Auratones, Yamaha NS10's....and now Ear phones and memory sticks?

[CoolCat]

I was thinking of the concept , supposedly Bob Clearmountain stated, my own words>>..."sure my mix sounds good on $100,000 speakers but what will it sound like in the average joes playback system"....so the Yamaha NS10's were bought and used to see how his mix sounded through the average joe speakers. Something like that...the concept is the point.

Of course this was done decades earlier with the Auratone, simulating the car radio speakers etc..of average joe playback speakers of the day.

The concept applied to todays home stuff is the ear buds and pc computer, laptop speakers.

My kids don't have stereo systems, and as I go to colleges the masses are wearing earbuds.
Car stereos are still my favorite place, and that might be the highest quality audio this decade hears.
the small percentage of Audiophiles still buying hi-end home stereo stuff is mainly targeted at Movies and surround sound, its EarBuds and PC speakers for playback.

Downloads and CD sales supports this, and its nothing new.

That brings me to the point and wondering how many check their recordings on Earbuds?
I did it for a trip this morning..and I realized what a huge muddy crap sound I had on a recent jam I recorded, especially the reverb was washing everything out on the earbuds.
So I adjusted and removed some things and the crappy earbuds were tolerable, but the playback on the KRKV6's and SONY 7506's were really cleaned up too.

is it safe to say, "if it sounds good on earbuds, it will sound great on the studio speakers?"

oh well...a Saturday thought... think I'll take some earbuds for a walk.

 

[xander.moser]

I did it for a trip this morning..and I realized what a huge muddy crap sound I had on a recent jam I recorded, especially the reverb was washing everything out on the earbuds.
So I adjusted and removed some things and the crappy earbuds were tolerable, but the playback on the KRKV6's and SONY 7506's were really cleaned up too.

To be brutally honest, if you can't tell that your mix is a muddy, washy mess by listening in your studio, then you have some serious monitoring issues that need to be worked out. These issues could be acoustics, or they could be that you just aren't familiar with your speakers or haven't done enough referencing of other material. This takes a lot of time.

In my experience, it took years of listening on my speakers before actually getting great mixes that translated perfectly to all other systems on the first try. But I never have problems anymore, because I know exactly what to expect to hear out of them, and I know exactly how to shape the sounds to get them where they need to be.

And every time I move my system to a new space, it takes a few mixes before I get it nailed down again. It's a never-ending learning process!

With that being said, yes, I listen to my mixes on cheap earbuds and car stereos, because I'm curious how it all sounds. The only adjustments I've ever made on that basis were things like turning the click on the kick down a dB or two, or adjusting a de-esser a dB or two.

Just my experience, take it or leave it.