Studio monitor tradeoffs - questions for music mixers

[Ropeburn]

1. Low Frequencies:
If you want to listen to Music, normally a F3 of 50Hz is enough.
Lower than this, you have no relevant information for Music, but the very low frequencies can make your room 'ring'.
It's more important to place the speaker as good as possible in your room and correct the room modes in the bass frequencies.

That is totally not true as a general statement. A whole lot of properly made dance music, and industrial and metal and way more, has most energy between 40 and 50 Hz. That's where the powerful bassdrums and/or basses hit really hard, and also what big, powerful PA systems for clubs and concerts still do properly.

If you want to produce any of that, or listen properly, you absolutely need solid 40Hz performance in your room, preferably lower. It's difficult to set up and there will always be compromises, but if you don't want to limit yourself to headphones (which you shouldn't), it's very much needed.

F3 of 35Hz in the room is good enough. Lower is better.

 

[dfuller]

So, how important is LOW frequency response to you? Especially something like 36hz vs 45Hz and what is the highest F3 you would find acceptable?

Personally, I hate using subs, so I want full range. My current speakers are flat down below 30hz.

How important is max SPL to you and what is a minimum you would find acceptable?

I don't work loud, but I want enough SPL capability that my nominal working level (mid-low 80s dB SPL) is effectively distortion-free (i.e., <0.5% THD above 100hz at 90dB, ideally below 2% below 100hz), with 15-20dB of peak handling beyond that.

Thinking of Hoffman's Iron law, something has to give. Is the size of the monitor much of a constraint (I'm not talking huge, but say 0.50 cubic feet vs 1.0 cubic feet) or are you okay with big if that is what is needed to get the low frequency and SPL requirements?

My current speakers are about 1.5cf internal volume, so... not a problem there. Also using them more midfield than nearfield.

Do you prefer studio monitors to have wide directivity, more narrow directivity, or indifferent as long as it is smooth and controlled directivity?

Personal preference says as long as it's pretty consistent*, I really don't care.

*It doesn't have to be anywhere near perfectly linear, FWIW; studios tend to have early reflections heavily absorbed so off-axis performance tends to take a bit of a back seat vs domestic environs. Flat baffles are usually good enough if edge diffraction is dealt with enough.

Not IME. I've never gotten one sub to sound right. The pressurization difference is what gets me, generally a sub is off to one side of a room and I can tell. I can't localize it but my brain notices different pressure between left and right ear. Even with a single listening position multiple subs help. Multisub is a thing in mix work as well, just not many people have caught onto it yet.

FWIW, the best rooms I've been in are a 2.2 kind of setup, ie one sub per top.

 

[574stereo]

For me, having 'flat' bass down to a low frequency is relatively unimportant. The number of full range speakers I've measured in studios which still have large + broad dips in their frequency response (at say, 55 or 65 Hz) due to boundary reflections is countless.

Subwoofers get a bad rep, but when they're integrated correctly into the main speakers (delay, phase response + correct freq. response, low distortion), they're totally transparent and can actually resolve the issues you have with room reflections.


By the way, there are maybe, 5 or 6 total busy working mix engineers here in the UK who are earning enough revenue from their work to actually fund the building of a room the correct shape & size to really not have any major problems. Most of us are having to make do with a space provided to us (and heavily treated), or a garden studio which is having to fit into the confines of what planning permission will allow or the space available at the end of the garden. That's just the practical limitations of the industry at the moment, so subwoofers can be major problems solvers if they're applied correctly.


In terms of aspects of speaker performance, for me it's:

• Reliability
• High output capability without distortion (don't want to think that unpleasant sound coming from a port or distorting woofer is actually in the signal) - same performance loud when quiet
• No hiding dynamic issues, not sure why it doesn't show up in the measurements but I haven't found any measurements which seem to correlate with certain brands of speakers (Neumann I'm looking at you, and I own a load of them) hiding things in the signal which are perfectly audible on other speakers/headphones.
• Low distortion so I can hear what my reverbs/delays/ambiences are doing
• Wide and pretty even dispersion
• Low amounts of phase shift at the bottom of the pass-band so I can hear what any filters I'm putting in the low-frequencies are doing. We use a lot of plugins which introduce high-pass/low-pass filters in the signal to divide mixes up into separate frequency bands. If these stack up too much you can wind up really smearing the phase response of your kick drums/snare drums etc. Some speakers seem to reveal this, others don't.
• Relatively flat frequency response (once it's +/- a few dB or so you just learn what your speakers are doing)

 

[574stereo]

FYI I tend to mix around 77-78dB A-weighted, which is a little hotter than some I know, but not as loud as a lot of people. Some of the clients I have attending will want to hear their mixes back at gig/concert levels. When you have a band in the room, the speakers will need to play LOUD, so high output is an essential part of keeping the client(s) happy more than anything.

I also find speakers which are able to play loud without distortion tend to be the ones which allow me to hear dynamics better at normal listening volumes. Hence, high maximum SPL is a priority for me.

I'm sitting around 1.8m away from my stereo speakers. Atmos is another thing, but you have so many speakers it's not really an issue (and tbh, I find using quality speakers in an Atmos setup is much less important than stereo).

 

[Kyle_PL]

Personally, I hate using subs, so I want full range.

I think with sub, setup will be cheaper/have better performance per dollar. For example, when we are looking for nearfield setup, we have:
1. Neumann KH 310A (x2) + some calibration
vs
2. Neumann KH 120II (x2) + Neumann 750DSP + Neumann MA1 (for perfect alignment subwoofer and monitors)

Above (2) 2.1 setup will go deeper than above (1) 2.0, and very neutral (thanks to hardware calibration).

 

[Sokel]

Displacement rather than physical size.
Keith

Doesn't cut it for impact,it needs a decent big-ish mid for this,so bigger size too.
About range,if that classical has 30's :




(Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra - Capriccio Espagnol)

...imagine EMD and stuff.

 

[574stereo]

Agreed, plus you reduce IM distortion by hi-passing your speakers.

A dedicated midrange driver is theoretically better, but it depends on the crossover points chosen by the designer. If you cross into the mid too high, you end up with LF information modulating the midrange/vocals. My KH310s do this...

I think with sub, setup will be cheaper/have better performance per dollar. For example, when we are looking for nearfield setup, we have:
1. Neumann KH 310A (x2) + some calibration
vs
2. Neumann KH 120II (x2) + Neumann 750DSP + Neumann MA1 (for perfect alignment subwoofer and monitors)

Above (2) 2.1 setup will go deeper than above (1) 2.0, and very neutral (thanks to hardware calibration).

 

[574stereo]

Doesn't cut it for impact,it needs a decent big-ish mid for this,so bigger size too.
About range,if that classical has 30's :


View attachment 405369

...imagine EMD and stuff.

Exactly, this is why the approach a lot of DSP etc based speakers are taking nowadays doesn't really cut it for a lot of engineers. The IM distortion from these tiny drivers flapping around even at quite normal listening volumes is just crazy and unworkable.

 

[dfuller]

A dedicated midrange driver is theoretically better, but it depends on the crossover points chosen by the designer. If you cross into the mid too high, you end up with LF information modulating the midrange/vocals. My KH310s do this...

If 310s have any glaring fault, it's this. Their IM distortion in the woofer's range is really quite high even at moderate levels. KH420 is something like 15dB lower at the same level...

No hiding dynamic issues, not sure why it doesn't show up in the measurements but I haven't found any measurements which seem to correlate with certain brands of speakers (Neumann I'm looking at you, and I own a load of them) hiding things in the signal which are perfectly audible on other speakers/headphones.

I'll say I notice this a lot more in the smaller ones. The 420s seem much more dynamic.

I think with sub, setup will be cheaper/have better performance per dollar. For example, when we are looking for nearfield setup, we have:
1. Neumann KH 310A (x2) + some calibration
vs
2. Neumann KH 120II (x2) + Neumann 750DSP + Neumann MA1 (for perfect alignment subwoofer and monitors)

Above (2) 2.1 setup will go deeper than above (1) 2.0, and very neutral (thanks to hardware calibration).

Yes, but subs are a truly gigantic pain in the ass to integrate. I didn't want to deal with it, so I didn't.

 

[Kyle_PL]

Yes, but subs are a truly gigantic pain in the ass to integrate.

I think with Neumann MA-1 (+DSP monitors like Neumann KH120II and Neumann DSP750 sub) this shuld be automatic (delays, levels, cut-off's - all auto-adjusted by MA-1 measurements).

Integration/manual settings based "by ear" is in fact "truly gigantic pain".

 

[unpluggged]

Yes, but subs are a truly gigantic pain in the ass to integrate. I didn't want to deal with it, so I didn't.

With modern software-based calibration systems this shouldn't be much of a hassle. I am very satisfied with the result I got with the MA 1 alignment.

 

[dfuller]

With modern software-based calibration systems this shouldn't be much of a hassle. I am very satisfied with the result I got with the MA 1 alignment.

See you say that, but no. Placement is the hard part, software can't solve that. Subs are heavy.

 

[Kyle_PL]

In "software" You have up to 200ms (66 meters) delay correction (of course automatic correction - im talking about Genelec 83xx and GLM right now, but in Neumans DSP monitor system, there shoud be this kind of automatic correction too).

 

[Smaestro]

I don't understand why 2.1 would be better than 2.0 full range.
If you have a 2.0 full range system, doesn't that count as having two subs? And thus better coverage, less dips and peaks, than a 2.1 system?

 

[574stereo]

I don't understand why 2.1 would be better than 2.0 full range.
If you have a 2.0 full range system, doesn't that count as having two subs? And thus better coverage, less dips and peaks, than a 2.1 system?

In theory yes, in practice no. A subwoofer can be placed where low frequencies are optimal. Most mix rooms are far from ideal when it comes to shape and large/broad dips are common between 50-100 Hz in most rooms.

 

[Purité Audio]

Two full range loudspeakers and then perhaps additional subs to even response, see the DBA/ waveforming thread.
Keith

 

[574stereo]

How's that going to work if the speakers have different phase responses? Can't have a subwoofer playing 8-10 msec behind your 'full range' speakers at the same time. A crossover must be used.

Regarding Trinnov Waveforming, any system which introduces more than ~5-6 msec of latency in a studio renders the monitoring virtually unusable in all except for a small number of uses. Trinnov is all well and good but it's almost always off on every session due to the unworkable amounts of latency.

 

[Kyle_PL]

I don't understand why 2.1 would be better than 2.0 full range.
If you have a 2.0 full range system, doesn't that count as having two subs?

Let's talk about this "full range":
2x Genelec 8350 cost $3398, and their "full range" is from 33Hz @-6dB
2x Genelec 8330 + 1x Genelec 7350 cost $2599, and their range is from 22Hz @-6dB

It's the economy.

And thus better coverage, less dips and peaks, than a 2.1 system?

I don't think so.

 

[Purité Audio]

How's that going to work if the speakers have different phase responses? Can't have a subwoofer playing 8-10 msec behind your 'full range' speakers at the same time. A crossover must be used.

Regarding Trinnov Waveforming, any system which introduces more than ~5-6 msec of latency in a studio renders the monitoring virtually unusable in all except for a small number of uses. Trinnov is all well and good but it's almost always off on every session due to the unworkable amounts of latency.

Obviously you need a processor of some description.
Keith

 

[Smaestro]

In theory yes, in practice no. A subwoofer can be placed where low frequencies are optimal. Most mix rooms are far from ideal when it comes to shape and large/broad dips are common between 50-100 Hz in most rooms.

Yes, I suppose that’s true. But doesn't a single source in a small room force your listening position into a very small box?

With 2.0 you don't have as much placement flexibility, but still some, let's say a circle with a diameter of a foot per speaker, and then of course also your listening position. That can be enough flexibility to create a slightly larger optimal position. If you then add the MSO option of EQing sub’s independently, you bring the flexilibity up to possibly 2.1 levels, but with a big advantage: a sweetspot which isn't too small to move your head in. Which I think is a large benefit (or necessity) if you mix 8hrs a day.

I’m not experienced to make a strong claim, but it seems to me that possibly 1 freely movable sub gives good results more easily, while 2 less movable ‘subs’ (2.0) are capable of bigger and smoother listening position, but require more effort.

Let's talk about this "full range":
2x Genelec 8350 cost $3398, and their "full range" is from 33Hz @-6dB
2x Genelec 8330 + 1x Genelec 7350 cost $2599, and their range is from 22Hz @-6dB

It's the economy.

Ok but I'm talking about best possible quality, not price per performance.
Genelec also offers the 8381A for $60k, they probably wouldn't if you can get the same result for $2599.