Help purchasing first pair of monitors.

[TheDewd]

Hey guys! whats up with the fight. TheDewd, stop being illogical from your point of views. about the whole monitor situation, blazingstrings is absolutely right. thedewd, no one's perfect like u. your the role-model man...and why the hell are u talking about bluebear? he is 100 times smarter than u..atleast he could develop several articles, but you cant even make up what u want to say.

1) Tell me what is illogical by saying a good headphone system is more accurate and flat $ for $ than a monitor system + room treatment.

2) BlueBears thinks that because HE is used to monitors and HE can't perform headphone mixes right, that NO ONE can't. This is what I deplore.

3) Several articles? Look, all BlueBear wanted is develop his ego by feeling useful on this board and being popular here. As I can see, he succeeded pretty well at this, since everyone thinks he's the leader of the pack.

The truth is that there are NO hard rules about mixing with headphones.

 

[TheDewd]

What exactly is OVERLY MASS PRODUCED? Are you implying that mass produced loudspeakers are inferior? Modern automated loudspeaker production equipment is capable of turning out very high quality, consistent product. Probably more consistent than anything assembled by hand. Doesn't matter if the production line is in Shanghai, or Los Angeles...the product coming off the line is going to be identical.

Yes, mass production is inferior. Why the hell would people be paying thousands of dollar more for products made by hand in the USA then ?

 

[pandamonk]

1) Tell me what is illogical by saying a good headphone system is more accurate and flat $ for $ than a monitor system + room treatment..

Well for one your stereo imaging with headphones is screwed. I've seen the frequencies response for those headphones and it certainly isn't "flat". Also with headphones, you think that the room is taken out of the equation, but not really, it just means that you have 2 separate mini rooms, both with different peaks and nulls.

3) Several articles? Look, all BlueBear wanted is develop his ego by feeling useful on this board and being popular here. As I can see, he succeeded pretty well at this, since everyone thinks he's the leader of the pack.

The truth is that there are NO hard rules about mixing with headphones

Well yeah there are are. Don't mix with headphones, and only use them in tracking(if you are the "talent"), or for reference. Ohh and by the way, it was you who brought up BlueBear first, and said good things about him.

 

[ermghoti]

1) My TVs are made in JAPAN, which build products at about 80% of US quality. Just look at Kia and Toyota, etc.

You are, indeed, a laugh riot. Japanese products are typically 100-150% of American made products' quality, with exception of cars, which are about %500 better from Japanese companies.

Kias are from Korea, and kind of suck.

Yes, mass production is inferior. Why the hell would people be paying thousands of dollar more for products made by hand in the USA then ?

Usually, because they are buying an item that is in too small a demand to be mass-produced. Anything that can be made by a craftsman can be made to better tolerances, for a fraction of the cost, if there is a market for tens or hundreds of thousands of them.

For instance, there are a couple of guys left in the world that handbuild watches. By handbuild, I mean they cut the gears with files, shaping each piece with some sort of hand tool, perhaps using a grinder or a drill here and there. The watches cost over a hundred thousand dollars, since it takes over a year to make one. The watches are off by several seconds a day, where a mass-produced Chinese watch may lose a second or two a month, if that.

The short answer: some people will pay for perceived prestige, over performance.

 

[TheDewd]

Well for one your stereo imaging with headphones is screwed. I've seen the frequencies response for those headphones and it certainly isn't "flat". Also with headphones, you think that the room is taken out of the equation, but not really, it just means that you have 2 separate mini rooms, both with different peaks and nulls.

Well yeah there are are. Don't mix with headphones, and only use them in tracking(if you are the "talent"), or for reference. Ohh and by the way, it was you who brought up BlueBear first, and said good things about him.

1) The frequency response of headphones is not flat by itself in order to compensate for "the little rooms you have around your ears" so that with those little rooms, the response is flat. There goes your argument up in smoke dude...those peaks and nulls are compensated by the "diffuse field equalizing". Do some reasearch!

2) All I dislike about BlueBear is his point of view about mixing with headphones. I don't care for the rest of him or his career. But everytime he pops in with his "Whaddddddya meeeeeeeannnn..." article, I get angry cause he holds no truth.

 

[TheDewd]

You are, indeed, a laugh riot. Japanese products are typically 100-150% of American made products' quality, with exception of cars, which are about %500 better from Japanese companies.

Kias are from Korea, and kind of suck.



Usually, because they are buying an item that is in too small a demand to be mass-produced. Anything that can be made by a craftsman can be made to better tolerances, for a fraction of the cost, if there is a market for tens or hundreds of thousands of them.

For instance, there are a couple of guys left in the world that handbuild watches. By handbuild, I mean they cut the gears with files, shaping each piece with some sort of hand tool, perhaps using a grinder or a drill here and there. The watches cost over a hundred thousand dollars, since it takes over a year to make one. The watches are off by several seconds a day, where a mass-produced Chinese watch may lose a second or two a month, if that.

The short answer: some people will pay for perceived prestige, over performance.

1) I was actually COMPARING Kia and Toyota. As in saying that a Kia doesn't hold a candle to a Toyota. Also, american cars are better IMHO.

2) Perceived prestige? Dude, in these days of mass consumption, someone needs to take a stand and ask for quality products. Why settle for less ? Why donate your money elsewhere ? Where is the American pride attitude?

 

[Hi_Flyer]

fake account.

 

[ermghoti]

2) Perceived prestige? Dude, in these days of mass consumption, someone needs to take a stand and ask for quality products. Why settle for less ? Why donate your money elsewhere ? Where is the American pride attitude?

Oh. Trolling. My error.

 

[Dogman]

I like to be provocative at times, so people like you can get something nice like this to say

Don't provoke people munch. It's not nice.

And notice the rolleyes 5 times? Learn to do it. You'll be cool that way.

 

[bigj]

LOL u guys are funny as hell. Hey! even on TV's you are always gonna find something better than something else cheaper the the prestige something.

A guy in NJ dedicates himself on tweaking Panasonics Big Screens into "Mitsus, hitachis" Image quality wise...and after you paid for the tv and his services you are still houndreds of dollar under the high tags of mitsus and hitachis...ohh and the crappy ass sony's..

I know my examples are not from audio equipment...but this thread is no longer audio equipment related....

Its the US versus the World...hey when another country makes something better than yours...you pad their back and say "nice job" and if you need that particular item...you buy it...it's simple...ur not betraying anybody...its a free country, boy!!!!

 

[eraos]

1) Tell me what is illogical by saying a good headphone system is more accurate and flat $ for $ than a monitor system + room treatment.

2) BlueBears thinks that because HE is used to monitors and HE can't perform headphone mixes right, that NO ONE can't. This is what I deplore.

3) Several articles? Look, all BlueBear wanted is develop his ego by feeling useful on this board and being popular here. As I can see, he succeeded pretty well at this, since everyone thinks he's the leader of the pack.

The truth is that there are NO hard rules about mixing with headphones.

Don't blaspheme Bear on this board, don't you know that?

 

[pandamonk]

1) The frequency response of headphones is not flat by itself in order to compensate for "the little rooms you have around your ears" so that with those little rooms, the response is flat. There goes your argument up in smoke dude...those peaks and nulls are compensated by the "diffuse field equalizing". Do some reasearch!

Everyones ears are different though, so it's a different set of little rooms for each person, so for a tiny minority it will be reasonably flat and for all the others not so. The reason this doesn't matter for a whole room is that the ear is such a small % of the size of the room, so the flat response(or otherwise)is the same for everyone. In the case of headphones the ear is a huge % of the little room's size, so has a lot more of an effect. There goes your argument up in smoke dude...

Also you have said nothing about my point concerning the screwed stereo imaging. Does that not matter to you? Are you only concerned about getting a flat response?

 

[TheDewd]

Everyones ears are different though, so it's a different set of little rooms for each person, so for a tiny minority it will be reasonably flat and for all the others not so. The reason this doesn't matter for a whole room is that the ear is such a small % of the size of the room, so the flat response(or otherwise)is the same for everyone. In the case of headphones the ear is a huge % of the little room's size, so has a lot more of an effect. There goes your argument up in smoke dude...

Also you have said nothing about my point concerning the screwed stereo imaging. Does that not matter to you? Are you only concerned about getting a flat response?

1)What does it matter is everyone is having the same response in the room? I am the one mixing and it's my opinion that matters. Also, I don't mix with a lot of people in my room anyways and if I wanted to compare, of course I'd use a monitor system. So your argument is pretty senseless...the response has to be flat for you, not for the other dudes around lol!

2) Screwed stereo imaging? I don't experience such a thing with quality open headphones. When you are used to using headphones, you learn how to pan with them quite right. I have no problems in this area at all. Indeed, the stereo imaging is ENHANCED, because you get a better stereo separation

There you go...now go find some other arguments and try to contradict me again lol....Are you jealous that I can mix with headphones or what ? lol

 

[songsj]

I tend to agree with both sides on this one, The highest quality, flattest monitors are what we should all shoot for. That being said I also think it is as if not more important that the person mixing is experienced and very familiar with the monitors and room he has them in. If you know how everything needs to sound on your monitors to sound good when played on everything else you are off to a good start no matter what you're using for monitors. Problem with this approach is that it usually takes some time and a lot of experimental mixes that you have to listen to on several other sources to finally get your ears dialed in to your own set up. High quality expensive monitors do help you get there faster and take a lot of the guess work out of the mix. One thing that surprises me is that a lot of people talk about the low's in their mix or the highs. Very little is said about the dreaded 1k to 3.5k range. In this range is where most two ways cross over [usually around 2.5k ]and have the hardest time delivering a smooth sonically uncolored response. You get everything from too dark to too bright to that harsh sound that is very ear fatiguing. Seems like I can dial in an electric bass, crash cymbles,etc pretty easily but put all this with a digital accoustic piano, strings and an accoustic guitar, a couple of voices with some reverb programs on them and those mids to upper mids can be very hard to sort through. IMHO I think this is where the high end monitors earn their keep.

 

[studiokatz]

I tend to agree with both sides on this one, The highest quality, flattest monitors are what we should all shoot for. That being said I also think it is as if not more important that the person mixing is experienced and very familiar with the monitors and room he has them in. If you know how everything needs to sound on your monitors to sound good when played on everything else you are off to a good start no matter what you're using for monitors. .

This is really the entire thread in a nutshell.
Why do some very well known engineers mix on NS-10's, car speakers (Jensen circa mid 70's is a favorite) mounted in boxes etc?
Because they can and because they know how the speaker colors the sound and they adjust accordingly.

However, for most of us, a full range monitor is really what we should aim for.
Why?
Because there it minimizes the guess factor.
IOW you don't have to "guess" if there is a nice 70hz thump on the kick, you can hear it.
You won't hear the fundemental on an Auratone.

My advice is save your money, buy the monitor with the widest, flat frequency response you can find, treat your room and eliminate most of the guess work.

As for overseas components it varies.
China is a disaster for quality control.
Simply put, their products as a whole suck.
IBM and others have constructed factories over there that are pretty much communes where the workers live and work and are paid very little for their effort.
My dad is a wholesaler in new auto parts and the parts coming from China are in many cases so bad that he refuses to sell them.
Brake rotors that are not flat are a common complaint.
China however IS trying and they are getting better. They WILL be a MAJOR player in just about every worldwide market within 20 years and you can take that to the bank.
Japan and Korea are a totally different story and cannot be compared to China.

As far as European gear is concerned, they tend to be very conservative on the other side of the pond.
Unlike here in the USA, you will find people with very small, albeit high quality systems (Creek, BW etc) that won't win any power wars, but sound very nuetral just the same.
It;s almost like the west coast vs east coast speaker wars that dominated the 1970's.
It's just a completely different philosophy compared to say the feature ladened typical Japanese component.

All that being said, get a pair of Event ASP8s and you will be happy.
Full range, smooth and well worth the money.