you know you're going to be sitting in one place all the time Vs an untreated living room where you will want to listen from anywhere in the room ?

 

[MillRoadTech]

You wouldn't have different dispersion requirements for a treated studio where you know you're going to be sitting in one place all the time Vs an untreated living room where you will want to listen from anywhere in the room ?

Dispersion vs. frequency is important. I'm aware of a number of products where the dispersion narrows at the upper operating range of a driver before crossing over to a driver handling the next frequency range upward. This 'step' in the off-axis response is noticeable as well as associated phase anomolies - I know a someone that records lots of chamber music and what this does to a viola drives them nuts! Off axis response is important also as to a point as humans we perceive the spectral content from the direct rather than early reflections, but early reflections have influence beyond a certain magnitude and that entirely depends on the properties of the room. It's well known also that steady state pink noise into a measurement mic cannot distinguish between direct and reflected (summing the two together) - ISO2969 is based upon this assertion - so there's a good chance a speaker with steps in its off-axis response would be EQ's incorrectly by this method.

 

[LuckyNat]

... in a studio, those reflections are controlled.

Therefore it is much better IMO, for a studio monitor to have excellent uniformity over a narrow (say 30') dispersion range than over a wide dispersion range.

In a domestic setting, the wide dispersion pattern is going to have much more influence on the listener and so it would be desirable to instead to have a different dispersion characteristic.

The two goals require different design poroachea to achieve .. so the intent regarding dispersion needs to be clear from the outset.

It can be different however, with immersive audio monitoring .. you might want a wider pattern with more evenness than a totally uniform narrower one.

 

[Ktacos]

You wouldn't have different dispersion requirements for a treated studio where you know you're going to be sitting in one place all the time Vs an untreated living room where you will want to listen from anywhere in the room ?

I find speaker characteristics are pretty much the same whether it's a treated studio or an untreated living room. Wide dispersion still sounds wide, narrow still sounds narrow. My preference is the same for either setting.