I guess it comes down to what you are looking for in a monitor. Listening for pleasure versus working in audio production are often two separate functions.
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If I had to choose between listening to NS-10s or Mackies for pleasure, I would likely choose the Mackies over NS-10s though.
I agree completly. I just have never seen anything written or chiseled on tablets anywhere that one cannot have both listening pleasure and translation accuracy at the same time. In fact I find that those two go hand in hand very nicely.
I was only half joking about my response to the NS-10s earlier...I'd never use a belltower; too many stairs!
. Seriously, those things are so offensive-sounding to me that my ears get fatigued quickly working with them. I also start to believe after a while that everything is *supposed* to sound like AM radio, even when it's live or played on a quality stereo. Not a very good tool for me to use. Others apparently don't have those problem, and that's just fine. Just don't ask me to use them for very long.
NS-10s, while not my choice for listening to music for pleasure, do tend to translate well on other speaker systems. They make bad things sound worse. They tend to exagerate the upper mids and as a result those that mix on them tend to reduce the more fatiguing frequencies of a mix. They suck for judging bottom end though.
OTOH in my opinion Mackies seem to hype bottom and top, but don't represent mids in a way that I feel translate well to the outside world.
Again, I agree with the technical analysis as to the difference between them. Next to NS-10s which accentuate upper mids, just about anything that extends and flattens out the response is going to -
in comparison - sound relatively "hyped". But that's not necessarily hyping, that's increased accuracy and flatness. No the 824s are not perfect sounding - and I will never claim otherwise - but they sure are a hell of a lot more
accurate than someting like an Auratone or NS-10, and do an at least competitive job at representing what is really there without "hyping" anything.
However, what I would respectfully disagree with is that there seems to be an implication in there that the act of translation is a passive process handled by the monitor and not an active one done by the engineer, or that one needs an inaccurate monitor in order to handle translation easily.
We don't even have to single out the 824 or the NS-10 here. Just in general, to me the idea that because a monitor is flatter in the upper mids that one is going to make mixes that are too harsh there says more bad things about either the engineer or the listener than it does about the monitor.
Either the engineer just plain sucks and cannot make that upper mid translation properly (one which, by my way of thinking should actually be *easier* when listening to a flatter speaker), or the end listener prefers something that sounds like it has had smiley face EQ applied to it and anything at all in the upper mids is a bad thing to them.
A good engineer shouldn't need their monitors to emphasize the bad, they should be able to hear the bad in a flat playback. And any listener who likes a smiley face EQ curve to their music can do that themselves on playback, but I'm not going to do that with my mix.
I actualy like monitors that are flat and wide in their response. I want to know what the program material actually contains. I can easily translate to what it will sound like on a Jensen coaxial from there without sacrificing the knowledge of what it will sound like on a THX surround system as well.
The next most important part of your chain after your ears is your monitoring system. If Auratones work for you, use them, if Mackie works use them, just don't make price the overiding priority. Save up for what is going to work best for you. If what you are hearing is skewing your decisions as an engineer it's wasting your time as well as money.
This I agree with completly.
The funny thing is, in general, the higher one goes in price, when one does move up to a really nice set of Tannoys or ADAMs or Dynaudios, they are spending their money on flatness, width and accuracy. Those that tout such monitors generally are the same ones who say it's because thy are flat and accurate, without hype like you get in consumer loudspeakers. All true. And all exactly the opposite of the reasons they give for liking NS-10s or Auratones. There is a definite double-standard there. It's not like one goes out and buys $6000 worth of nearfields because they out-NS10 the NS10
.
Let me ask you, Tom; would you ever even consider using NS-10s for mastering? Then why would anybody want to use them for mixing? As a mixing engineer I am just as concerned about detail in my own way as you are. And while my 824s may not be in the same league as a pair of Elipses, I couldn't afford a pair of Elipses (nor were they even around in '99
), and the 824s certainly do the job very well for me for their midling price point.
G.
