Mr. Haelscheir
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To simplify, instead of using the term "Harman" as for headphones, let us focus on "neutral speakers in a well-treated room". (Based on my understanding; I don't work in the industry.) If the consumer has such a neutral playback system, what might happen if the music producer recorded the sonic event with neutral microphones, but mixed and whatnot with speakers or a room that incurred a large 1 kHz to 5 kHz dip? Maybe those speakers may already be to their preference such that they didn't make any EQ changes to that region. That consumer with a neutral playback system then would certainly not be hearing what the music producer heard and preferred. Alternatively, maybe the original neutral recording did have too much ear gain which due to the choice of monitoring system that already attenuates that region led to such not be corrected for with EQ, causing that consumer to hear a bright sound. Alternatively, the music producer finds that they do need to EQ the 1 kHz to 5 kHz region up in order for the neutral recording to sound right to them, but instead of treating that as a compensation for their playback system, they ship that EQed result with the final product, causing the consumer to hear that EQ boost.I think this long write-up is beside the point. I understand Harman is a well-researched preference, I have no qualms about that. The point I was responding to initially was this statement by Amir:
The first bolded part is about that if the producing side of music has disagreeing opinions, then Amir states that they should do their own research. I fully agree with that.
The second bolded part, is not right. It doesn't make sense.
1) According to this statement, if the engineer has a very different preference than Harman, then apparently he should just suck it up and listen in a way he doesn't find enjoyable. I wonder how great recordings will turn out then.
2) It builds on a misunderstanding about the creation side of music:
All music is produced, mixed and mastered in comparison to its genre. The only time when you hear engineers say they use no references anymore, is when mastering engineers specifically say they've been using the same system exclusively for so long that they don't need it anymore. All engineers will always start with references, and basically only a very small subset grows skilled enough to not need it, and having been attuned to their system is mandatory for that.
In result: only if audio professionals tune their ears to a different system than the one they work on, will they create some sort of circle of confusion in their brain.
But to make an analogy: that would be the same as if an F1 driver is practicing for his race in a speedboat instead of their race car. If he botches his race because the car behaves differently, then that is fully a failure on the drivers part. Not the fault of the speedboat and racecar industry not agreeing on a single standard.
Matching recording, monitoring, and playback system frequency responses would theoretically avoid alterations to preference-based changes made by the music producer. At least for speakers, flat recording, monitoring, and playback should be the way to ensure transparency of spectral content through the music production and distribution chain and to best separate EQ alterations from the original sonic event. If the music producer has a preference deviating from neutral, then they will EQ the neutral playback to said sound, and if they intend for the consumer to hear that same tonality and the consumer also has a neutral playback system, then they will indeed also hear that EQed preference. What's the point of letting the music producer monitor or EQ such that the music sounds the absolute best to them on their system of choice if we in perpetuating the circle of confusion let consumers use playback systems that may present that music with a drastically different tonality from what the music producer found best?
But I again suppose it is different if the music producer were somehow one to be able to monitor their music with their "preferred" playback tonality but already "know their speakers'/rooms' sound" enough to only make the kinds of EQ adjustments that would be revealed as necessary by a neutral monitoring system.
Getting headphones to sound as close as possible to said standardized neutral playback system, and for as many people as possible, is a different story for which I advocate for personalized HRTF measurements.
Anyways, in an ideal world, I wouldn't have to listen through upwards of 100 different classical recordings of the same piece in search of one that sounds tonally correct if not real. Maybe standardizing recording, monitoring, and playback neutrality could greatly reduce that substantial variability of recording quality and allow me to focus on choosing my favourite interpretation. Then one would have the variable of micing and mixing techniques insofar as I know many recordings that could sound tonally excellent but may still suffer from having entire string sections mixed to or imaged from singular points instead of properly spread across a line of musicians as heard in the concert hall.
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