Palmer ORBIT 11 Cardioid Coaxial 3-way studio monitor (MSRP 799€/899$)

[Pearljam5000]

I'm sorry but you have no idea what you are speaking. No personal experience, no measurements, just bias and second hand bias

Lol
And yet I'm still entitled to my own opinion
It's a miracle

 

[SUNS]

I think a person with the right skill set can pull a high quality master from this speakers.. for mixing 100%, for listening, well compared to my Focal aria evo x 2 they just sound directionally diferent, but pleasant listening and i believe the sounds of instruments come out of the orbit are close to real ones.. enough of subjectives, will come back here with some (not amir level) measurements.. if worth posting..

 

[Audionaut]

Close to perfect

That's difficult to achieve.

You only ever have speakers that are perfectly suited to one room or certain rooms. There are certain speakers that sound perfect in a certain room at a certain listening distance.

However, there is no single speaker that sounds perfect in every room.

But I think the Orbit 11 has a good chance of sounding very good in certain listening situations. Perfect is another story, but I don't consider any of the speakers you mentioned to be perfect either (Genelec/KEF/Geithain/TAD/Mofi)

 

[Juhazi]

This is a really entertaining thread!

 

[Chr1]

As previously stated :

There's no such thing as a perfect speaker.

And "good" and "very good"...
Are vague and subjective terms. WTAF.

Edit : There is such a thing as being good or even very good... For the price paid.

Hopefully these are thus.
The Klippel awaits.

 

[Geert]

I think a person with the right skill ste can pull a high quality master from this speakers.. for mixing, 100% for listening, well compared to my Focal aria evo x 2 they just sound directionally diferent, but pleasant listening and i beleive the sounds of instruments come out of the orbit are close to real ones.. enough of subjectives, will come back here with some (not amar level) measurements.. if worth posting..

Assuming the manufacturers measurements can be trusted, we already know that on axis these speakers are almost ruler flat, and within +-1,5 dB in a 60° angle horizontally (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...udio-monitor-msrp-799€-899.69461/post-2518232). It will be difficult for you to produce measurements that are more trustworthy. To learn something new, near field gated measurements at last say 10° and 20° would be nice.

 

[TK_IIVI]

No two speakers measure identically so there is no one best. There are many bests with different compromises. Measurements and research into speaker performance tells us that we want neutral speakers. I have not seen anyone in the Pro industry demonstrate with their research, that they want a colored one.

Ok, fine. I have in 25 years of experience seen engineers make choices toward colored speakers depending on what they do. Not sure what to tell you, it is what it is.

First, welcome to the forum and don't take this personally. But this kind of experience does not lend itself to the prediction you are agreeing with and making. If in that 25 years, you had spent 2 years of it, performing bias controlled experiments into what makes a speaker best for production of music, we would be all ears. But you didn't.

What are such controlled bias-experiments in production of music that I can read up on?

Dominant players in your field are producing neutral speakers with good directivity. We are here with so much excitement because the Palmer may also be doing so, but at a very attractive price. This is proof that measurements have started to play a strong role in decision making. As is the fact that we have so many Pros here.

Here is the key thing: if you are not able to do the best work you possibly can with these properly designed speakers, then I say the arrow points back at you, not the speaker! It in a way invalidates your argument that it is you that is important, not the speaker.

Sorry, but that is ridiculous. We are talking about art, not technology. You may think of audio engineers as people running around in lab coats like they did in the 1960's but we've progressed beyond that. There are plenty of engineers out there that have a preference and their job is to make something resonate emotionally. If they are able to do the job faster and better with one speaker over another that's what they'll choose. There is virtually no artist that goes ahead and chooses the mix engineer based on the speakers in a studio, they choose the engineer based on the mixes they produce no matter how or with what gear. You will inevitably have some mix engineers that prefer somewhat brighter speakers and others the opposite, and so on. If a speaker is not inspiring to listen to, whatever that means to any individual, then it gets in the way of creativity.

Finally, let me repeat again: we need a standard. Video has one. Same standard is used for color and grayscale in production. When we use the same to design and calibrate our display, the colors and picture overall that we get, has a very high chance of being the same as your counterpart in production. It is time that we moved in this direction by adopting the same standard in speakers (CEA/CTA-2034).

That would be practical.

 

[goat76]

Once again, if you want to make a case that monitor measurements don't matter, you need to come back with data.

I have not made a case that monitor measurements don’t matter.

 

[Purité Audio]

So subjective, ‘engineers’ often speak disparagingly of the ‘hi-if’ crowd yet it appears to me that neither group have a monopoly on technical ignorance.
Keith

 

[Rick63]

This is a really entertaining thread!

Indeed. I knew when I got up this morning and 10-12 pages have filled up overnight that it would be a fun read.

 

[TK_IIVI]

So subjective, ‘engineers’ often speak disparagingly of the ‘hi-if’ crowd yet it appears to me that neither group have a monopoly on technical ignorance.
Keith

Certainly true.

And yet no engineer mixes primarily on iPhone speakers. Go figure.

I think perhaps we need to take a step back here and also look at what's not being said. Speaking for myself at least, I'm not saying that just because some engineers prefer reproduction with more bass and others with a forward midrange that "anything goes". If that was the case then yes, why not just mix on iPhone speakers. What I am saying is that within a range of acceptable performance there is space for personal preference, and the technically "best" option isn't necessarily what people choose. That doesn't mean we can achieve the same on garbage speakers.

And incidentally of course, we do check things on multiple sets of speakers to account for the fact that we need to make things work within a range of playback situations. Not that this disproves anything, just an aside reminder.

2. Suggesting that an engineer knows what the best tool for them when said tool is an inaccurate loudspeaker is a misnomer. The engineer might prefer to use a particular speaker for whatever reason (how it looks and other bias may even be a factor), but the best tool for the job might not be the one you enjoy the most. A perfect parallel would be Formula 1 racing where there have been plenty of example over the decades where the fastest car was difficult to drive.

I think that's somewhat a fair nuance, but I do disagree with the premise in the second half. We are talking about art and creativity and enjoying the environment you work in is absolutely essential. The F1 car analogy is a bit shaky because we have a clear technical goal to achieve, to cross the finish line "first". It would perhaps be better to compare to some silly "drifting" competition where judges scored drifting performance by cars based on how cool they thought it looked, and the driver needed a cart that didn't just drift "well" but allowed them to express whatever wanted when driving. A technically "better" car might not do the job, for them.

 

[goat76]

Absolutely. The good recordings of the past were "good for their time." But don't hold a candle to many modern recordings. I remember back in those times that we had so few "reference" recordings. You know, the Eagles, Michael Jackson, etc. And even later with Diana Krall, Patricia Barber and such. Now, there is an explosion of artists and with it, great recordings through smaller labels. I listen to Roon automatic suggestions from Tidal and it only takes 10 to 15 minutes before I land on a recording that makes me add that track to my reference list.

Okay, but I don’t find modern mixes and recordings to be better, they are about equally good quality-wise with mostly some trend changes. The general change in trend over time have been shifting from the “documentation” kind of audio production, as in ”a band playing in a real acoustic environment”, to a ”hyper realistic” kind of audio production where more focus is put on textures of the individual sound sources, with less emphasis on recreating the original audio event.

Better or just different, that’s mostly up to individual preferences.

 

[zequence]

Just the fact that you can't measure everything about a speaker is already telling you that you can't solely rely on measurements.
That is also telling you that measurements are not the reality, because they are not telling you the whole truth, only a part of the truth.
It's meta information, however useful.

And, as has been discussed. There is no such thing as a perfect speaker. Speakers are just the last thing in the signal chain. A chain that is often very long.

Therefore, if you aim to use speakers as tools for music production, after all measurements and room corrections are done, you will still need to make judgements based on what you hear.

Now, you don't need to agree with me. But, I would be surprised if there is a single audio engineer on this planet who would choose speakers solely based on measurements.
That would be crazy IMHO.

 

[Chr1]

I would bet that most knowledgeable engineers nowadays would choose well measuring speakers.

Obviously theoretically you don't have to be particularly technically knowledgeable to mix well. I suspect it helps tho.

 

[Mort]

Just the fact that you can't measure everything about a speaker is already telling you that you can't solely rely on measurements.

Go directly to jail. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

 

[zequence]

I would bet that most knowledgeable engineers nowadays would choose well measuring speakers.

Every engineer wants to have good performing speakers.
That still doesn't mean they only care about measurements.

I don't think there is a single person here who disagrees that measurements have their usefulness.

 

[Pearljam5000]

I think engineers mostly need a good neutral monitor with good instrument separation and soundstage and detail, basically a sonic microscope that allows them to hear everything

 

[Chr1]

...Which is what I want my Hifi speakers to do.

(My one caveat is: I also want them to be capable of decent SPL.)

 

[Froghawk]

Mixing is still creative work. Let's not forget the role of inspiration. An engineer may be inspired to create a better mix on speakers they find more exciting to listen to and fun to work on vs something accurate but boring like a Neumann or Genelec. I've never met a single engineer who mixes primarily on either of the latter and I've met a lot of engineers.

And what of the Harman curve? There's plenty of data saying consumers prefer smile-shaped curves, as well. That's why consumer speakers tend to be so hyped in the first place! You're not gonna find much in the way of average consumer speakers advertising flat responses. So now we've got data arguing that people always prefer colored responses AND data saying people prefer neutral responses! Which is to say - data is a squirrely thing, and many who work in the sciences will tell you just that.

With that said, I've been working on colored monitors for years (HS80m) and just switched to much more flat neutral Kali IN-8s, and I still need to put them to the mix test myself. The soundstage and detail is on a whole other level, without a doubt - now I'm just left wondering if the Palmers would leave them in the dust.

 

[TK_IIVI]

Many of us will dislike too much bass, or treble. Or absence of midrange. And this is key from research: we have an intuition that guides us away from coloration. Absence of error, as Dr. Toole would say, is what appeals to us.

"Too much" of anything is too much, obviously. The question is how that is determined. I can see how an engineer recording an orchestra have certain demands and that a mix or production engineer of EDM has different ones. Nothing wrong with that. And there's nothing wrong with wanting a forward midrange when working on dialog as opposed to having a completely different experience mixing a show or film.

The art is originated by the talent. The amount of "art" a mix engineer creates better be far smaller than what the talent brings. Or else the talent is no good.

(my emphasis in bold) So certain.

Art is not a technical endeavor that has one solution. It is whatever the artists want it to be (within the limits of semantics).

Once again, if you want to make a case that monitor measurements don't matter, you need to come back with data. In controlled testing. Just like we have done in sound reproduction. Where the same assumptions were made prior to research.

I don't think anyone is saying that measurements don't matter, or that the efforts of those that do them aren't appreciated for that matter.