Really Expensive Speakers: Overrated For Mixing And Mastering

[sigbergaudio]

Where are all the superior music mixes done using Genelec and Neumann monitors compared to the monitors you think are bad? Do you see a general trend, of any kind, indicating that better music productions are being achieved using the loudspeakers you suggest?

The problem here is that your suggestions are based on pure theories, but I'm quite sure you can't come up with any facts as to why those monitors you are suggesting are any better in practice.

It's not just about the result, but also what it takes to get there. How hard it is to get to that good result. You can build a house with a hammer and a nail gun. The result can look the same, but the effort was not the same.

A better monitor will make it easier to make good choices in the mix, reduce the guesswork and reduce the need to double check on various playback devices.

 

[solderdude]

If you pay for a speaker with the price of $100-200, then yes, sure, you're not gonna get something great or very ideal for reliable mixing or mastering. They have ports, transient response is probably not that great, etc, etc. But when you spend more than $4000 (and that's probably pushing it) for a pair of speakers, I genuinely believe it's not that worth it. maybe unless it's in the Neumann category and you're just rich. Or maybe if your studio needs very big mains because you want to impress clients or whatever.

most mixing or mastering engineers don't need to break the bank to get a good mix or even be able to master. Engineering has its limits and nothing man-made is perfect, let's be honest. It can get really good, but there will never be "perfect". Objectively, perfect doesn't exist in the Audio world. Its all taste. Those super expensive Neumanns or Genelecs aren't perfect either, but they are very good.

My point is that for most mixing or mastering engineers, even if you have the money, it is unnecessary to spend a fortune on the best Genelecs, ATCs, and honestly, probably even a KH310.
I really think the price of all these speakers comes down to marketing, and sure, the additional benefits the monitors could provide, or how they were engineered. Like the KH310 for example, is a really great piece of gear ill admit that. but for most speakers its the marketing due to the brand name which makes the price so high. For example, why waste $8k on a pair of Amphion Two 18s? or $13K for ATCS? Those prices are nuts. The engineers you see using those Amphions speakers, they didn't buy them. They were given to them by those brands as a product for advertising. Not saying the speakers are bad and such, but the price is a massive stretch and you can get great results for less.

So far (the first half of your essay) agreed about the costs of monitor/main speakers for home music recording/production.
For home music production one can get by using decent monitors or even a few budget options and don't need to spend a ton of money.
The higher end monitors are more interesting for pro usage.

But what do these high end speakers do? Oh, right. They provide "excellent transient response and have an amazingly revealing midrange, ,etc, etc"? Cool. honestly, for most out there mixing, they would benefit and do just fine getting the NS10 which also provides an amazing transient response with a fantastic time domain, paired with their very revealing midrange and typically only cost like $600-800 in total with say, a solid amp like a crown, or a yamaha, etc. And the best part, is countless of mixes and grammies were won mixing with the NS10s. You could argue that it's not as revealing as an ATC or Amphion but so what? why spend thousands more on such speakers unless you're deep in the industry where you're given gear by loudspeaker companies like candy, or you're making like $3000 a mix or more, or maybe you're a gear obsessed audiophile that has a lot of money to spare.

NS10 shilling ?
Sure ... when one really knows how the NS10 (real or clone) 'translates' and checks the mix using known good speakers and that sounds good then by all means use those 'tools' (NS10 or other tool-alike monitors) if they help you.
Would anyone really make great productions on an NS10 only ? Of course not.
They might do fine for 'the mids' provided when one is familiar with how the final result turns out, but one can use many other 'poorer' speakers as well ... as long as one is very familiar with them and knows how they 'translate'.
NS10's could be used as one of the tools for specific aspects in a mix as long as one is familiar with how it translates in the final mix (next to a decent to good reference).

So what I would do is just get a pair NS10s and pair them with a 7 or 8" monitors like say an EVE SC208 or a 207 for example, which has plenty of distortion free low end, with a crisp extended top end and you won't need to spend a fortune to get great results. So in the end, I believe there's a sweet-spot to audio engineering.

Let's just say that what you do (or recommend) is not what others may recommend/do

You need to be smart. Room treatment, NS10s, Maybe a pair of Neumann KH120 or 150s, or some EVEs to check lows and highs, your ears, a pair of solid headphones could be handy (which ones truly are without EQ), and just your overall EXPERIENCE.
That's basically all you need to get a good mix or master. And a better mix will result in having less to do in mastering so it's a win-win.in the end.

fixed that for you. The monitor speakers mentioned are interesting for home studios on a budget.

 

[goat76]

It's not just about the result, but also what it takes to get there. How hard it is to get to that good result. You can build a house with a hammer and a nail gun. The result can look the same, but the effort was not the same.

A better monitor will make it easier to make good choices in the mix, reduce the guesswork and reduce the need to double check on various playback devices.

And who says it takes the audio engineer any longer to "get there" with the NS-10s compared to your choice of monitors? It's just a preconceived idea you have, and I would say that whatever monitors someone has in their work arsenal, they are all geared towards getting a fast and reliable result, and that includes the NS-10s for some audio engineers, while another monitor can be a better tool for another engineer.

What makes you think any working audio engineer, who's dependent on delivering fast and reliable results for their clients, wouldn't go with the tools that do exactly that for them?

 

[DVDdoug]

And who says it takes the audio engineer any longer to "get there" with the NS-10s

Probably 99% of pro recording, mixing, and mastering engineers and producers!

Just because they are somewhat common in studios doesn't mean they are mixing/monitoring on them. They usually check their mix/production on a handful of 2nd rate and "inferior" setups. That might include headphones/in-ears, in their car, their home system, maybe their TV, and maybe even on their phone speaker.

And a lot of basic editing can be done on small nearfield or mid-field monitors or headphones (and at lower levels).

Better main monitors (in a treated/measured room) make it easier to get results that "translate" with less back-and-forth with all of these setups. And they know it's going to sound good for listeners with good systems.

 

[Haskil]

It doesn't make sense because it isn't true. It's a long held myth. A better, more linear speaker would be preferrable all day long.

Here's what I've heard several times in studios equipped with NS 10s placed on the console, in addition to the speakers actually used for mixing or soundchecking a recording: "If it sounds good on them, it'll sound good on a transistor radio at home or the car stereo..." Stupid words but that's how it is...

What I've also heard on the radio from the big ATCs: "Bring your headphones, because they cheat and create sound plans that don't exist."

In French, it's funny because ATC = Apporte Ton Casque (Bring your Headphones...)

 

[DVDdoug]

What I've also heard on the radio from the big ATCs: "Bring your headphones, because they cheat and create sound plans that don't exist."

I've collected some quotes about mixing & mastering on headphones and almost everybody says "no" but here's an exception
from Recording Magazine by a mixing engineer:

Can I mix on headphones?

No. But in all seriousness, headphones can be a secret weapon and it really doesn’t matter what they sound like…

Over time, after constantly listening back to my work from different studios on those headphones I really started to learn them. They became sort of a compass. Wherever I went… It became a pattern for me to reference these headphones to see if what I was hearing was “right”…

I learned them, I knew them, I trusted them. It didn’t matter whether or not I loved them…

So, can you mix on headphones? Probably. I just think you really need to put some time into learning them first…

And I don't think I have the quote but someone suggested headphones for bedroom producers to check the bass if they are using small monitors in small untreated room. It's a compromise but it's better than trying to mix/master with bad bass or no bass. Again, it's something you have to "learn" because headphones are a "different experience" from speakers in a room (in many ways) and you don't feel the bass in you body like with speakers or live sound.

 

[Haskil]

I've collected some quotes about mixing & mastering on headphones and almost everybody says "no" but here's an exception
from Recording Magazine by a mixing engineer:


And I don't think I have the quote but someone suggested headphones for bedroom producers to check the bass if they are using small monitors in small untreated room. It's a compromise but it's better than trying to mix/master with bad bass or no bass. Again, it's something you have to "learn" because headphones are a "different experience" from speakers in a room (in many ways) and you don't feel the bass in you body like with speakers or live sound.

Bring your headphones was a nonetheless serious joke uttered by several Radio France sound engineers, meaning that these large ATCs shouldn't be trusted... And that headphones were therefore only used to check certain things: and you know, for 40 years, I've always seen the Radio France tone masters come to the recordings with their headphones to check, again and again, certain points... regardless of the speakers used for monitoring the recordings.

To return to the ATCs: I was a victim of this as artistic director. I took a recording made with them to participate in a competition for young performer of the year within the framework of the European Union of French-speaking public radio stations. A piano/cello recording... Listened to in the large Belgian radio studios, on large Genelec speakers, the France Musique recording was mediocre: the two instruments were stuck together. On my way back, I arranged a meeting with a veteran sound engineer from Radio France, known for the excellence of his chamber music recordings... And then, ouch... he told the two young sound engineers that the ATCs are misleading... and added: you should have checked with other speakers or headphones whether the balance was correct or not...

 

[sigbergaudio]

Here's what I've heard several times in studios equipped with NS 10s placed on the console, in addition to the speakers actually used for mixing or soundchecking a recording: "If it sounds good on them, it'll sound good on a transistor radio at home or the car stereo..." Stupid words but that's how it is...

I've heard the same, from studio engineers who I've delivered new studio monitors to.. and that now hardly use the NS10s (or whatever other cheap monitor they had to check translation) at all anymore, because lo and behold - their mixes translate well when they work on good monitors too.

 

[ThatSoundsGood]

I've heard the same, from studio engineers who I've delivered new studio monitors to.. and that now hardly use the NS10s (or whatever other cheap monitor they had to check translation) at all anymore, because lo and behold - their mixes translate well when they work on good monitors too.

Exactly. The NS-10's was a thing many years ago because we didn't have accurate monitoring. It was all based on "getting to know your speakers and how they translate". Now we know that if we use the science (flat anechoic, downward tilt in-room, low distortion, low compression, etc.) and have accurate monitoring then our mixes will translate better. We can take the guess work out of it. There are still people who want to stand by NS-10's but it's a thing of the past. Genelec's and Neumann's have made them obsolete. You might still see them in some studios, but they are going away as time goes on.

 

[Haskil]

I've heard the same, from studio engineers who I've delivered new studio monitors to.. and that now hardly use the NS10s (or whatever other cheap monitor they had to check translation) at all anymore, because lo and behold - their mixes translate well when they work on good monitors too.

If you only knew how many times I've heard technicians who kept adjusting the volume during recordings justify their changes with "but it's for radio, so it has to be adapted to listening on a radio or in the car..." when all they're asked to do is record as best they can... and let those whose job it is to send the transmitters a reasonably dynamically compressed signal for FM...

We also had to fight against others who did the same during live broadcasts with records, with disasters resulting: the pianissimo beginning of a work: they pick it up... but don't know that a fortissimo follows: thus clipping... and the on-air compressor loses its footing...

Well, it's the same thing: the NS 10 can't serve as a basis for supposedly good sound on a car radio, but an excellent monitor speaker will produce good sound on all listening equipment...

 

[bmc0]

Also known in the live sound world as the ‘DFA’ fader or knob

I found an AES paper which provides some evidence of what live sound engineers know from experience: DFA faders work.

 

[garbulky]

Relax man, nobody gives a dime about what you think, people make their own choices.

It's literally a discussion forum . In that case why post anything at all...

 

[SuicideSquid]

Exactly. The NS-10's was a thing many years ago because we didn't have accurate monitoring. It was all based on "getting to know your speakers and how they translate". Now we know that if we use the science (flat anechoic, downward tilt in-room, low distortion, low compression, etc.) and have accurate monitoring then our mixes will translate better. We can take the guess work out of it. There are still people who want to stand by NS-10's but it's a thing of the past. Genelec's and Neumann's have made them obsolete. You might still see them in some studios, but they are going away as time goes on.

Something else related to the NS-10s that often gets overlooked - when they were very popular in the 80s, they mimicked a common frequency response curve of lots of budget and mid-range home stereo speakers that were popular at the time. It was useful to check your mix on NS-10s because they sounded like speakers people would likely be listening to your mix on.

Most speakers don't sound like that anymore. Most manufacturers at least target relatively flat frequency response (whether they achieve it is a different story...), and listeners even on fairly budget systems have many tools to get them even closer to flat in-room response, like the Audyssey room correction built into most mid-range home theatre receivers. And most people are probably listening on IEMs anyway. It's foolish to target a speaker sound that hasn't been common on in fashion for decades.

 

[DSJR]

I've said this before, but the pros I used to know, would only use the NS10 as one of the production tools in their sonic tool-kit to fine-tune upper mid frequencies, NEVER as a general mixing monitor. The bloody thing has been discontinued for so very long now, I don't know why it keeps coming up with such reverence too (by those who've never heard or used them). We had a set, on a bookshelf type of display surrounded by mainly electronics and they were brightly lit, but never painful as I'm sure they are perched on a meter bridge.

One of the NS10 articles out there, has a range of similar-size circa 2000 era monitors tested for response and so many of them had a raised upper midrange, even the fondly remembered Harbeth-designed HHB Circle models tested and definitely not just the ATC 20ASL pro, which to this day, still seems to balance not so differently from the cheaper 19 sibling annihilated here...

As for Genelec's smaller models, Steve Wilson (who used to reside not far from where I grew up), used and I believe still uses small Genelecs (I suspect with sub) for his surround mixes. His 'stereo' biggies of choice seem to be Focal trios if pics online are anything to go by...

Steven Wilson - Recording Studio — Sound Zero

The birth of our unique Grid Diffuser in this futuristic barn conversion-come-recording studio.

sound-zero.com

 

[goat76]

Something else related to the NS-10s that often gets overlooked - when they were very popular in the 80s, they mimicked a common frequency response curve of lots of budget and mid-range home stereo speakers that were popular at the time. It was useful to check your mix on NS-10s because they sounded like speakers people would likely be listening to your mix on.

That is a pretty absurd misunderstanding of why the NS-10s is used in studios, as there has never been anything like a ”common frequency curve” for budget to mid-range home stereo speakers to ”mimic”.

The only thing there was to mimic was the limited bass extension, and if everything in a music mix is heard and sounding balanced in the midrange (which all speakers, good or bad should be able to reproduce), it will translate well to all speaker systems. Other than that, the NS-10 was according to the mixing engineers using them brutally revealing for problems in the midrange, and a good tool for judging reverb and compression in a mix.

 

[G|force]

...sounded like speakers people would likely be listening to your mix on.

Most speakers don't sound like that anymore...

I don't understand this statement at all.

Which speakers were and were not 'likely' to be listened to?
Which ones 'don't sound like that anymore'?
Bose 901? AR? a/d/s? Cerwin Vegas? JBL? Dalquists? Maggies? BSR thunder lizards?


Anyway My JBL 4343's sound the same today as they did in 1985 when I first heard them.

 

[SuicideSquid]

That is a pretty absurd misunderstanding of why the NS-10s is used in studios, as there has never been anything like a ”common frequency curve” for budget to mid-range home stereo speakers to ”mimic”.

Sure there was. Walk into a pawn shop and listen to any of those old boxy floor standers, or old boomboxes, or old car stereos. No they don't sound identical but they pretty much all have the same general sonic character - no true low bass, some overemphasis of midbass to compensate for lack of true bass, major treble falloff above 10kHz.

I'm trying to steelman the case for NS-10s here. They're ****** speakers and no serious recording, mixing, or mastering engineer should touch them. I categorically reject the idea that you need to "check your mix" on ****** speakers and try to make it sound good on them. Mix and master so that you sound good on flat, neutral speakers, and your mix will sound good on the widest range of speakers and headphones. If you try to master for a particular set of deficiencies, you'll get all kinds of problems on speakers that have a different set of deficiencies (and you'll also sound worse on good speakers, to boot). The only reason mastering for a particular set of deficiencies forty years ago made a little more sense than it does today was that those particular deficiencies were widespread.

 

[goat76]

Sure there was. Walk into a pawn shop and listen to any of those old boxy floor standers, or old boomboxes, or old car stereos. No they don't sound identical but they pretty much all have the same general sonic character - no true low bass, some overemphasis of midbass to compensate for lack of true bass, major treble falloff above 10kHz.

I'm trying to steelman the case for NS-10s here. They're ****** speakers and no serious recording, mixing, or mastering engineer should touch them. I categorically reject the idea that you need to "check your mix" on ****** speakers and try to make it sound good on them. Mix and master so that you sound good on flat, neutral speakers, and your mix will sound good on the widest range of speakers and headphones. If you try to master for a particular set of deficiencies, you'll get all kinds of problems on speakers that have a different set of deficiencies (and you'll also sound worse on good speakers, to boot). The only reason mastering for a particular set of deficiencies forty years ago made a little more sense than it does today was that those particular deficiencies were widespread.

Don't you see you contradict yourself between the first and the second paragraph? In the first part you are claim most loudspeaker of that time period sounded very much alike with the same sound characteristics, but in the second part which you have quoted, it clearly states that different loudspeakers have different “deficiencies”.

First of, the NS-10 has never been used for adjustments for the overall tonal balance, they have mainly been used for the specific tasks during mixing, which I previously explained. Most audio production goes through many different stages, and when it comes to the overall tonal balance, a more full-range and flatter-sounding speaker is used, which is certainly the case for the final step which is the mastering. NS-10 has never been a mastering monitor, it is in most cases only used for specific tasks during the mixing stage of an audio production.

When it comes to mixing translation, it is never about making the mix sound especially good on certain loudspeakers. No. It's about making sure the mix sounds the best possible on all sound systems, and that also includes the best sound systems you can think of.

But with the above said, there are a few things that are done to many audio productions to make them less dynamic and louder to work netter in lively conditions or lesser systems, but that is mostly done in mastering, which the NS-10s have never (in general) been used for.

 

[ThatSoundsGood]

I've said this before, but the pros I used to know, would only use the NS10 as one of the production tools in their sonic tool-kit to fine-tune upper mid frequencies, NEVER as a general mixing monitor. The bloody thing has been discontinued for so very long now, I don't know why it keeps coming up with such reverence too (by those who've never heard or used them). We had a set, on a bookshelf type of display surrounded by mainly electronics and they were brightly lit, but never painful as I'm sure they are perched on a meter bridge.

One of the NS10 articles out there, has a range of similar-size circa 2000 era monitors tested for response and so many of them had a raised upper midrange, even the fondly remembered Harbeth-designed HHB Circle models tested and definitely not just the ATC 20ASL pro, which to this day, still seems to balance not so differently from the cheaper 19 sibling annihilated here...

As for Genelec's smaller models, Steve Wilson (who used to reside not far from where I grew up), used and I believe still uses small Genelecs (I suspect with sub) for his surround mixes. His 'stereo' biggies of choice seem to be Focal trios if pics online are anything to go by...

Steven Wilson - Recording Studio — Sound Zero

The birth of our unique Grid Diffuser in this futuristic barn conversion-come-recording studio.

sound-zero.com

View attachment 485550

I believe Steven Wilson uses Focals as his mains, which I can see there along with the Genelecs which seem to be in some kind of surround or immersive configuration.

 

[DSJR]

I believe Steven Wilson uses Focals as his mains, which I can see there along with the Genelecs which seem to be in some kind of surround or immersive configuration.

The article I (tried to) link to, describes the project of creating his then new recording and mixing space. The Focals (set for when he's standing up by the looks of things) appeared to be the mains in the pic and the text described the Genelec rig set as an Atmos arrangement. Pics of his previous home-studio (beams on the ceilings) showed the small Genelecs set in a surround situation and there were some different small monitors for stereo, but I can't recognise them. If you search, there are pics online which may help.