diggy_dude
Now 169% diggier!
I see plenty of LS3/5As on Ebay, but the used prices are way out of my league.
I'm also noticing the Rogers tweeters appear to be made by KEF. I think I'll stick to paying reasonable prices for my beloved KEFs.
Stereo speakers vs. Recording speakers - What the difference?
- Thread starter arbiboy
- Start date
I see plenty of LS3/5As on Ebay, but the used prices are way out of my league.
I'm also noticing the Rogers tweeters appear to be made by KEF. I think I'll stick to paying reasonable prices for my beloved KEFs.
diggy_dude
Now 169% diggier!
Those look awesome. I've never heard the UniQ drivers. I may have to trot down to the audio shop for a listen. I have another New Class A amp coming that will need speakers.
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
what kind?
diggy_dude
Now 169% diggier!
Technics. "New Class A" is their trademark for a class AB amp with what they call "synchro bias". It basically eliminates switching at the zero crossing. I have a Pioneer non-switching amp which I think may be the same thing. Apparently various manufacturers developed similar circuits in the 80s.
This is an old trick that I've used in theater work when I get to a new venue and realize that I need a little more oomph out of the low end!
Drone_21042
New member
OP:
This is one of my first posts, here. I'm a newbie, but I know a bit about speakers, so I'll try to answer this best I can.
Speakers are speakers. You *could* use Hi-Fi (home audio) speakers in the studio I'm sure, but most speakers destined to be used in the home are "voiced" to sound best in that environment for the intended purpose. By "voiced" I mean they accentuate/attenuate a certain part of frequency spectrum to sound good in a typical living room. It's a compromise, of sorts. They are also voiced to quickly grab the attention of a would-be buyer on the sales floor. It's easy to do with hyped up dynamics and bloated midbass, but is that what you want when you're listening critically in a recording studio? Probably not.
Now when you refer to "monitors", you are usually referring to 'speakers' you would find in a studio. Just like home audio (Hi-Fi) speakers, different monitors do different things depending on what their intended purpose is. My limited understanding is that you'll find three basic monitor types in a studio- ones used for listening/mixing, ones used for playback, and ones used for broadcasting. The goal (for most manufacturers- not all!) is for mixing monitors to provide a flat response throughout the frequency spectrum. This means they have no inherent "voice" of their own- no hyped up or attenuated anything. You want 20-20K with no discernible deviation (no more than +/- 2db is ideal) in a mixing monitor and preferably something easy on the ears. Playback monitors are typically used in high end studios where the goal is to impress a client. They want to hear a fairly accurate representation on the proposed mix but they want all the dynamics you can muster up. They would wear out your ears if you listened to them all day, IMO. This is where you'll find your big 4-ways and 2-way horns like TAD, Westlake, et al. Last but not least are the broadcast monitors. They're built for listening to the human voice for hours on end. They are voiced to sound as realistic and natural in that regard and typically have diminished bass and UHF response. They often have a very refined almost "organic" sound in the midband, but it is not totally accurate in the frequency response (Google "the BBC dip"). Here is where you'll find the classic Spendors, Rogers, KEF's et al.
Now, if you're like most of us, you might only have one set of monitors to do all functions. You probably want a good mixing monitor if that's the case. I will be using old Spendor Sp1's which are broadcasting monitors, but since I know "what they do" in the frequency spectrum, I will need to compensate for them in my final mix. The thing you need to remember is that studio monitors can easy be used in the Hi-Fi (home audio) arena with decent results, but bringing your dedicated home audio speakers in to a studio will *typically* yield poor results.
Does this answer your question?
Drone.
This is one of my first posts, here. I'm a newbie, but I know a bit about speakers, so I'll try to answer this best I can.
Speakers are speakers. You *could* use Hi-Fi (home audio) speakers in the studio I'm sure, but most speakers destined to be used in the home are "voiced" to sound best in that environment for the intended purpose. By "voiced" I mean they accentuate/attenuate a certain part of frequency spectrum to sound good in a typical living room. It's a compromise, of sorts. They are also voiced to quickly grab the attention of a would-be buyer on the sales floor. It's easy to do with hyped up dynamics and bloated midbass, but is that what you want when you're listening critically in a recording studio? Probably not.
Now when you refer to "monitors", you are usually referring to 'speakers' you would find in a studio. Just like home audio (Hi-Fi) speakers, different monitors do different things depending on what their intended purpose is. My limited understanding is that you'll find three basic monitor types in a studio- ones used for listening/mixing, ones used for playback, and ones used for broadcasting. The goal (for most manufacturers- not all!) is for mixing monitors to provide a flat response throughout the frequency spectrum. This means they have no inherent "voice" of their own- no hyped up or attenuated anything. You want 20-20K with no discernible deviation (no more than +/- 2db is ideal) in a mixing monitor and preferably something easy on the ears. Playback monitors are typically used in high end studios where the goal is to impress a client. They want to hear a fairly accurate representation on the proposed mix but they want all the dynamics you can muster up. They would wear out your ears if you listened to them all day, IMO. This is where you'll find your big 4-ways and 2-way horns like TAD, Westlake, et al. Last but not least are the broadcast monitors. They're built for listening to the human voice for hours on end. They are voiced to sound as realistic and natural in that regard and typically have diminished bass and UHF response. They often have a very refined almost "organic" sound in the midband, but it is not totally accurate in the frequency response (Google "the BBC dip"). Here is where you'll find the classic Spendors, Rogers, KEF's et al.
Now, if you're like most of us, you might only have one set of monitors to do all functions. You probably want a good mixing monitor if that's the case. I will be using old Spendor Sp1's which are broadcasting monitors, but since I know "what they do" in the frequency spectrum, I will need to compensate for them in my final mix. The thing you need to remember is that studio monitors can easy be used in the Hi-Fi (home audio) arena with decent results, but bringing your dedicated home audio speakers in to a studio will *typically* yield poor results.
Does this answer your question?
Drone.
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
Just not so ...... a good pair of audiophile speakers will be flatter than most of the monitors everyone around here uses.
And anything short of a couple of grand a pair isn't really flat anyway.
A nice pair of Paradigms is flat out flatter than a pair of KRK's for instance.
There is a big disconnect on the part of pro-audio people regarding hi fidelity.
I often hear that bit about home speakers being hyped in one way or another to sound good in a home.
As I said in an earlier post ..... that's only true of crap ...... Bose ..... things you find in Best Buy.
NO audiophile would be caught dead using any of that dreck.
And audiophiles also place probably even more importance on room treatment than a lotta of the home recordists on this board.
The biggest single thing audiophiles look for in a speaker is accuracy, i.e., flat.
Any speaker that has noticable coloration gets commented on unfavorably in any audiophile review.
And that's a big reason that many audiophile type speakers can cost upwards of $10K ..... it is VERY difficult to get speakers to actually be flat and takes money to do so.
Unless you get up into 3k a pair Adams or something similar ....... I'd take a good pair of audiophile type speakers over what are misnamed 'monitors' any day of the week.
Absolutely NONE of the so called monitors for say 5-6 hundred a pair or less are actually flat.
diggy_dude
Now 169% diggier!
Exactamundo. The fact that many of the posters in this thread - with a straight face and in all seriousness - refer to sub-$300 speakers with God-knows-what-class of amplifier built into the plastic
cabinets as "studio monitors" speaks volumes.
Drone_21042
New member
So noted, and I agree for the most part. I'm starting out in home recording, but I'm a seasoned guy in the audiophile side of things. I guess I tailored my response to the OP (or anyone else just starting out) who probably didn't have a pair of reference home audio speakers laying around...hence the words used by the OP.
Not all who review high end audio have good ears. There are some seriously tin eared people working at Stereophile and posting reviews on Audiogon, for example. They certainly want to come across as if they are skilled in the art of critical listening, though....it's an art to them. It's more poetry and economic positioning than science. Such is also the case for the published specs of high end audio speaker manufacturers who's "real world" measurements fall very short of the glamorized proprietary findings of the "in house lab".
...and "flat" is only part of the game- it's the type of sound/music they produce that says a lot. I have heard "flat" hiFi speakers of the highest caliber that couldn't produce one note of realism. I have heard inexpensive "not so flat" monitors that possessed many other excellent qualities suitable for a studio. It all depends on what you want, but I wouldn't want to mix on a pair of $10K home audio speakers no matter how flat they were. Moreover, I could care less about depth of sound stage and imaging on a pair of monitors- things high end speakers go to great lengths to reproduce.
I also agree about the room treatment, because if we're gonna talk about flat let's bring in the other elements that make or break a flat response.
...and let's not forget one of the most important factors on getting the sound you want from a given speaker/monitor and that's the amp. The complex synergy between various amps/speaker/monitors tells the BIG story, and it negates any given specification of the speaker/monitor itself.
Drone.
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
I think that's far too general a statement. and a significant numer of hi-end studios use stuff like B&W 801's...
VERY true. Hell ...... the impedence curve of a speaker can have significant effect on the freq response of an amp.
Drone_21042
New member
I said "I" as in I (personally) would not want to. I know all about Abbey's use of 801's and such, and you're right. However, even some of that stuff is all about marketing such as..."hey if you use or speakers for three weeks in your world renowned studio, we'll pay you handsomely as it gives our product more notoriety".
And in the high end home audio world where you'd think "flat is best", few people drool over the truly flat stuff. Few high rollers are running Bryston's with ATC's (e.g.)...because it's just too darned boring to listen to and doesn't, impress their friends (flat as it may be). Dynamics play a big emotional role in the high end as it does in the low end...that's why Wilson's still sell. I have a fiend who listens to TAD 2402's (they replaced his Westlake BBSM15's) in his home audio set up. I have heard them many times and (god love him) to me they don't sound one note as good as a pair of old LS5/3's.
...all of this assumes we HEAR flat! Haha!
Drone.
diggy_dude
Now 169% diggier!
Interesting. So these things aren't important when crafting a mix?
Drone_21042
New member
I made that statement (and perhaps it was not the best use of words!) because I rail against all the emphasis on that trend in high end home audio. A good pair of speakers will do it's best to accurately REproduce what happened when the mics were on or when the musicians took the stage....NOT (necessarily) what happened in the mixing room.
Assuming all things are coming from an anechoic chamber, many high end hifi speakers exaggerate the depth of field. They sound excessively deep and wide- a form of distortion, but also a valuable selling point to audio snobs. The same can be said of amps. The trend is imaging and soundstage and the manufacturer that can produce the most of it (no matter inaccurate it is)- wins. That's what people want because that's what they have been told (by reviewers) makes a good modern day system.
..but as you know...there's so much more to it than that...
Drone
Last edited:
Drone_21042
New member
I have heard some high end speakers that make a singer's mouth sound like it's 20 feet wide. Everyone in the room remarked on how detailed it was...and how deep the soundstage was....to which I replied- "what soundstage? All I could hear was giant lips".
Some people don't know the definition of some of the audio terms flying around....
Drone.
Some people don't know the definition of some of the audio terms flying around....
Drone.
diggy_dude
Now 169% diggier!
Never mind current trends. I'm talking about straight-up 30 year old DC amplifiers with the tone knobs and other bells and whistles (if they have any) bypassed. I'm not recommending that newbies on a budget go out and buy a brand new hi-fi amp and speakers instead of the cheap near fields at Guitar Center. They most certainly wouldn't save any money that way. Nor am I suggesting a home hi-fi system as a substitute for expensive high end monitors. What I'm suggesting is one could get much better value for the same money by buying a used hi-fi system instead of the cheap near fields.
Drone_21042
New member
...and that may Very well be! Well said.
I'll tell ya something I have "not" heard in a lot of recent offerings is musicality....that age old artifact gone by the wayside. There are so many musical sounding amps/speakers out there still more than capable of making your hair stand up in the back of your neck. A lot of newer stuff skips over this benchmark- something highly regarded in the 1950's and 60's with monaural recordings. My goal in this hobby is to use musicality as my benchmark. Imaging, soundstage,flat response- those things are great but they don't mean a thing if you can't feel what I intended you to feel.
Drone.
diggy_dude
Now 169% diggier!
Musicality is something I hope the end user's system will deliver. What I'm looking for in a monitoring setup is neutrality. I don't want my monitors telling me that a bland mix is interesting. I want them to tell me if an instrument occupies a well-defined space in the mix, and things of that nature. Like you said, if the singer is placed in a certain position, their mouth shouldn't be smeared across the entire soundfield. (Unless, of course, I intentionally fatten it.) I'll find out when I audition it on other systems whether it will hold up in a typical listening environment.
Drone_21042
New member
That's why I'm here- to learn from statements like this^. I am absorbing this.
What I would like to ask you is -> how do you know if the musicality stays in the mix when your monitors are focused on being nuetral? What I fear most (just getting into this sort of thing) is that somehow I will "squash" the life out of a beautiful performance if I'm using lifeless monitors.
Drone.
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
I kinda disagree with this though I hear it said very often and I understand what you mean.
But we have no control over what the mixing engineer did to what happened when the mics were on and there's no way to bypass that final mix.
So to me a good pair of speakers will accurately reproduce what was heard in the control room at final mix. Because we can't know what they did or did not do to the tracks, that's as close as we can come to the original event.
Like it or not ..... THAT is what went on the record. There's sometimes no clue of what actually went on in the tracking room at the mics and there's no way we can 'guess' at that and change things to reflect that.
If we do, sometimes we might get closer than the mix but sometimes we might go the opposite way. For instance, maybe we'll hear a piano in the mix sounding very tinkly and no bass and think .... thank god my speakers made that sound like a piano should. Well for all we know ..... the piano actually sounded like that. As a piano tuner I can assure you that pianos sound very very different from piano to piano.
So to me ...... accuracy is paramount and I'd like to get as close as I can to what they heard thru their monitors.
My desire out of a pair of speakers is to hear exactly what they heard in that room when they were getting a final mix.
As you already can tell, my personal taste is towards accuracy. I believe that the musicality resides in the music. As proof, we all are aware of awesome stuff that was recorded and mixed on crap-sounding stuff. To me, that energy and life you're talking about is inherent in a piece of music and will come thru no matter what. I've been recording both in my own studio and professionally for over 40 years and been here at HR for almost 12.
I've seen guys right here mix and record on crap ...... get mediocre sound .... and just blow me away!
Everybody has an opinion and a taste for what they like and yours is just as valid as mine so don't mistake me stating my case for trying to convince you of anything.
Who am I to tell someone else what they should do? ..... I like hearing other peoples' take on how they do it and the results of that. Very many things thru the years that have been awesome because of their choice of methods.
But for me ....... after a lot of years at it ....... I've come to desire accuracy above all. I always did tend that way but now I'm just locked into that as a goal.
Not to forget that pretty much no speaker I can afford is 100% accurate ..... same with the amps ..... but I like to get as close as I can.