Who says studio monitors are "cold and analytical"?
Who says studio monitors are "cold and analytical"? Does that mean audiophile speakers are warm/colored and distorted? If Studio Monitors main goal is low distortion, does that mean low distortion is not something audiophiles want? They want what, high distortion? "Pretty" sounding distortion? Or find pretty sounding speakers that make bad recordings sound really good? What is the point of searching out good recordings then? They won't sound as intended on a highly colored distorted speaker!
There is no such thing as a studio monitor. All speakers are just wooden boxes. The question is how the damn thing has been tuned. Studio monitors are tuned FLAT. Audiophile speakers have a downward tilt. End of story. As a result of this, so called studio monitors sound harsh. Audiophile speakers are much more accurate and true, as they are tuned more correctly. Studio monitors were designed by people that dont understand how sound works. It goes back to an age old debate that began in the 70s regarding the shape of the curve. There have been many ideas about the perfect shape. There is ruler flat, BBC dip, or other custom curves.
Studio engineers and audiophiles are two different things. Audiophiles care about achieving the most realistic sound whereas audio engineers just want a flat speaker. Speakers marketed as studio monitors dont have lower distortion that is a myth. They do sound cold and analytical that is correct.
Wow! Kenjit knows the inherent flaws of studio monitors! The designers don’t know how to design and build them. With this analogy, all music must be quite off!😂🤣. I think Kenjit should lay off the egg nog for a bit.
And the wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round... Have not many of you owned enough equipment to fill an entire stereo store? Have you not enjoyed all of it? Some pieces more than others. Sure. Even your first love HK 330 receiver?
It's supposed to be fun. I hired piano movers to help with my last, and very possibly just that, my last speakers I'll ever need. Up stairs and to the right boys.
After setup, they all wanted to hear them. I did not go through some languid explanation of "they're not properly broken in yet". We fired them up!
Four people positively got rowdy.....and giddy. Said they had never heard such things. Kept rotating in and out of the listening chair. Kept commenting about the dynamics, the realism. Are they audiophiles? Nope. But they were that afternoon. The pure joy of surprise of how good something could sound and move them!
The music server was rollin' for 1 hour while we moved through War, blues, Van Morrison, Marcus Miller. And then they all left with big smiles and tip money.
There is no "tuning" of loudspeakers in any factory I have ever seen or been aware of. There is some engineering that happens long before the speaker is built, and the choices the design engineer makes could possibly be considered "tuning"- how wide a bandwidth, what driver elements, ported or sealed box, etc. But certainly not in an adjustable way other than some small crossover tweaks are possible after assembly. So this notion a company "tunes" for a market is BS. Especially the idea audiophile speakers have a specific curve or studio monitors have a curve or this goofy idea of a BBC dip. This is all made up crap people use to explain things they don't understand or a marketing person uses to promote a brand.
Every speaker in existence has been tuned by the designer. Just like a piano needs to be tuned a speaker needs to be tuned also. What this involves is trying out different crossover topologies. You might do a fourth order or a 2nd order. You might aim for a flat response or a U shaped curve. The possibilities are endless.
Diferent values of capacitors and inductors are then tried to fine tune the sound even more. This is not something that can be measured or calculated. It has to be done by ear until the correct values are found.
The trouble is of course, the sound you get from a speaker depends on the room its placed in and the listeners hearing response. The yamaha ns10s are tuned with a peak in the mids and ZERO bass so sound horrific. Despite this they are regarded as reference speakers by studio professionals. This means the studio Pros dont understand what good sound is. Why would anybody bother using such cheap monitors as a reference? It is bizarre. Audiophile speakers are designed to sound good by people that care about good sound. Studio monitors are designed to sound bad so that mix engineers are forced to mix their recordings to sound as good as it can through these bad speakers. The theory is that these recordings will then sound good on everything. It is a bunch of hogwash and BS.
Most studio monitors are rubbish for enjoyment. Both audiophiles and studio Pros agree on that at least. There are some speakers such as B&W nautilus that are marketed as both audiophile and studio speakers hence they are used by both sides of the market.
NO. A Designer knows what he wants before he ever puts pen to paper. He doesn't need to try caps in crossover, he knows what values equal a given result. You really believe speakers are designed in a hunt and peck fashion? A designer may adjust a few things if they don't work precisely the way he thought, but there is no "tuning like a piano". The only way this trial and error method of creating something happens is if the builder/designer is completely untrained and is fishing for some combo that "works" by ear. This is NOT how modern speakers are designed - not in this day and age of klippel and CAD.
Studio people work for the music creators. I can assure you, because I know them and visit them/talk to them, the engineers that work for people like Tom Petty or Pink Floyd spend many many hours getting the sound just right, so the artist is happy. It must sound amazing or they are fired. Unless you want to make some ill founded argument the artist doesn't know what he or she wants, or some other equally inane argument that the artist wants their mix to sound bad, these engineers spend enormous time just getting the sound to be right. You absolutely have no idea what you are talking about. Stop confusing people with this made up crap, pretending you have some special insight.
Most studio monitors are rubbish for enjoyment. Both audiophiles and studio Pros agree on that at least
@kenjitUh, no. No they absolutely do not and I’ve no idea where you’d even get any such data to support this except in your own mind. I had the pleasure of meeting/speaking at length with one of ATC’s top engineers and nowhere in that conversation did he say their speakers were rubbish for enjoyment, and the fact that their speakers are revered globally as both studio and home monitors would greatly refute your misguided contention.
There are some speakers such as B&W nautilus that are marketed as both audiophile and studio speakers hence they are used by both sides of the market.
But, if as you maintain studio monitors are designed to be flat and don’t sound good then B&W speakers must be bad studio monitors. Same with ATC, PMC, etc. Can’t have your argument both ways.
As usual, once kenjit’s “theories” are examined at all they devolve into unsupported circular logic that, much like toilet water, circles the bowl and eventually just ends up in the sewer where it belongs. But, wait to hear him double down on his garbage with further unsupported circular logic. Thus why kenjit is so beloved here. Ugh.
But, if as you maintain studio monitors are designed to be flat and don’t sound good then B&W speakers must be bad studio monitors. Same with ATC, PMC, etc. Can’t have your argument both ways.
Im not having it both ways. Youre just misinterpreting me. The term studio monitor is just marketing speak. As I stated earlier there is no such thing as a studio monitor. All speakers are made in the same way using the same parts. The only difference is the way they are tuned. That is one big reason some speakers sound the way they do. Now what I am saying is most of these speakers that are labelled as studio monitors, are in fact tuned excessively flat. As we all know this is WRONG. Some speaker companies like ATC or PMC dont fit the mould because they have a foot in both camps. One in the audiophile market and the other in the Pro audio market. So THEY are the ones having it both ways not me.
I had the pleasure of meeting/speaking at length with one of ATC’s top engineers and nowhere in that conversation did he say their speakers were rubbish for enjoyment,
That is because 1) they have a foot in both camps and 2) No company would criticize their own products would they?
If you want a less biased opinion you would need to see posts like this from audiosciencereview. Here is one post about those horrendous ATC speakers:
I’ve seen measurements for four ATC models, ranging from cheap to expensive. All measured poorly.
1 fail out of 1 might be bad luck. 2 of 2 I’d call an indication. 4 messes out of 4 suggests failings of a more systematic nature, IMO.
Finally (and I don’t expect you to place any stock in this last point, obviously) I’ve heard the SCM2000ASL in an excellent room and was unimpressed (although admittedly it‘a the only speaker I’ve heard in that particular studio)
Taken from here:
So in conclusion he found that the ATC not only measured poorly despite being so called studio monitors but also sounded horrific. I can also attest to that too. I have heard ATC and not been impressed. They are WRONG. Just trust me.
studio monitors tend to sound accurate and analytical to most people. one of their design goals is to allow studio engineers to hear any flaws in the recording. some people like them for home use too. me personally i can take them in small doses but only with the right recordings, meaning well mastered and clean.
home audio "audiophile" speakers are voiced to be pleasing to the listener and to avoid listening fatigue.
one way this is accomplished is by voicing to a sloped curve where the low frequencies begin at a certain output and then frequencies are gradually tapered downward by some degree, example 2db per octave, so that the response is flat, just tilted downward.
this is not done with distortion- it is done by tapering the response in the crossover design so that the output is a gradual slope. most people find some degree of elevated bass and slightly rolled of treble to be pleasing.
conversely a ruler flat and level response is found by most to be analytical.
According to discussions Ive read, Pro audio users do not want their speakers to sound good. If they sound good they are regarded as colored. They want their speakers to be accurate. As a result of this market need, the studio monitor industry was created in order to satisfy these needs. So these studio monitors are not designed by audiophiles or music lovers. They are done by engineers who have no understanding of music. They rely on measurements to guide their design along with user feedback, But since the studio pros themselves are not audiophiles, it is a case of the blind leading the blind.
If you are a music lover, stay well away of these horrid and stupid studio monitors. Just get yourself a good speaker. Have it tuned and start enjoying your music.
conversely a ruler flat and level response is found by most to be analytical.
Its just WRONG. Dont be afraid to say it. There is no such thing as analytical. A speaker needs to reproduce the input signal. Either its right or wrong. Dont give me this hogwash about it being analytical or accurate or pleasing. I like to think in terms of is it RIGHT? or is it WRONG?
Some speaker companies like ATC or PMC dont fit the mould because they have a foot in both camps. One in the audiophile market and the other in the Pro audio market. So THEY are the ones having it both ways not me.
@kenjitBut here’s where more of ur circular reasoning comes in. If you look at a comparable model in ATC’s home or pro market, the only difference is the cabinet. They don’t “tune” their speakers for either market any differently and have achieved success on both sides. Then you present some ASR measurements that are somehow are meant to besmirch ATC. When you have to invoke ASR to make your lame point and infer that somehow that overrides the exceptional commercial success ATC has had on both sides, you’ve lost dude. The market has spoken and you’re just flat-out wrong. Speakers can be tuned the same for both professional and home use and be equally successful. Period. That some “dude” you found didn’t like how the SCM2000 ASL sounds (that speaker doesn’t even exist BTW) means nothing because he’s clearly in the vast minority. I can find someone who actually agrees with you. Don’t mean that’s reality. Fact is, you have no data to back up your contention that studio speakers sound like crap, then you throw out a buncha BS to try to rescue your initially flawed and way too broad statement. Face it dude, once again you’ve been outed and most people here won’t buy the extreme statements you try to sell here just in the name of extremism and outlandish statements. Chalk up another failure on your belt.
“Its just WRONG. Dont be afraid to say it. There is no such thing as analytical. A speaker needs to reproduce the input signal. Either its right or wrong. Dont give me this hogwash about it being analytical or accurate or pleasing. I like to think in terms of is it RIGHT? or is it WRONG?”
totally again put your foot in your mouth. You constantly talk about tuning to one’s ears. Now it’s you think about things in right and wrong, black and white. You a dummy boy.
According to discussions Ive read, Pro audio users do not want their speakers to sound good. If they sound good they are regarded as colored...They want their speakers to be accurate. As a result of this market need, the studio monitor industry was created in order to satisfy these needs. So these studio monitors are not designed by audiophiles or music lovers. They are done by engineers who have no understanding of music. They rely on measurements to guide their design along with user feedback, But since the studio pros themselves are not audiophiles, it is a case of the blind leading the blind.
The first key statement in this, and is endemic of all of @kenjitposts is the part of “According to discussions I’ve read…”. That’s pretty much all ya need to know. Why? Because according to kenjit all speakers are trash and are fatally flawed. Note, he NEVER lists components in his own system. Why? Because that would pin him down and hold him accountable for his own ridiculous statements. As for the rest of this absurd statement I’m not even gonna waste my time. He’s trying to infer speakers are only constructed by engineers OR audiophiles, and I think that’s silly because all speaker designers are ,of necessity, both. If u guys wanna continue to read more of kenjit’s backfilling and circular reasoning go ahead but I’m done. Anything else he says from here you can reference my earlier retorts and see why they’re complete BS, but I refuse to waste anymore of my time on this. Someone else can retort and state kenjit’s obvious contradictions. Good luck with that, and Peace Out and Happy Hollidays to all. Yes, even kenjit.
Pro engineers care about translation. They want their mix to sound good on other systems.
That’s why the NS-10s became a standard - if a mix sounded good on them, it was going to sound good everywhere.
Generally speaking, pro engineers want highly revealing speakers. They don’t want "bad sounding" speakers. But their goal is clarity above all else. NS-10s aren't really a standard anymore - what is more common is to have a pair of great speakers like PMCs or ATCs and then check your mix occasionally on a crappy speaker called an Auratone.
Mastering engineers have crossed over with audiophiles for years as both B&W speakers and Dunlavy have been standards. ProAc 100s used to be standards in mix rooms. Dynaudio makes models for both markets. So does Amphion.
I am a newbie here but the notion that professional audio engineers and professional equipment designers don’t understand music is ludicrous.
One other point about nearfield studio monitors is that they are designed to sound good at only one point: the mix position. I would think that home audio designers would target a wider sound field.
Note that "distortion" is in fact highly prized in professional audio when it’s the pleasing type of distortion known as saturation. No one mixes a track without it these days. Formerly it was provided by tape and transformers; today it’s added back by plugins; it’s a big topic and a key part of modern sound.
I own the Harbeth 30.2 and they are certainly not cold, I find them to be very neutral, clean and clear. I listen for hours on end with no fatigue. I play guitar and piano (poorly I admit) and find the 30.2’s to be very accurate. Vocals sound like a human singing in front of me.
I will be the first to admit that they do not sound great with heavy or death metal. They make AC/DC sound polite, although Ghost sounds quite good. Just my experience with BBC type monitors.
If you look at a comparable model in ATC’s home or pro market, the only difference is the cabinet. They don’t “tune” their speakers for either market any differently and have achieved success on both sides.
Which only proves how ignorant and clueless most audiophiles and mix engineers are. Its all marketing and these studio pros buy right into it.
Studio monitors are not designed for pleasure. Why is that so hard to understand? The studio monitor market was born out of the needs of studio engineers for speakers that were different to hifi monitors. The market responded by producing these studio monitors. They were not made by audiophiles for audiophiles. They were done by engineers who had no understanding of music or desire to create musical pleasure. When you buy a studio monitor the focus will always be on specs rather than sound quality. As I have just stated it is the blind leading the blind. If you ever point out to a studio engineer how bad their monitors sound they will shrug their shoulders and tell you they are not supposed to sound good but they are supposed to be truthful. It is this ignorant and wrong attitude which has driven the marketplace for these hideous studio monitors.
When you have to invoke ASR to make your lame point and infer that somehow overrides the exceptional commercial success ATC has had on both sides, you’ve lost dude.
You were the one that invoked the testimonial of an ATC engineer to try to support your contention about how great ATC are. Isnt that biased and lame too?
The market has spoken and you’re wrong.
The market is wrong and so are you. Studio engineers endorse every single studio monitor on the market and they usually own and use several pairs of different speakers. They are so ignorant that they cant even figure out which monitor is correct or not. We cannot rely on the endorsements of these so called studio pros to decide how successful a speaker company is.
Speakers can be tuned for both professional and home use and be equally successful.
No they cant. Why dont High end audiophile stores sell Yamaha Ns10s? or genelec alongside their Magicos or sonus faber? Maybe because they just dont sound good?
Why dont studio engineers use Magico or Wilson or Yg or B&W nautilus? Because they think they are colored and are ignorant thats why.
If all speakers were equally suited to hifi or pro use, then there would be no division of the marketplace into hifi and pro audio sectors. You are wrong.
Fact is, you have no data to back up your contention that studio speakers sound like crap
Most of ’em do. Any data regarding sound quality will be anecdotal. I consider myself a great audiophile. That alone is a compelling reason to believe my assertions. Just trust me I know what I’m talking about.
then you throw out a buncha BS to try to rescue your initially flawed and way too broad statement.
It was intended to be a broad statement and there will be exceptions. I never denied that. But the statement still holds true.
For a period of time my son studied audio engineering and interned at a smaller (500ish capacity) concert venue in Cleveland, Ohio. The class was required to purchase and use the same headphones (sorry, don’t remember make/model) that measured extremely flat for their mastering projects. They didn’t sound particularly bad, but they sounded more dull than any other explanation I can come up with.
The biggest takeaway from this is that once recordings were mastered, they sounded better through the same flat headphones, but they sounded great through my both open and closed back “audiophile” headphones. Two different types of headphones because their uses were different, flat for engineering/mastering, and the “audiophile” ones for musical enjoyment. Pretty simple.
Kenjit clearly has never actually been in a studio, but I have. As far back as the late 60s and as recently as this year, and I can say without hesitation that studio monitors have never been "flat." Large horns, the JBL stuff in the 70s, those terrible Yamaha NS10s...seriously...some are better sounding than others but man...I'm amazed that anybody makes a great recording, but talented engineers often do, thankfully.
Studio monitors are tools of trade. Specialized ones.
NS-10, for instance, has ludicrously good transient response, allowing mixing engineer to hear minute nuances in critical midrange, where vocals and instruments tend to crowd out each other in initial versions of a mix. Relative lack of bass and treble is a feature too, as it allows the engineer to focus on the midrange.
Auratone/Avanton cubes are single-driver tiny studio monitors, intended to consistently emulate cheap consumer electronics such as lower-end boomboxes and lower-end car audio. Checking a mix on them has obvious benefits for certain genres of music, such as pop songs.
Then there are studio monitors that are flat, yet relatively highly distorting. Popular KRK models come to mind. Those are good for checking distortion levels. If a certain area in a mix is too distorted, it will jump out at mixing engineer. If a mix sounds good on KRKs, it will likely sound well enough on highly-distorting consumer gear too.
And then we come to studio monitors that are both flat and low distorting. Larger ATC and Neumann models are of that variety. Those are good for mixing and mastering music supposed to play very well on highly resolving consumer systems. Also on professionally designed and calibrated systems at concert venues and movie theaters.
ATC is obsessive about ultra-low distortion levels, yet doesn’t care much about radiation pattern, and thus ATCs are better suited for heavily dampened studio rooms. Neumanns radiation patterns tend to be close to perfectly desirable, and thus Neumanns work well in reflective rooms too.
Other studio monitors of that variety excel in other parameters while paying less attention to some others, and studio engineers understand very well these tradeoffs. For instance, Barefoot sacrifices directivity in upper bass, yet gains compactness with vibration-free operation, and is thus very convenient for smaller project studios.
So, this is one factor in the studio monitors confusion. They are professional tools, wildly varied in their area of focus and corresponding engineering tradeoffs. For audiophile duties, I’d only consider the ruler-flat low-distorting variety. Yet some audiophiles keep taking for comparison highly specialized varieties.
Second factor is confusion regarding artists intent. Almost invariably, a given composition sounds sparser, simpler, smoother on a high-spec mastering studio monitor than on a consumer-grade speaker. Yet sometimes with surprising details that are getting blurred out or drowned out on consumer-grade speakers.
I recall listening to large ATC speakers - essentially veneered versions of their large studio monitors - at one of audiophile shows. I asked ATC rep to play a Pink Floyd song that I knew was mastered on that very ATC studio monitor model, which changed very little since those older times.
A gentleman sitting next to me didn’t like it. He cringed, said something about it not sounding right, and left before the song was over. To me though, it sounded majestic. Sparse and definitive. Inducing very dark, very lonely feeling, precisely in tune with the lyrics. Not at all enjoyable at certain verses, yet making me strongly feel what the artists were conveying.
Another example was hearing copy of studio master of Fields of Gold by Sting, on large Focals in an impeccably treated professional mastering studio. For long, I considered this composition a rather unremarkable pop song with catchy melody. Yet when the distortions were removed, a deeper layer became more prominent. That layer of music felt granulated, moving around like wheat stalks on a wind. I was floored.
I guess some audiophiles may not quite expect, or quite like, the familiar compositions when they are rendered like the mastering engineers heard them. Music tends to become less "entertaining" and more "feeling inducing", not necessarily a joyous one at that. Perhaps this is what some listeners call "too analytical"?
Do not care if they have a studio sound but i would like my next speakers to be PMC' s either Fenestria or IB2 se (trying to understand where the cold comes in).
Interestingly pro audio folks don't really reference ASR and don't generally quote specs when discussing monitors (eg on forums like Gearspace). It's much more about their subjective experience listening. Remember these are folks who are literally paid to listen to music critically and make minute adjustments to it all day long, including being able to pick out very precise frequencies and level adjustments. They have very well-trained ears.
“Studio monitors were designed by people that dont understand how sound works”.
This after proclaiming there is no such thing as a studio monitor. And never a word of consideration that an audio engineer might be listening for things that an audiophile is not…which is clearly the case. As such, the tools used may differ appropriately.
I am wondering to myself after reading this is how many hear know a sound engineer? My buddy did all the sounding engineering at Sony for many years until he retired.
Well, not ALL studio monitors were "boxes." It was kind of well known in the 1970's that SOME bands that were meticulous about every note did their final mix-downs on Magneplaner speakers.
I guess, like in the 1960's where music was mixed down to sound good on a car stereo, some bands were interested in the pure sound the public would hear.
AND, since car stereos were mostly mono AM units in the day, it is pretty easy to listen to an old 45 and figure out what was going on with the mix-down.
@kenjit If you don't like speakers that measure flat and reproduce music signals accurately but prefer flawed designs with peaks and troughs and distortion because the programme then sounds (to you) more exciting than what studio engineers require for their professional work, then that is your choice.
But don't come here promulgating it to sensible people like the rest who have posted.
Celtic66 your post is great! I agree it is supposed to be fun. I just got a pair of Snell type E speakers for fun. I always wanted to hear them (cant find or afford the model A flagship). I am having a blast! They image, are smooth and sound SO different than my current system setup in the living room. My next speaker ? Who knows, I really want to hear a Vandersteen C . Merry Christmas everybody and happy new year!
Trying to change people: With the desire to be a savior, you might believe it’s within your power to fix or change people. You think you can improve their lives by changing their behavior. This strong tendency to want to change people can be toxic in and of itself because you’re not getting to know other people.
Thank you for the thought, but I do not wish to be saved by you.
Never heard that one. “Near field” yes, but not “cold and analytical”. For instance, JBL l 100’s aka 4311 studio monitors (used to mix probably 99% of every 1970s rock album) could never be considered cold and analytical, or near field for that matter. Dry perhaps, lacking good soundstage perhaps, but in no way cold and analytical. I know the 1970s reference shows my age but just my two cents.
Its important to remember that most musicians and mix engineers are NOT audiophiles. They neither belong in our world or understand it. Most singers, musicians and artists do not own audiophile equipment they know nothing about what we do. This is the reason studio monitors can be so different than audiophile type speakers. Studio monitors are designed to fulfill different criteria. Often these studio monitors are placed in huge rooms. If so you need big 18 inch woofers and 10 inch mids with massive horn tweeters. Polar response is less of a concern for studio monitors since the room is assumed to be treated. Musicians like their speakers to go loud. Its quantity over quality. They often spend years performing on stage where their ears have been punished by excessive sound levels to the point where they wouldnt know audiophile sound if it hit them in the face. Consequently studio type monitors are not suited to the delicate and refined tastes of most audiophiles.
Mastering studios are where you are more likely than not to find these audiophile type speakers such as TAD, B&W etc
ATC is another speaker that was born out of the need for speakers to go loud in a studio environment. Furthermore, they know nothing about speaker design since they started off as a driver manufacturer. Unsurprisingly, ATC speakers are mostly wooden boxes although they have been known to occasionally use metal. They also rely on testimonials from people like Brad, than measured performance to sell their wares. ATC is a marketing company. Neumann monitors do publish fairly detailed technical specifications and measurments. However their speakers are tuned ruler flat which is not suitable for home use.
The Neumann use multi drivers in wooden boxes so will suffer from all their inherent problems such as lobing diffraction cabinet resonances and back end distortion.
There is no substitute for testing a speaker than using a human being with refined hearing such as myself. If I was in charge, 99% of these speakers probably would not pass my intense standards. No speaker company will employ someone like me because none of their speakers would ever be good enough.
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