Can a studio monitor sound equal to a hi fi speaker with some applied smile EQ?

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trillbee

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Hi,

Is there any difference between a coloured hi fi speaker and a studio monitor with some applied "disco smile" EQ? I had always assumed that a studio monitor had all the potential of a hi fi speaker with added engineering to provide a flat responce. If the signal can be coloured, won't the speaker also be?

You see, I want a nice pair of speakers- to last and give me great mixes but also to provide an exciting musical experience for my pleasure. Where should I be looking? Can one pair of speakers do it?

Tony
 
i listen to music through my monitors and can't complain, i couldn't even listen to my old stereo speakers after getting them
 
Despite what you hear, the really high-end hi-fi speakers ARE designed to be flat and detailed.
I'd say that really the only thing holding back studio monitors from being perfect for casual listening is their size. Listening in the nearfield is a different experience than listening elsewhere in the room, and only larger speakers can really do the mid-field/far-field thing well and stay balanced as you move around.

That said I generally consider a good set of nearfields to be very pleasureable to listen to so long as you stay in the nearfield. In fact, for nearfield pleasure listening, I wouldn't ask for anything else.
Yes monitor speakers are "brutually honest," but high-end hi-fi speakers strive for this same honesty. I find that the overall detail provided by this honesty is well worth the absolutely necessary "warts and all" portrayal.
 
Qqq

:D Yo Trill & Bee too:]

Well, to call back some words of someone more adept than I, "What goes in will come out one way or another."

I have a "straight through" switch on my rig and I can hear my newly recorded tracks without any color from the amp. When I cut off this switch, the difference is very small in most instances.

I also have two sets of speakers hooked into the rig--so, when I'm listening to finished stuff, I usually click on the Infinity commercial speakers, as well as the monitors--big sounding and pleansant.

For sure, today's higher end monitors and hi/fi speakers do better and better and the stuff that drives tracks keeps getting better and better--got to keep people buying stuff, hence the improvements keep coming and will never stop.

Perhaps some of the sound one might get when listening is affected by the size and ambience of the room. If you run your synth and drums straight into a recorder/SIAB of whatever, then the "room" is not in play. If you do a vocal "in the room/studio" then you have that track to deal with.

By tinkering with EQ, I imagine you can change, to some extent, what comes out of your monitors/hi/fi speakers. It's all in the amount of time you spend mixing and experimenting with tracks before you burn them. I think each mixer has ears to hear what sounds nice and that may differ according to skill and tastes.

I'm awaiting a new set of monitors and anxious to hear what they will do to improve/change my mixes.

Happy Spring,
Green Hornet :D
 
First of all, I should say that all this "studio monitor" thing is crap to some extend...let me explain....

Of course, a pair of Mackies 824 might be better than a RATSHACK $50 speaker deal, but I would rather mix/master on Energy and B&W speakers than on Mackies! Why? Because the high end speaker market STRIVES for fidelity. Furthermore, I am likely to put much more trust into B&W and Energy than into Mackie. Speaker companies makes speakers. Mackie makes everything under the son. Also, I could buy myself a nice Classé or Bryston amp to complement my Energy Veritas speaker set and get the best of both worlds, amp perfection and speaker perfection. With flatness that would make ANY studio monitor shy.

There is a MYTH here that means "HI-FI sounds like a V curve and are not good for mixing...bla bla bla". This is only true for "LOW GRADE HIFI" and doesn't hold when you get to REAL Hi-Fi speakers and amps.

Having that said, the idea of mixing with speakers up in your face in a nearfield position is also very disturbing for me, as you would get a much better response out of full size speakers driven by a great quality amp in a great acoustically treated room.

Mastering engineers at STERLING SOUND (the BEST mastering house on earth) use Energy Veritas and B&W speakers to master records. They don't use Dynaushit and Mackies or Adams...they use real hi-fi speakers with great amps.

To answer your first question, changing EQ will wreck your phase relations. Not recommended.
 
Hey trillbee...I am a novice when it comes to monitors but I will share my experience...

I recently bought some Wharfedale Diamond 8.2 Pro Active nearfield monitors after hearing favorable reviews on this board and getting a headups (also on this board) on a good price (in December 2005 at proaudiodirect.net). I had been listening to music on "step-up" Dell computer speakers (the kind with the added bass/whoofer box) and I liked the sound I was getting when I was just listening to music for enjoyment, but I concluded I needed "official" monitors for mixing.

My first impression of the Wharfedales was that they sounded quite dull (like too much lows and mids and not enough highs). After a few listening sessions I concluded that surely they where not supposed to sound this "unpleasant"...I'm in a little room ( aprox. 8 foot by 7 foot) and the Wharfedales are sitting with a wall close behind so (after considering the information in the owners manual) I finally allowed myself to engage the bass-cut switch on each monitor and they are now very listenable. I don't know how accurate they are with the bass-cut adjustment but in this enviroment I am going to keep the bass-cut engaged.

I have experimented by going into media player and tweeking the EQ (I, too, often like a boost in the highs and lows) and the Wharfedales seem to "communicate" my EQ adjustments like a regular speaker, that is I can hear an obvious change in the sound. I am quite sure I could get them to sound "perfect" for my (admittedly simple) taste, but since the goal of a monitor is a flat response I choose to keep the software EQ flat and hopefully this will contribute to better trained ears. I suppose I could save a custom EQ setting and use it only when listening for pleasure but I would probably forget to change it back at the worst time.

I have wondered what systems and settings serious recording engineers use/prefer when they listen to music for pleasure. Do they always listen to a flat system...do they like to play with the EQ also?
 
Thanks mawtangent, good feedback. Thanks everybody.

I have had a good feeling about Alesis MKIIs for a while now, I think it's that I don't want to spend money on smaller speakers and then feel obligated to buy a subwoofer. I want a nice bass response right now and Alesis looks like the biz- a large response but still physically small enough not to weigh me down. But my carefully laid plans have a suffered a little setback as my ears have discovered, with a little help from forums like these, that my recording room is a bit of a bass resonator- it has a hardwood floor and french windows nearby. Luckily this is a temporary room but I still have to work in here for a while and I have been noticing some really grating mid to lower ranges coming from my temporary speakers. Experimenting with my Creative 10 band EQ i can pretty much narrow it down to the 125 frequency range and a little either side, which isn't all that low really. But there is a really unpleasant resonance that bass guitars in particular slide up into that, when I turn that frequency down on the EQ, greatly reduces.
Am I right, do you think, to assume that I will have this problem with whatever monitors I choose given that’s it’s not a very bassy distortion?

For recording purposes I use a little pro sound card- Edirol UA-25, but this doesn’t come with EQ software. Messing around in Cubase isn't going to help me, I need some EQ software that will controll the SYSTEM output while my pro card is plugged in. Anybody heard of any?

Or have you got a similar problem room and how did you deal with it?
Thanks for all your help everybody and for teaching me so much.
Tony
 
From my experience you get much better sound with monitors. I have active monitors in mind and you also get more power, simply more.

I focused only on one brand, thats Dynaudio and i didnt really like HiFi speakers, while monitors were amazing.Note that nearfield means a distance up to 3m!

So do check some Dynaudio BM5A and 6A.
 
Indeed, active monitors will give you much more power than passive speakers. Or at least until you hook up an amplifier to the passive speakers.



:confused:



trillbee - don't bother with smiley-face-eqing your speakers up. The whole smiley-face thing is a crutch for speakers that can't reproduce the entire range properly. I'm talking Aiwa, and other boom-box makers.
 
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