The Yamaha NS10 Story

[tomtoo]

You can cut the bass with EQ. No need to install speakers that can't produce bass.

Sure. But some 30 years ago there was not so much eq on the console. And good eq's where not cheap. I mean this where pre dsp times. To much bass in the nearfield is not nice at least for me.

 

[Floyd Toole]

You can cut the bass with EQ. No need to install speakers that can't produce bass.

Correct. As I said in earlier posts, woofers are minimum-phase devices. Their time response is predictable from the amplitude (frequency) response. This means that EQ is king - literally any time/frequency response is possible. "Tight" bass is usually bass with reduced fundamental energy, leaving the higher-frequency (faster) overtones.

 

[babydaddymusic]

I have Mr. Toole's book- I love science and I am a musician. The thing that fascinates me about the NS10 discussions is that at the end of the day, a majority of the people that have mixed the records that are the standards for music in the last 40 years have done so at least in part, on NS10's. I can't think of any high end studio that I have been in (and that is a lot, from coast to coast) that didn't have these sitting on the console.
To me, music is not made in a lab, and for whatever reasons, people that have the ears to create mixes of music seem to gravitate towards using NS10's as a tool, which by the way, has as good as a track record as any other single piece of gear in the history of music.
I know a few of these people- and they still use the NS10's despite having money and sponsorship opportunities to get other speakers.

It must be a joke that professionals that actually rely on making their living from creating compelling commercial records would be so gullible as to fall for Bob Clearmountain's use of them.

Correlation does not necessarily apply causation, but surely real science would seek to understand the why behind the success of this speaker as a tool for producing many of the standards of recorded music over the last 4 decades as it is in the real world, not in a lab. The fact is, regardless of what can be measured, professionals continue to use these, and many people who get paid to mix, feel these provide the best opportunity to create a mix that will be viable in several senses of the word.

 

[dfuller]

I have Mr. Toole's book- I love science and I am a musician. The thing that fascinates me about the NS10 discussions is that at the end of the day, a majority of the people that have mixed the records that are the standards for music in the last 40 years have done so at least in part, on NS10's. I can't think of any high end studio that I have been in (and that is a lot, from coast to coast) that didn't have these sitting on the console.
To me, music is not made in a lab, and for whatever reasons, people that have the ears to create mixes of music seem to gravitate towards using NS10's as a tool, which by the way, has as good as a track record as any other single piece of gear in the history of music.
I know a few of these people- and they still use the NS10's despite having money and sponsorship opportunities to get other speakers.

It must be a joke that professionals that actually rely on making their living from creating compelling commercial records would be so gullible as to fall for Bob Clearmountain's use of them.

Correlation does not necessarily apply causation, but surely real science would seek to understand the why behind the success of this speaker as a tool for producing many of the standards of recorded music over the last 4 decades as it is in the real world, not in a lab. The fact is, regardless of what can be measured, professionals continue to use these, and many people who get paid to mix, feel these provide the best opportunity to create a mix that will be viable in several senses of the word.

Eh, more and more of the time people are not using them. Besides, most of the time they were not used for the majority of mixing, but as a "stress test" of sorts - an attempt to break the circle of confusion.

They do have more perceptual low end than you'd expect when situated on a console's meter bridge, though I still wouldn't say they have any actual LF.


With all that said, if you want NS10s today, buy a set of ATC scm12s. They're fairly cheap at $2000/pr, have the limited bass response and sealed alignment, but have something resembling flattish frequency response so they don't quite do the fun house mirror thing that old school grotboxes do.

 

[Floyd Toole]

I have Mr. Toole's book- I love science and I am a musician. The thing that fascinates me about the NS10 discussions is that at the end of the day, a majority of the people that have mixed the records that are the standards for music in the last 40 years have done so at least in part, on NS10's. I can't think of any high end studio that I have been in (and that is a lot, from coast to coast) that didn't have these sitting on the console.
To me, music is not made in a lab, and for whatever reasons, people that have the ears to create mixes of music seem to gravitate towards using NS10's as a tool, which by the way, has as good as a track record as any other single piece of gear in the history of music.
I know a few of these people- and they still use the NS10's despite having money and sponsorship opportunities to get other speakers.

It must be a joke that professionals that actually rely on making their living from creating compelling commercial records would be so gullible as to fall for Bob Clearmountain's use of them.

Correlation does not necessarily apply causation, but surely real science would seek to understand the why behind the success of this speaker as a tool for producing many of the standards of recorded music over the last 4 decades as it is in the real world, not in a lab. The fact is, regardless of what can be measured, professionals continue to use these, and many people who get paid to mix, feel these provide the best opportunity to create a mix that will be viable in several senses of the word.

As I understand the industry, the mastering engineer is the last person to have a hand/ear in how a record sounds. In general they listen to relatively neutral "HiFi" loudspeakers in relatively "normal" rooms, while they "polish" the mix and often apply various kinds of compression. I recently read the book "Mastering in Music" edited by Braddock, et al. 2021. It seems to be a good up-to-date perspective on this critical final step in creating the master tape.The chapter on multichannel is interesting, as is the first chapter on rooms used for mastering. There are no rules, it is another layer of art and opinion. Laying down the tracks and building a mix, using whatever loudspeakers, is just a beginning. It is fortunate that good musicianship and music prevails.

I see that the AES is mounting a conference on hearing loss among musicians and engineers - maybe this is a factor in loudspeaker preference. However, in my books I describe the dominant effect of hearing loss: inconsistent judgments because not all of the sound is heard.

 

[babydaddymusic]

As I understand the industry, the mastering engineer is the last person to have a hand/ear in how a record sounds. In general they listen to relatively neutral "HiFi" loudspeakers in relatively "normal" rooms, while they "polish" the mix and often apply various kinds of compression. I recently read the book "Mastering in Music" edited by Braddock, et al. 2021. It seems to be a good up-to-date perspective on this critical final step in creating the master tape.The chapter on multichannel is interesting, as is the first chapter on rooms used for mastering. There are no rules, it is another layer of art and opinion. Laying down the tracks and building a mix, using whatever loudspeakers, is just a beginning. It is fortunate that good musicianship and music prevails.

I see that the AES is mounting a conference on hearing loss among musicians and engineers - maybe this is a factor in loudspeaker preference. However, in my books I describe the dominant effect of hearing loss: inconsistent judgments because not all of the sound is heard.

What an honor sir! Thanks for chiming in here. I was really fortunate to be a Columbia Records recording artist- a guy named Chris Lord-Alge mixed four of the songs on our record. I went to LA to loosely participate. He played me a mix from another band called Hole- the song is called Malibu, and he had apparently finished mixing the day before I got there. He played me the mix on his NS10's with a consumer sub, and I was blown away.
I guess, what interests me is that people who earn a living keep using these "inferior" speakers for some reason. There is no sponsorship for them- there is no glory in having these in terms of impressing clients-
On our record, we had one of the best mastering engineers that money could buy, and we had one of the best mixers that money could buy- the songs that the best mixer did are far and away the best sounding (fidelity) but more important, the most compelling and representative of what the songs "were intended to be".
It's very hard to "measure" how we get to that point- the mastering engineer could only do so much with the mixes he had.
Again correlation does not imply causation, but enough times and one has to wonder why.

I know from my personal experience, the NS10's direct traffic in a very heavy handed way, which it turns out, most often seems to result in something "musical" and non-confusing to the ear.

 

[babydaddymusic]

Eh, more and more of the time people are not using them. Besides, most of the time they were not used for the majority of mixing, but as a "stress test" of sorts - an attempt to break the circle of confusion.

They do have more perceptual low end than you'd expect when situated on a console's meter bridge, though I still wouldn't say they have any actual LF.


With all that said, if you want NS10s today, buy a set of ATC scm12s. They're fairly cheap at $2000/pr, have the limited bass response and sealed alignment, but have something resembling flattish frequency response so they don't quite do the fun house mirror thing that old school grotboxes do.

I don't know your background, so apologies in advance, but that has not been what I have observed personally- both as a recording artist and being a manager in the music business for 15 years. In fact, it's surprising when these aren't the primary monitors in many cases.

 

[dfuller]

As I understand the industry, the mastering engineer is the last person to have a hand/ear in how a record sounds. In general they listen to relatively neutral "HiFi" loudspeakers in relatively "normal" rooms, while they "polish" the mix and often apply various kinds of compression.

The room varies - I've seen anything from pretty consumer-like rooms to Northward's "Non-Environment on steroids" rooms - but yeah, generally the speakers are in the realm of neutral. Probably the most common speakers I've seen in mastering rooms are ATC active 3 ways which are certainly "neutral-ish", though I've seen almost anything you can think of that is full range-ish and flat-ish.
NS10s and grotboxes are nowhere to be seen. That's reserved for mixing, usually...

I don't know your background, so apologies in advance, but that has not been what I have observed personally- both as a recording artist and being a manager in the music business for 15 years. In fact, it's surprising when these aren't the primary monitors in many cases.

I work in the industry as well, mostly on the mastering side. Most mixers at the higher end of things are either using NS10s as a sanity check alongside higher fidelity, fuller range speakers, or not at all.

 

[sigbergaudio]

I guess, what interests me is that people who earn a living keep using these "inferior" speakers for some reason. There is no sponsorship for them(..)

You find some of the answers in the article this thread is about.

Beyond that, I suspect this is one of many cases where we search for logic or objective reason where there is none. Humans don't take a lot of decisions based on objective reasoning, we are extremely subjective to prejudice, bias a need for feeling like we belong and a host of other things that makes us do irrational things. This entire forum is built upon that phenomenon (as a counterweight to it).

“It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”
― Mark Twain

It's also a hard lived myth that you need something that sounds bad to ensure it translates well. To double check on, sure, but not to do the entire mix on. There's no need to sit all day with earbleed and listening fatigue.

 

[Floyd Toole]

he had apparently finished mixing the day before I got there. He played me the mix on his NS10's with a consumer sub, and I was blown away.

Of course it sounded good - it was mixed for those loudspeakers. The real test of a good mix is how it sounds on neutral (ish) loudspeakers, which, these days are increasingly common in both consumer and professional worlds. Check out www.spinorama.org for evidence - and also evidence of some pretty mediocre products.

 

[Jaxjax]

I have Mr. Toole's book- I love science and I am a musician. The thing that fascinates me about the NS10 discussions is that at the end of the day, a majority of the people that have mixed the records that are the standards for music in the last 40 years have done so at least in part, on NS10's. I can't think of any high end studio that I have been in (and that is a lot, from coast to coast) that didn't have these sitting on the console.
To me, music is not made in a lab, and for whatever reasons, people that have the ears to create mixes of music seem to gravitate towards using NS10's as a tool, which by the way, has as good as a track record as any other single piece of gear in the history of music.
I know a few of these people- and they still use the NS10's despite having money and sponsorship opportunities to get other speakers.

It must be a joke that professionals that actually rely on making their living from creating compelling commercial records would be so gullible as to fall for Bob Clearmountain's use of them.

Correlation does not necessarily apply causation, but surely real science would seek to understand the why behind the success of this speaker as a tool for producing many of the standards of recorded music over the last 4 decades as it is in the real world, not in a lab. The fact is, regardless of what can be measured, professionals continue to use these, and many people who get paid to mix, feel these provide the best opportunity to create a mix that will be viable in several senses of the word.

There everywhere for sure to this day. You would know more then me on this but don't they just use em for focusing on a specific area when mixing .? or a translation thing.? Mastering seems to have the full range big boys & then tweaked again before final stamp.? I watch a crap ton of studio stuff because it fascinates me just how hard it is...as in very.. The gear & talent just to get it done is not for everyone...
Melting my KT 66 amp in free space during summer is living man..!!!
Joe

 

[CleanSound]

Of course it sounded good - it was mixed for those loudspeakers. The real test of a good mix is how it sounds on neutral (ish) loudspeakers, which, these days are increasingly common in both consumer and professional worlds. Check out www.spinorama.org for evidence - and also evidence of some pretty mediocre products.

Hi Dr. Toole, first, thank you for your work.

This is a snippet from David Fabrikant of Ascent Acoustics: "Based on my near 40-years of experience with loudspeakers, I characterize a fun speaker no differently than designers did back then, when most speakers were voiced by ear."

Not sure if you know, but can you share with us what was the general design process of a loud speaker before your ground breaking research? Is it true that speakers were mostly voiced by ear? And was a neutral speaker viewed as a flavor rather than a reference point back in the days? What were the key scientific methods and techniques that were included in speaker design since your research?