Studio Monitors & The Circle of Confusion- What We Know/Don’t Know

[thewas]

Music creation is art.

Music recording and reproduction is science and engineering.

Correct.

 

[thewas]

You don't always have those on hand.

Nowadays there is a lot of data around for monitors and even for home audio, so at least for future choice decisions this excuse is not valid anymore.

Besides that, having the graphs doesn't always exactly tell you what things sound like. Frankly most data is at best incomplete, if it's even available.

I don't agree there, its mainly most being able to interpret them well enough.

 

[thewas]

Thus I would have thought the need for neutral/transparent monitors in the creation and ideally in its reproduction.

I even don't care what people at their homes (prefer to) use, but having at least some standards in its creation someone can have finally a chance to listen to a recording as it was indented to sound if desired so.

 

[dfuller]

Nowadays there is a lot of data around for monitors and even for home audio, so at least for future choice decisions this excuse is not valid anymore.

I don't agree there, its mainly most being able to interpret them well enough.

For purchases, absolutely agree with you here. But you do have to often use what a room has. Sometimes they're good, sometimes they're not. It's important to orient yourself.

As far as interpreting vs not, good luck finding measurements that entirely characterize a speaker. It's not nearly as common as you think - even the suite our host here uses is missing rather critical information (almost none of his testing includes dynamic behavior or multitone distortion, both of which are readily audible), and his is way better than most!

 

[Rettica]

We would believe you if this wasn't the result:

even with these room distortions music can still sound good. our ears adapt

What you guys basically saying is that, there is a chinese text and people translated it to English, Danish, French and German. Because people from all these nationalities enjoyed

very good analogy. there is a problem with not understanding the complete meaning of translated texts, but do we have any solution? again, its a philosophical question

 

[Sokel]

70 years ago science seemed to be a thing to be proud of.
It's sad that evolution didn't follow the path.

(taken from another thread near by) :

 

[Rettica]

Music creation is art.

Music recording and reproduction is science and engineering.

how can you separate one from another when talking about electronic music, for example?

 

[Blockader]

Just to be clear: I genuinely believe most of you are doing your best with the rooms and speakers you have. This conversation only went this way because some claimed that issues like poor directivity or dips in the on-axis response don’t matter and that a dip in the speaker response won’t translate into a peak in the mix.

But that’s missing the point. A dip can cause overcompensation during mixing, which ends up as a peak in translation. Ignoring these flaws only feeds into the circle of confusion, where nobody really knows what 'neutral' sounds like.

So the conversation is philosophical or more like looking at things from research perspective: How should a speaker sound like to minimize translation errors in sound reproduction? Please do not take it personal. However, I do think that the hearing you guys rely on does not fix circle of confusion and because you developed your hearing skills, it doesn't minimize the circle of confusion problems to a sufficient degree. The hearing skills you gained help you to get the best out of the system you are forced to work with, however in the end, both you and the rest of us are still dwelling at the bottom of the circle of confusion hell.

 

[Sokel]

Are we sure that we want music to be "translated" to all gear?

I mean, compromises can be dreadful.
For example, a work from the highly acclaimed Steven Wilson, a beautiful song otherwise, "Routine" .

I don't know what he was thinking but it's like a thunder diminished to nothing.
Such a potential to demolish stuff, such a chance to give the singer the respect she deserved.
But nope.

If that's what "translation" is, it's a major fail.

Edit:I won't go to classical for extremes, but when emotion is done right ,it sounds like "My Immortal" , the live version from "Anywhere but Home" .
It won't "translate" nicely on smaller gear though.

 

[Blockader]

how can you separate one from another when talking about electronic music, for example?

Reproduction is having a recipe(pcm file, input signal... whatever you name it) and cooking based on it. It is basically a f(x) = y, x being the input signal, y is the output. f() is the translation. However, imagine the recipe you are reading is based on a translation from Chinese to English, so the translator f'd up translation of sugar with pepper. You may like the result, but that doesn't mean the end result is how the real recipe should taste like. If you did not like the dramatization of Chinese to English translation example, imagine the scenario where the editor of this cookbook messed up and forgot to include one ingredient from the recipe. The editor, the translator is the speaker system/room where you evaluate your "reference" mixes.

Electronic music production is basically, well, production. You can put whatever you want in the mix, pepper, wasabi and mix it with mayonnaise if you want. You are free to do whatever you want. There is no recipe, there is no f(x) = y, there is no y and there is no x. Because there is no input signal, there is no output signal. It's all in your brain. There is no translation. It's an expression. It is the process of preparing the recipe.

 

[Mart68]

So the conversation is philosophical or more like looking at things from research perspective: How should a speaker sound like to minimize translation errors in sound reproduction? Please do not take it personal. However, I do think that the hearing you guys rely on does not fix circle of confusion and because you developed your hearing skills, it doesn't minimize the circle of confusion problems to a sufficient degree. The hearing skills you gained help you to get the best out of the system you are forced to work with, however in the end, both you and the rest of us are still dwelling at the bottom of the circle of confusion hell.

Is it really a hell? I think this is massively overstating the circle of confusion problem.

I cannot say it has ever bothered me.

If we were going to fix the circle of confusion then the place to start would surely be with the room acoustics and speaker systems of the end users, since that is where the biggest deviations lie, by a long margin.

Since that cannot be fixed (other than issuing everyone who listens to music in their homes with a free pair of state of the art monitors and having professional acousticians remodel their rooms) the whole issue is moot and very much a philosophical debate.

 

[lowkeyoperations]

It simple logic that with a neutral chain you can better, easier and in a more targeted way get to your result. Do you have a study that can show the opposite?

I don’t need to prove your unsubstantiated claim false. This is a science based forum.

 

[Blockader]

I don’t need to prove your unsubstantiated claim false. This is a science based forum.

The sound reproduction book of Floyd Toole is about that, you should read it. You sound like a guy in a mechanical engineering forum who doesn't know the laws of thermodynamics. If you do not know Floyd Toole's book, it is your problem. Not ours. All the proof is there. I can copy paste some of the parts for you later.

 

[Rettica]

How should a speaker sound like to minimize translation errors in sound reproduction?

I would say, regarding frequency response, +/-3db is enough. when we reach this level other factors become more critical. room distortions, for example

Are we sure that we want music to be "translated" to all gear?

of course not. contemporary pop music arranged and mixed to sound good on smartphone speakers because thats how 90% of teenagers listen to it. what can we do about it?

 

[Blockader]

Is it really a hell? I think this is massively overstating the circle of confusion problem.

I cannot say it has ever bothered me.

If we were going to fix the circle of confusion then the place to start would surely be with the room acoustics and speaker systems of the end users, since that is where the biggest deviations lie, by a long margin.

Since that cannot be fixed (other than issuing everyone who listens to music in their homes with a free pair of state of the art monitors and having professional acousticians remodel their rooms) the whole issue is moot and very much a philosophical debate.

Yeah It is hell. One recording sounds amazing on my 8361 + W371 combo, then the next track sounds like shit. One recording has the most impactful bass I could ever imagine while the other one sounds limb and weak.

 

[lowkeyoperations]

The sound reproduction book of Floyd Toole is about that, you should read it. You sound like a guy in a mechanical engineering forum who doesn't know the laws of thermodynamics. If you do not know Floyd Toole's book, it is your problem. Not ours. All the proof is there. I can copy paste some of the parts for you later.

Very happy for you to paste Tooles research into the flatness of studio monitors in nearfield and how that directly relates to the quality of mixes. But there isn’t any. You’re just extrapolating and referring back to “it’s just logical”. That’s not actual proof of any sort. Just faith based conjecture.

 

[Sokel]

what can we do about it?

2 versions?
A proper and a crippled one.

( you'll be right to tell me to keep dreaming)

 

[thewas]

I don’t need to prove your unsubstantiated claim false. This is a science based forum.

Your claim has no science behind, mine comes from scientists like Toole and Olive.

 

[thewas]

For purchases, absolutely agree with you here. But you do have to often use what a room has. Sometimes they're good, sometimes they're not. It's important to orient yourself.

In these cases of course, but the discussion here was what the optimum would be.

As far as interpreting vs not, good luck finding measurements that entirely characterize a speaker. It's not nearly as common as you think - even the suite our host here uses is missing rather critical information (almost none of his testing includes dynamic behavior or multitone distortion, both of which are readily audible), and his is way better than most!

I agree but thankfully nowadays sites like EAC (in the past also S&R) and even some manufacturers like Ascilab provide those, its really getting better and easier than in the past.

 

[Frank Dernie]

What you guys basically saying is that, there is a chinese text and people translated it to English, Danish, French and German. Because people from all these nationalities enjoyed, things should be fine.

We would believe you if this wasn't the result:

View attachment 460610
These are calibrated, expensive, and supposedly neutral monitors used in professional rooms... yet the variation is massive, especially below 1 khz.

Max/Min Range (magenta): Swings up to ±15 dB across frequencies.
90% Variation (black): Still ±5 to ±10 dB below 200 Hz.
Even within 50% of the rooms, you still get ±3–5 dB deviations.

This graph above proves that human hearing is not an absolute measuring device: it's adaptive, biased, and incredibly sensitive to context.

you guys want us to put trust in this cycle you guys stuck in:
Skewed Room → Skewed Mix → Skewed Reference Track → Skewed Playback Tuning → Skewed Perception → Repeat.

There’s no absolute reference in music reproduction because there was never one in music production. Unless all rooms, all monitors, and all listeners agree on a neutral standard (which they never do), we can never take your "trust me bro, I know how reference should sound like" serious. If you read Toole's book on sound reproduction, you'll see why wee are so skeptic about the "bro-science" attitude that audio engineers have.

Despite common belief, the data consistently shows that audio engineers often overestimate the accuracy of their own hearing. Many rely on subjective impressions and personal experience rather than controlled evidence: essentially a form of 'audio bro science.' For decades, we’ve been told to trust the ears of professionals who, in practice, operate within highly inconsistent monitoring environments. Until the industry can demonstrate objective consistency in perception and decision making, skepticism toward these claims remains not only reasonable, but necessary.

Probably around 30 years ago when I was still doing amateur recordings using 2 microphones I had noticed for ages the position of the microphone made more difference on a recording than it did listening in the same spot and decided to do a few experiments.
No real measurement kit back then but recording my daughter playing her cello at half a dozen locations in my room and listening to the result on headphones revealed differences in the recording that may well have been as big as those in your graph, but the sound listening to the cello in the room varied much less, putting my head at the microphone positions.

As an engineer it would have been good to follow up more but it wasn't my main job and I was busy designing racing cars.

Anyway, FWIW, I concluded that the big difference in what my microphone picked up and what I heard was probably either me "hearing through the room" or the fact that my ears, and having two, averaged sound over a much bigger area than my microphone capsule.

I have 2 editions of Dr Toole's book and have seen his wide experiments and conclusions about loudspeakers with interest, I have zero experience on differences in dispersion but differences in measured in room FR come as zero surprise and IME make FAR less difference than one would expect.

I bought a Genelec 8341 to see what all the fuss was about and have considered updating my old speakers to D&D or even Genelec 8361/W371 or even 8381, which look nicer, but listening to Alison Balsam playing piccolo trumpet on her Baroque Concertos CD was such a joy I decided not to risk it