Testing the Studio Monitors in my Control room.

[davidki]

So I’m new here at least a new member but, I’ve been reading the site for a while and really enjoy the posts.. It seems like this is the place to post this and if not please let me know.

I’m interested in doing some speaker (studio monitor) test on some of the monitors I’ve had over the years. I have a Studio and I’m confident that the room is in good shape, we had a studio designer draw up the plans and after the rooms were built I had an acoustician here in Nashville come in and measure everything. So, I thought I’d start by measuring the frequency response on my Mackie HR824 powered monitors and my 2 pair of Yamaha NS40 (the big brother to the NS10 where the 40’s have 2 7” woofers, a midrange (they call it a honker) and a tweeter… they are designed to sit horizontally. My main speaker right now is one of the Pr of the NS40’s I purchased in about 1995 and last week I bought a new Bryston 4 b3 to drive them.. My 2nd Pr of NS10s was purchased used and I did a little work on one of the crossover. My Mackie’s are probably early to mid 2000 My goal is to verify that each speaker and then each pair are performing to spec and from reading this site you folks have laid out a great routine using a measurement mic and REW.

I started by upgrading my REW to the latest release, my Mic is an EMM 6 with calibration file Not completely understanding the set up I ran a few basic sweeps and from what my first sweep looked like my first bump is at 17ms on the impulse scale. I am measuring about 3’ back on axis with the tweeter. The set up is using my windows 10 pc and my RME ADAT card connected to my Sony Digital Console, running the Mic on Channel 3 of the board and channel 16 as the playback. My system is extremely clean my NS40’s hooked up through the Bryston and the Mackie’s are fed direct on my program out analog using balanced cables.

My goal in the beginning is to test, measure and overlay the frequency response of the monitors.. Mackie with Mackie, the NS10 independently and then as Pairs. Once I can confirm all that is working then I”ll probably want to run some tests on the room… but it is what It is and from our testing after finished building it shows very good characteristics…. The Rooms and monitors sound great… The NS40’s like the NS10 has that sound everyone hates but the mixes sound great and the room to room translation is great.

Over the years I tend to go looking at new monitors, I have purchased several different studio monitors to try out but seem to keep coming back to what I have J obviously since I just purchased the new Bryston I am leaning to passive monitors. I’d say the majority of projects we do are Acoustic.. Starting in the 80’s with folk, the last 10 years or so have been pretty much Bluegrass with a nice mix of some country thrown in. Because of Covid we had not been doing full session up until last week when we had our first session in 2 ½ years… and it is a Bluegrass Project.
View attachment 217377
I know a lot of folks on here deal more with Home Theater in the discussions with a few posts on studio needs from time to time… My interest is Studio Monitors or what folks call reference monitors but saying that I believe there is a thin line in-between a HiFi and Studio when it comes to Monitors and the key is let your ears make the choice rather than a flat line on a piece of paper.. But saying that I want to see that flat line and how it translates to our studio. Were in the Nashville TN area and if there are other Studio guys in the area on like perhaps we can chat ….

This week I am going to follow the Step by Step Quasi-Anechoic set up and see what the numbers come back with and hope there isn’t that I have been missing all along J

 

[fpitas]

The NS10s are useful to help you derive mixes that travel well, but you may be disappointed if you expect a flat frequency response:

The Yamaha NS10 Story

Love or hate the Yamaha NS10, this unassuming little speaker has found a place in the studios of many of the world's top producers. We trace its history, and investigate why a monitor whose sound has been described as "horrible" became an industry standard.

www.soundonsound.com

 

[davidki]

Fpitas, thanks for the reply... and Yea, NS10s and I assume NS40's are in the same boat with regards to how flat things are. When I started our first studio I had purchased the NS40's and just got use to them... everyone that comes in loves them and being 3 way vs 2way (10's) they definitely sound fuller. Like I have said that through the years I've tried several different monitors over the years. As you can see my current set up is the NS40's with the New Bryston 4b3 and I have to say I am hearing them and the material better than the older 4b that I had and much better than the previous amp.

Over the last couple of days I've been playing around trying to just run a straight frequency response on the speakers... 1mtr from the speakers, directed to the tweeter and with a spl of 75 measured. I have 2 different measurement mics (new) with the calibration file and for some reason (probably my set up) my results are coming back strange... If I use my Behringer 8024 RTA and my 8000 measurement mic things seem fine... so, I have over the years used SMAART (a friend has a license) to do testing and doing that everything seemed correct.

I have taken 2 approaches as explained above with my notebook and with my Studio Console and I am getting some weird results so It may be something set in REW ... I'm pretty sure the Mic is right as I can use any of them with the Behringer and things seem OK. Also, as I had said when we built this studio here outside of Nashville I had one of the Acousticians that designs a lot of the studio's in Nashville come in and analyze the room and he said the room was great and only suggested a 1 trap that we built and installed, so I am pretty confident in the room.... But saying that I am trying to just get a good look at the frequency response of the current monitors. With regard to the NS40 like I mentioned I have the current ones that are on the console and they are my original purchased new.... The second pair (in storage) is a pair I purchased used and rebuilt the cross overs per the specs I received from the Yamaha engineering back 10 years ago. So, I want to compare the response of those to the ones in my studio today.

I know, this all seems crazy... I just want to get to the point where I can get some accurate speaker measurement with what I have before I go out and plunk down a bunch of money on something different. I want to get "Passive" because of the 2 Brystons I have and not because of cost.... it is for the flexibility more than anything....

I was thinking if there were someone here on the forum that is from our area that is familiar with REW that I could have a chat with... it seems in looking at the internet more tutorials are based on Room Design and or measurements vs just looking at the speaker response.

Finally, I had thought I'd find a pr of Bryston Mini T monitors to try out but there really isn't any info on them, just a few reviews from years back and not much in the way of User reviews so I decided not to get them... only from the reason that there isn't a dealer close that has them to listen to and it seems like they focus more on Home Theater which isn't my application.

Thanks for your response and I hope to hear from others that perhaps have Studio's and deal with situations like mine.

 

[fpitas]

You might look at your gate settings for time-windowing. If no one here steps up, several people at Tech Talk use REW, they might help: https://techtalk.parts-express.com/forum/tech-talk-forum/1369108-rew-gate-settings-help-please

 

[davidki]

You might look at your gate settings for time-windowing. If no one here steps up, several people at Tech Talk use REW, they might help: https://techtalk.parts-express.com/forum/tech-talk-forum/1369108-rew-gate-settings-help-please

Thanks, I think I am going to uninstall and reinstall REW, who knows, something may have corrupted. I'll check the settings again.. I can't believe I'm having so much of an issue with REW... I even went and bought another Mic thinking something was squirrely with mine. I set up the parameters, ins and outs of REW and Run a sweep my first refection came back as about 17ms... that was the mic at 1mtr on axis to the center of the tweeter... Folks say to look for 4-7ms and I don't see anything there. Odd? Perhaps I should post my original post in the Tech talk site.

 

[fpitas]

Give re-installing a try. I use Holm Impulse, never tried REW.

 

[davidki]

Give re-installing a try. I use Holm Impulse, never tried REW.

Yea, things are just strange and to be clear, I am trying 2 separate setups. 1 Using My Sony Digital Console, I have a EMM-6 Mic on my input channel on my board and the output is playing back through a different channel, It is seeing the input and I can run the generator to get 75db spl just fine. One thing I noticed on the EMM-6 they only give one cal file and don't specify the axis... where the USB umbk-1 actually provides cal files on axis's and at 90 degrees... I am only interested right now at the On Access to test the frequency response of the speakers.

The other set up I use my notebook windows 10 and the USB UMBK-1 mic as my input and then, I take the notebook out to my console input and play the sweep from there. On this one I use the On access .txt file in REW.

It has to be something I am doing or my configuration, I'm not getting consistent plots and some are crazy off.

Just a note... I know the NS40's will have a not so flat curve, even their owners manual shows the frequency response and it is not flat at all. I just want to compare the 2 sets of speakers I have and see if they track somewhat close to each other.... My mackies are active and they should be pretty flat across the board, at least that's what the RTA is showing me.

 

[davidki]

Good Morning, I was wondering if there was any way to attach a .mdat file so you could see a test I ran... I'm still a little fuzzy on the set up and I am more interested in validating frequency response than trying to Analyze the room. My Yamaha NS40's are now 26 years old and sound pretty good to me and folks that come in the studio (especially folks familiar with NS10's), I decided to USE my Notebook with the UMBK USB measurement mic rather than screwing around with getting everything to run through my console. I also purposely left the speakers where they usually sit on the console to run the test. My reasoning is this is where they are when I mix so, I thought doing the tests as they sat would let me see what is going on. I set the mic on axis to the tweeter (above the mid driver) and I'd like to have someone interpret the files that is use to using this software. Like I said, after reading over many threads most folks are looking at the room... at this point I'd just like to see the speakers I have set up and how they compare Right to Left in the control room.... Does that make sense... I know NS10's and Im sure NS40 curves won't be flat... but, even the factory data they provide in the user manual shows that.... but again.... For those unfamiliar with the NS40 I've attached it's documents. By the way, I also mentioned before, I have 2 Pairs of these monitors 1 in use one as a spare and I want to at some point just chart the frequency response of each speaker to see the difference...(after 25+ years). Also, any of you in the Nashville area?