Who says studio monitors are "cold and analytical"?

Coming up on two decades of designing, managing the development of, and marketing professional speakers for a variety or end markets including studio. Thank you @lonemountain ​​​​@fair for bringing some sense of reality to this dumpster fire.

• Present market is "studio" speakers are flat on axis and controlled dispersion and low distortion. Two reasons for that. One is we can do a pretty good job on those metrics at almost any cost now. Two is it allows a reference. Less guessing about the source of a sound when you are working.
• Home speakers can have intentional non flat response. Call it a house sound. Some are poor off axis by today's standards.
• "Studio" speakers can sound amazing in a home. Like all speakers the room is the variable.
• Many pro sound people don't talk about distortion, frequency response, etc. because for whatever training they may have they are still pretty illiterate about audio. 
• Audio is more illiterate and wild west than movies and TV where the concept of a reference is ingrained. That ingrained reference forces education.
• Software to simulate cheaper speakers, different environments, etc. is starting to be used. For that to work you need to start with a low distortion reference.

Silly would be responding in any serious manner to anything @kenjit writes, but many of you do. Personally, I don't find what seanheis1 said to be any less ridiculous. People feel a need to write a comment, even lacking experience with the topic.

@simonmoon , in this thread, "studio monitor" is being used as a catch all for speakers used in studio monitoring rooms, mixing rooms, mastering rooms, review rooms, etc.  Recording studio monitors tend to be smaller out of necessity. Mixing, mastering depends on who is doing it. Some work in small spaces, some work in large spaces. Review rooms, may be mastering rooms, or may be separate and more in line with a home setup.

The distance to the listener is a non starter as home listening positions vary from 6 - 15 feet, so 2.5:1, probably wider than most "studio monitors" on average, but if anything, "studio monitors", at least today, have good integration at most distances.

Rarely see anyone switching between monitors except in final mastering and review where they are testing out the mix to determine how it may sound to a variety of end users. More of that in the past when studio speakers were all over the map.

It is today, 2023 now, so we need to talk about 2023. In 2023, most "studio monitors" are active, with crossovers designed to fix as many issues as practical at the price point, with somewhat flat or very flat response, excellent dispersion characteristics, and low distortion. As this an audiophile site, we would be discussing the mid to upper end of the "studio monitor" space, which will typically mean very flat response on axis, well controlled off axis ie good dispersion and low distortion when the speaker is used within its limits. These are characteristics of all good speakers "studio" or home. They may not have the bass extension, they may not place as loud, and they won't come in your particular shade of sound, but they do what they do very well.

@mofojo  some things are best starved of oxygen especially those that behave like they already are.

@lonemountain , the answer to your question of who, is "most audiophiles", as most audiophiles are ruled by beliefs, not fundamental understanding.

@donavabdear ,

I would like to hear your opinion in a year or two once you are more acclimated to your studio system. I find it harder and harder to go back to less "accurate" systems. There could even be generational aspects at work. Younger people don’t find film as "romantic" as us old farts do. They find it unnatural.

Have you taken a room response on both systems and tried adjusting the studio system to match the audiophile system? I play around with curves depending on the music and mood.

It sounds like tour studio system and audiophile system should have similar reflections or did I interpret wrong?

@donavabdear ,

Only 1 sub on the studio system?

I hear you @lonemountain, I have done design, project management, product management, and marketing engineering. If the customer has an open mind, you can educate them, and they will find their own way there. If they don't even faced with a demonstration, they will still talk themselves out of change. When they are the decision maker, sometimes it is best to just leave them to the competitors and spend time elsewhere.

@kenjit don't let a lack of industry knowledge stop you. Studio monitors in the past were all over the place. That is changing. They are moving to DSP corrected frequency response, optimal crossover via DSP, and low distortion.

Where they vary is in their bass extension, which ideally is addressed with subwoofers, and dispersion, which ideally is addressed with room acoustics. Distortion characteristics of speakers are much different and gets much more distinct as the volume increases.

With a listening setup where the speakers are toed-in so that they point directly at the listener, and the room is somewhat damped to control reflections, corrected studio monitors sounds surprisingly similar with the caveat you use proper subwoofer integration to fill in the bass and you don't have large room response deviations.

Where the differences are amplified are obvious non-corrected speakers, where the toe-in is reduced exposing more off-axis frequency deviation, and first reflection control and room response which is a combination of environment and speaker dispersion. Direct at the listener with reduced reflections is the best indication of the recording. As you stray from that you are using the speaker dispersion and room response to create a very indeterminate transfer function that often is pleasant, but would be hard to label as accurate.

Must always walk back to 2 channel both throws away large amount of information during recording and is often simulated. Whatever comes out the other end and reaches your ears is both a representation, and interpretation, and manufactured illusion. None of that implies that we cannot set goal within our reproduction equipment to "perfect" aspects of reproduction that maximizes the communication of information within the recording. "Perfect" frequency response improved beginning to end tonal accuracy, or timbre. Perfect frequency response also improves the ability to locate sounds. Perfect frequency response and unit matching also significantly improves instrument positioning. "Perfect" off axis response, defined as smooth frequency response off axis, smoothly rolling off w.r.t. angle (horizontal and vertical), no off axis resonances, etc. allows the ability to create a room response that is also smooth without anomalies, this also plays into tonal accuracy and timbre.  I should not have to write the importance of low distortion as a requirement for accurate reproduction.

@kenjit ,

It would be a good idea to learn more, and type less.  If you believe what you just wrong, then you need to learn a lot more. I apologize for breaking my rule of replying to one of your posts. I will not do it again.