EQ monitors to sound like NS10

[RichardT]

And of course, there are even better monitors available today than the ones I have before me here.

So with respect... you're spouting nonsense....

But where’s it all going Hugh, how good can a speaker be? how good do we need it to be, I have to say, a lot of the modern ones I hear, not in my basement, but in better rooms, don’t impress, there is always something that draws your attention to the sound, in an irritating way. As for the mainstream offerings, budget, mid price range, there’s always way too much of everything, especially bass, to call them anything approaching "neutral" is a joke.
If I thought I could improve my sound, that much, I’d have done it by now, but I don’t think it’s worth it, from a technical point of view, and a creative one.
I see your "with respect" Hugh, and I raise you "with the greatest respect"

I think if you did get better monitoring you would probably change your mind very quickly on that! Using your Behringer monitors you’re simply not hearing things properly. But it’s a perfectly valid choice to spend your money elsewhere, we are all different and have different priorities.

[wearashirt]

Alright thanks for the golden insights! So here's another question. What does that make of the yamaha hs5-8?

Do you guys still find it worthwhile to have any mid-rangy speaker if it doesn't represent a realistic sound, and if there's other effective ways to judge the midrange anyway?

This is a ROOKIE question by the way. Thanks for all the help.

[Hugh Robjohns]

So here's another question. What does that make of the yamaha hs5-8?

It's a budget active speaker and sub. Good value for money, albeit with a slightly confused midrange presentation IMHO.

Do you guys still find it worthwhile to have any mid-rangy speaker if it doesn't represent a realistic sound, and if there's other effective ways to judge the midrange anyway?

As I said at the start of the thread, I find turning the monitoring level right down and/or listening form the hallway outside the studio just as effective at judging the midrange balance. And I also recommend reviewing the mix on a phone or laptop.

And it's much better and more informative to listen in a variety of different locations than to listen to a variety of different speakers in just one location!

[James Perrett]

Similarly to Hugh, I find listening to a mix at a variety of volumes to be enough. At low volumes our ears do the equivalent of listening through a mid range boosted speaker as they are less sensitive to high and low frequencies at low volume.

When I set up my home system a few months ago I tried a variety of speakers - including the NS10's. They didn't allow me to hear into a mix in the way that the LS3/5a's do. Even the humble Kef Celeste III's were far superior to the NS10's in my opinion.

[Arpangel]

I think if you did get better monitoring you would probably change your mind very quickly on that! Using your Behringer monitors you’re simply not hearing things properly. But it’s a perfectly valid choice to spend your money elsewhere, we are all different and have different priorities.

I’m hampered by not being able to treat the room, hence my reluctance to get high end monitors.
But I’ve heard some, here, express the opinion that it doesn’t really matter if I can’t, a better speaker would be worthwhile anyway.
Another factor to consider, big expensive monitors are a hard act to smuggle in, not like a reverb pedal or a bit of modular.

[Aled Hughes]

. I wouldn't consider any speaker I've heard as being of true monitor quality speaker below a couple of grand, minimum

The smaller Neumanns don’t quite cut it as true monitors for you?
Is that simply a matter of the LF extension needed to be a ‘true monitor’?

That is, they could only be considered a true complete full range monitoring system with a subwoofer (and therefore of course bringing the system cost to a bit over that £2k)?

[Hugh Robjohns]

But I’ve heard some, here, express the opinion that it doesn’t really matter if I can’t, a better speaker would be worthwhile anyway.

Clearly, an expensive monitor speaker with low distortion, great resolution, extended bandwidth, yada yada, will be 'better' than a budget speaker in the sense of giving you more information to work with... And hence a better speaker is worthwhile anyway...

However, if used in a poor acoustic environment you will never achieve the full quality benefits that the speaker is capable of... so a substantial chunk of the high purchase price will be completely wasted as much of the capability can never be realised in that environment.

Another factor to consider, big expensive monitors are a hard act to smuggle in...

I just say I'm reviewing them...

[Hugh Robjohns]

The smaller Neumanns don’t quite cut it as true monitors for you?

They are really great speakers, and have a quality that punches considerably above their price tag which makes them even more attractive. So although the KH120s cost around £1k a pair, I'd say they are directly comparable to many speakers costing £1500-2000.

I've used KH120s on location recording sessions where space was at a premium and I rate them highly... but if I'm being paid I'd prefer to mix and master on something considerably more capable.

That is, they could only be considered a true complete full range monitoring system with a subwoofer (and therefore of course bringing the system cost to a bit over that £2k)?

A sub (in a decent room) would certainly help considerably for high-quality work... although I'd still prefer KH310s as a minimum!

[RichardT]

I own KH120s (no sub) and some more expensive speakers, KEF LS50Ws -the difference between them is not really in the lower frequencies but in higher resolution, imaging and better dynamics generally. LS50Ws are probably at the bottom of the range of speakers that might count as ‘monitors’, and spending more would get me something even better.

[Arpangel]

One for Hugh, I know it’s not possible for you to make specific recommendations, but if you had to set aside a budget regarding a home studio, you know my situation, for a pair of "monitors" that were worthy of that name, what would that be? a rough ball-park figure, to get something decent.

[Mike Stranks]

One for Hugh, I know it’s not possible for you to make specific recommendations, but if you had to set aside a budget regarding a home studio, you know my situation, for a pair of "monitors" that were worthy of that name, what would that be? a rough ball-park figure, to get something decent.

Hugh answered that earlier in the thread. He said:

I wouldn't consider any speaker I've heard as being of true monitor quality speaker below a couple of grand, minimum, and you need to be well over 5k before you're approaching the peak of what can be achieved today. That's not to say there aren't some good models at 1k or less, but being 'impressive for the money' isn't the same thing as being as good as it can be!

NB. That's per speaker!

[Hugh Robjohns]

I'd probably stick with what you have. Better the devil you know, and you've obviously been happy making tracks with them for a long time.

I obviously don't know your room acoustics, but I get the impression that it's quite a long way from anything like ideal and with no real possibility of sensibly addressing the acoustics... and then there's the damp problem as well... so buying good-quality high-end monitors and installing them in an acoustically and environmentally dubious room doesn't really make any practical sense.

And It also seems clear that your tastes and preferences rarely align with mine, so that wouldn't really help either!

[Arpangel]

I'd probably stick with what you have. Better the devil you know, and you've obviously been happy making tracks with them for a long time.

I obviously don't know your room acoustics, but I get the impression that it's quite a long way from anything like ideal and with no real possibility of sensibly addressing the acoustics... and then there's the damp problem as well... so buying good-quality high-end monitors and installing them in an acoustically and environmentally dubious room doesn't really make any practical sense.

And It also seems clear that your tastes and preferences rarely align with mine, so that wouldn't really help either!

Thanks Hugh, I’m not sure, the sound isn’t bad, there’s nothing obvious that makes you go crazy, I’m talking about the room.
I’ve set the speakers up on table stands, quite close, in a triangle etc, and I don’t listen at high volumes, I get a lot of detail for what it is.
The walls are very irregular, with rocks sticking out, there are alcoves, filled up with stuff, and a room divider, it’s a really "broken up" space.
The ceiling is low though, six foot six inches, and there is a little bit of boom, maybe cured with bass traps? but it’s nothing major.
You may think otherwise, along with others, but to me, it doesn’t sound "bad"
But you’re right, probably not worth going further.

[Arpangel]

One for Hugh, I know it’s not possible for you to make specific recommendations, but if you had to set aside a budget regarding a home studio, you know my situation, for a pair of "monitors" that were worthy of that name, what would that be? a rough ball-park figure, to get something decent.

Hugh answered that earlier in the thread. He said:

I wouldn't consider any speaker I've heard as being of true monitor quality speaker below a couple of grand, minimum, and you need to be well over 5k before you're approaching the peak of what can be achieved today. That's not to say there aren't some good models at 1k or less, but being 'impressive for the money' isn't the same thing as being as good as it can be!

NB. That's per speaker!

A couple of grand? I was expecting him to say more like five grand a piece, so that’s quite reasonable.

[Dennis J Wilkins]

Wow! This "conversation" has gone on far longer than I would have expected!

Everyone should keep in mind that it's not the speakers or the gear -- some of the best music of the past 50, 60, 70 years was made using crap speakers in untreated rooms for whatever mixing was done. It's the performing artist and the performance that really makes memorable music!

And as had been pointed out many times (by Hugh and others) the room you mix in is likely far more a problem than the speakers (though really bad speakers are not really good to use).

Anyway, if anyone wants a like-new pair of NS10's, I've got 'em! And won't miss them when they are gone.

[Arpangel]

Wow! This "conversation" has gone on far longer than I would have expected!

Everyone should keep in mind that it's not the speakers or the gear -- some of the best music of the past 50, 60, 70 years was made using crap speakers in untreated rooms for whatever mixing was done. It's the performing artist and the performance that really makes memorable music!

And as had been pointed out many times (by Hugh and others) the room you mix in is likely far more a problem than the speakers (though really bad speakers are not really good to use).

Anyway, if anyone wants a like-new pair of NS10's, I've got 'em! And won't miss them when they are gone.

You are right, of course, about records of the past, we can work with anything, if we have to, but there’s no reason not to use better if you have the resources, but it won’t enable you to make better music.
It’ll give you a wider view on your sound world, but the listener won’t appreciate it as much as you will, or even notice.
One of my favourite records Telstar by the Tornados was recorded by Joe Meek, he had one Tannoy speaker, on the floor, in a corner, buried under other equipment, a friend used to use a Panasonic ghetto blaster for monitoring, his stuff used to sound fine on my studio speakers, Spendor SP1’s, more than fine.
What we have to realise is that companies have to sell things, the march goes on, but in reality, we don’t actually "need" all this new stuff, as I said to Hugh, how good does a speaker have to be?

[Hugh Robjohns]

...as I said to Hugh, how good does a speaker have to be?

It needs to be better than the weakest link -- whether that's other items of equipment, or the performance, or the room, or the listeners own ears.

As a recording, mixing or mastering engineer, you need to be able to hear what you're doing -- whether that's moving or changing a mic, creating a balanced mix, dialling in a compressor, tweaking an EQ, or assessing a musical performance.

The better the monitor the easier and quicker it is to make those decisions, and make them consistently. The better the monitor, the more detail and the further into the mix you can hear. Details and subtleties that lesser monitoring systems won't reveal but which help you make better, faster, more accurate decisions.

Here's one example: I recall years ago listening to a Stevie Ray Vaughan track on a new mid-budget speaker. It was an adequate, but not particularly involving or informative speaker. It kind of felt like looking at the music through a dirty window on a dull day.

To confirm my opinion I played the track again on decent professional monitors and I was instantly aware of so much more information about what the musicians were doing -- like someone had cleaned the windows and the sun was shining.

For example, I noticed instantly on the monitors that the bass player was adding a little slow vibrato to some sustained notes, but that was simply not audible on the budget speaker. It was a recognisable bass note, but the speaker was quite incapable of revealing those subtle pitch details.

Now maybe the casual end listener wouldn't care, but the musician felt it important to add to his playing, and as an audio professional I want -- need -- to hear that, and everything thing else. Without that how can I can decide how best to capture and present that performance.

[Arpangel]

It needs to be better than the weakest link -- whether that's other items of equipment, or the performance, or the room, or the listeners own ears.

As a recording, mixing or mastering engineer, you need to be able to hear what you're doing -- whether that's moving or changing a mic, creating a balanced mix, dialling in a compressor, tweaking an EQ, or assessing a musical performance.

The better the monitor the easier and quicker it is to make those decisions, and make them consistently. The better the monitor, the more detail and the further into the mix you can hear. Details and subtleties that lesser monitoring systems won't reveal but which help you make better, faster, more accurate decisions.

Here's one example: I recall years ago listening to a Stevie Ray Vaughan track on a new mid-budget speaker. It was an adequate, but not particularly involving or informative speaker. It kind of felt like looking at the music through a dirty window on a dull day.

To confirm my opinion I played the track again on decent professional monitors and I was instantly aware of so much more information about what the musicians were doing -- like someone had cleaned the windows and the sun was shining.

For example, I noticed instantly on the monitors that the bass player was adding a little slow vibrato to some sustained notes, but that was simply not audible on the budget speaker. It was a recognisable bass note, but the speaker was quite incapable of revealing those subtle pitch details.

Now maybe the casual end listener wouldn't care, but the musician felt it important to add to his playing, and as an audio professional I want -- need -- to hear that, and everything thing else. Without that how can I can decide how best to capture and present that performance.

I have had speakers that were totally unusable, for me, so much so, it was only a day or two then I had to change them over.
One pair, I couldn’t here any effects detail, it just wasn’t there, like your bass vibrato, the reverb tails just disappeared.
Another, quite well respected "monitor" company, had mechanical hum, and annoying high frequency resonance, that I later found out was just there on this model.
Another set, way too muddy, congested, these were obvious flaws that I just couldn’t live with.
I think we can tell when something is "usable" we’re all aware that Behringers aren’t by any means top notch, but they don’t have faults that make them unusable, top notch monitors also, it’s a matter of personal taste, and we know sort of immediately what suits us, and what is going to be "right"

[Hugh Robjohns]

Dr John Watkinson argues, and with some merit IMHO, that a good way of evaluating the quality of a monitor speaker is to assess the audibility of artefacts with different lossy-codec bit-rates.

A speaker that reveals artefacts at 256kbps is clearly better than one where that rate sounds fine and artefacts only become obvious at 128kbps, for example!

I recall trying once to demonstrate in a training lecture the signature artefacts of the Apt-x lossy codec. To my (and my students') immense frustration they were completely inaudible on the mid-budget speakers provided by the client. During the lunch break I had to swap them out for some much better monitors borrowed from a dark sound gallery!

[Mike Stranks]

We get used to what we know.

Unless we're regularly exposed to different quality monitors or have a reliable brain-storage database of 'good' we atune to what we've got.

Because all of my (now very limited) critical audio work can be done on decent headphones I've recently sold my 'very good for the size and price' "monitors" and replaced them with some respectable and not inexpensive 'computer speakers' that I use for my casual listening.

Before decommissioning the 'monitors' I had them briefly set up side-by-side with the new speakers. The difference was huge and stark - and remember these are computer speakers that consistently get excellent reviews. Hugh's 'dirty windows' analogy is excellent. I'd also throw in words like 'congested'...

Now a couple of months on I'm perfectly happy with my computer speakers for day-to-day use, but that A/B test was salutary

[Arpangel]

We get used to what we know.

Unless we're regularly exposed to different quality monitors or have a reliable brain-storage database of 'good' we atune to what we've got.

Because all of my (now very limited) critical audio work can be done on decent headphones I've recently sold my 'very good for the size and price' "monitors" and replaced them with some respectable and not inexpensive 'computer speakers' that I use for my casual listening.

Before decommissioning the 'monitors' I had them briefly set up side-by-side with the new speakers. The difference was huge and stark - and remember these are computer speakers that consistently get excellent reviews. Hugh's 'dirty windows' analogy is excellent. I'd also throw in words like 'congested'...

Now a couple of months on I'm perfectly happy with my computer speakers for day-to-day use, but that A/B test was salutary

I’m always torn between wanting everything to sound "nice" and what a monitor should really be.
The thing is, if it sounds nice on my speakers, even though they may be making it sound that way, but it sounds nice on more or less anything else, then what’s going on?
Truth is supposed to be a prime requirement, but even top engineers, studios, have personal preferences, their own tastes, as to what’s "truthful"
It’s all a bit crazy really.

[n o i s e f l e ur]

Hey Hugh, if you're still tuned in to this thread I'd be interested to learn how you rate Genelec 8030s? I know Arpangel doesn't rate them too highly lol! Obviously they fall into the category of "good for the money", I guess I may be a little insecure as to just how good for the money!

Of course I read your review of the 8130As in the mag but that was focussed more on what the DSP brought to the party and punted on extensive commentary of the speakers per se.

You point about listening for lossy CODEC artifacts is particularly interesting - great idea! It does raise the question about how performant modern encoding using something like LAME is versus the vanilla Fraunhofer and how that can be accounted for in the process.

The technique raised by many ITT about listening from outside the room is absolutely golden in my limited experience. Nothing reveals a lumpy / spiky mix better. It's always reminded me of a somewhat similar technique portrait artists use . . . hold sketch up to the light and reverse - magically revealing any "weirdness" of perspective and symmetry.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Genelec make great speakers that are well engineered and offer good value for money. Many engineers rely on them, and I have a single 8030 here that I assembled during a factory visit, which I use as a mono check speaker.

I've often used Genelecs and they are fine for tracking and mixing although I find they tend to have a very slightly mid-forward character that you need to bear in mind.

There are also lots of alternatives at the £500-600 price range from Genelec, Neumann, KRK, Adam, Dynaudio, Focal and more -- so plenty of options.

[n o i s e f l e ur]

Thanks Hugh.

I should probably have mentioned I've been using my 8030s for about a decade now so I wasn't looking for buying advice - just reassurance!

I quite like the mid-forward nature of the things, truth be told, and in my environment they have more than enough low-end extension to get the job done and then some.

So yeah, good for the money but not exactly perfectly "neutral" reference monitors. Good enough for noise rock mind you.