The Great Studio Monitor Lie: The Truth Exposed
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- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
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Some people have taken issue with my usage of the word "scam" in my previous videos exposing marketing nonsense in the audio industry. Let's pull up the definition of the word: "a dishonest plan for making money or getting an advantage, especially one that involves tricking people". In this video I expose how studio monitor/speaker manufacturers routinely lie, often directly but also by omission, about the accuracy of their monitors and trick people into buying them on that basis. This would seem to perfectly fit the definition of the word scam; making money by tricking people.
I expose the industry's dishonesty and tell you the truth about accurate monitoring and how to get it for less than the price of common deceptively marketed studio monitors.
THIS IS PART ONE. Like all of my three part videos, I first broadly introduce the topic, then in part 2 I expand on the nuances and leave part 3 open for influence in the comments.
In part 2 I will discuss Yamaha NS10s and Auratones and say why they aren't actually all that bad, and why they are distinct from the modern trend of small ported studio monitors with large amounts of various kinds of distortion. I'll also bust the myth that is often perpetuated by laymen: "small speakers sound better than big speakers in small rooms" and I'll go over the use cases for (good sounding) small speakers such as NS10s and Auratones.
Bro forget speakers, buy a space heater
LOL
He doesn't need it. The righteous indignation is lighting a fire under him :) Not that I disagree. Moving back and forth between pretty small Dynaudio BM6A mk.II and B&W 602s, it did seem like an octave or or two opened up underneath the music. And that was nice. But, tbh it really wasn't the bass that made a huge difference working on the B&W it was the lack of distortion in the midrange, and the accurate soundstage. But then, I'm thinking maybe that the compromised design of the smallbox speakers contributes a lot to the midrange. Even the old Rega Ela floorstanders (transmission line, I think?) had better midrange than most typical studio monitors I hear.
@@MeadowlarkAudioworks The sheer quantity of thermal energy being converted from the bass absorption in his studio, ends up warming the floor in his loft quite efficiently...
Intel core I9 with a 50 series nvidia.
@APMastering Intel core I9 with a 50 series nvidia.
Are you sitting in a jacket and a hat at your home, because you bought speakers for $125,000 and you can't afford heating anymore?
yes
🤣😂😅
I wear a hat and jacket indoors. I never turn my heat on. I also drive a Kia... I do not have expensive speakers though.
so many assholes here. go get a life, he is putting effort into this. great job Ap Mastering!
Are the slate headphones a scam then?
Okay, let's go through this. You are straight up wrong on a lot of things.
1. Of course an 8050 can produce 50hz, there is literal objective evidence that they can do so.
2. A 1/4 wavelength transmission line is not anywhere near the only way to use the back wave from the driver.
3. Ports and 1/4 wavelength TLs are not super different from one another in practice. The only difference is you can make ports work in small boxes and TLs don't.
4. The extra phase rotation from a bass reflex system vs a sealed design presents as a steeper LF roll-off. 1/4 TLs do this too.
5. Ports do not work on the same principle as a 1/4TL. 1/4TLs are physical delay lines. Ports are Helmholtz resonators. You don't need the maze for a port, just the right dimensions for a piece of pipe.
6. Hoffman's Iron Law comes into effect. Bass extension, SPL, cabinet size. Pick two at the expense of the third. You can make speakers extend low if they're small, they just will have little headroom. You can make small speakers loud, they just can't extend low. You can make speakers loud and low, but they're huge.
7. Passive Radiators work on the exact same principle as a reflex port. They are the same thing.
8. High excursion drivers and EQ are usually used in conjunction with one another, because a driver with high linear excursion can take a bunch of EQ to extend a sealed box's response. This is usually done with a specialized filter called a Linkwitz Transform.
9. Any active speaker worth a shit has protection limiters and sometimes an additional electronic HPF to keep the woofers from flopping about like they're in an open baffle.
10. High excursion drivers are not high distortion. Xmax means maximum _linear_ excursion. Yes, as excursion increases so does distortion, but a driver doing 10% of its xmax at a given SPL is going to be much lower distortion than one doing 50%.
11. 1/4TLs are prone to severe interference patterns in the octave or so above Fb, unless you have a massive box where you can effectively make it lossy above the tuning. But at that point, just use a port.
Spot-on.
There is no lambda/4 rule for longitudinal pressure waves. For electromagnetic transverse waves, there is a lambda/2 for the propagation medium. But even there an antenna can be many orders of magnitude smaller than the wavelength, think of a LW radio receiver. 25x15x5 cm in size, receives 2000 m long waves.
I have compact loudspeakers that are level-proof at 40 Hz, the longest side is 32 cm. Lambda/4 is over 200 cm at 40 Hz.
I have listened to compact loudspeakers for a long time, which at 30 Hz longest side is 40 cm. Lambda/4 is over 290 cm at 30 Hz.
There's something fishy about your assertion, both theory and practice are off by a ridiculous factor of 7.
The size is only important for the levels, but f-3dB is not specified above, but the frequencies where you can generate unpleasant levels with low distortion. Flapping pants, rattling doors in the next room, scraping from the bathroom.
The frequency response of active loudspeakers is set independently of the TS parameters, just as an indication of where there might be gaps in your knowledge.
@@frankklemm1471 you high bro?
@@KimonoEtrange I'm guessing he meant to post that as a top-level comment.
I was hoping to see a comment like this. You saved me a lot of typing.
*Year 2040 - AP Mastering's new video "Your ears are scam. I DIY my new ears with..."*
This is the most idiotic and anti physic things I heard in a while.
The reason a small cone cannot produce very low frequency is due to only one reason, which is the diaphragm's mass and the volume of air ( in terms of meter cube ) they can push. All the long throw, port reflexes, bigger diameter cone and etc designs all for achieving the same purpose/mitigating the lack of it.
Let start by things you said that are obviously false.
1st one's regarding the wave length of the 40hz (around 8.5 meters), it's less to do with the chamber but mostly to your room acoustic. The rules is the less it reflecting/richochet in term of a single full sine wave travel length, the less peak and null it will artificially create due to the principle of superposition. What it actually mean is if you have a room smaller than 8 meters, you should not go so low on your speakers' design. It is also worth to mention the power of low/subbass frequency are the one boucne the most due to the penetration and far greater travel distance so it's the most expensive in term of acoustic treatment. Ironically that's also the reason why they designed most studio moniter in such small size bookshelf, near field speakers form that only go down to about 70-80Hz.
2ndly, the things about the long port and speaker chamber are completely false. 1st of all, the high q roll off in the frequency response is due to the port reflexes design and completely irrelevent to the speaker chamber size. Basically what port reflex doing is to smartly increasing the air volume by utilizing the backward movement of the driver, hence make the lower frequency seemingly have higher volume (but with the drawback of quickly roll of after such designed frequency). 2ndly longer port channeling length mean it will bounce way much more in the chamber. If you have any knowledge in term of acoustic treatment you know it's great in term of absorbing the wave energy but not in term of accuracy. 3rdly as with law of physic, the more air you push, the bigger the push back force it will generate, cause air do have weight. So in term of design, it's always better to seperate the subwoofer part with woofer and tweeter, cause the bigger mass and power in subwoofer will generate significant vibration (if you want high volume of sub bass) and the unwanted vibration will drastically impact the accuracy of woofer and tweeter part. That is the reasons why 3-way or more speakers generally are exponentially way more expensive compared to two way speaker plus a sub-woofer (seperate sub system). Also it's the main reason why generally soundbar doesn't produce good bass or will suffer great inaccuracy if bass was too loud.
3rdly, how low a speaker can produce is related to the listening distance, and so is the interference of your room's acoustic characteristics. Ironically that's also why most studio monitor design at near-field listening level and most entertaining hifi design at atleast midfield level. Cause what entertainment speakers want was the feels of great echo and surrounding by all frequency (especially bass), while studio moniter generally want more accuracy, with the indirect sound generally not more than 1/3 of the direct sound for accuracy purposes, and definitely not overwhelming bass bouncing back and forth in the room that not only ruining the high, but sometimes also the mid. Also another aspect on bass accuracy is it's always a trade off between diaphragm mass and volume ( or listening distance ). Heavy diaphragm mass can produce much louder bass due to moving air consistantly, but will suffer drawback from control due to vibration, inertia and momentum increased. So in contrary to a 10 inch subwoofer, many studio monitor prefer to actually listening an 8 inch subwoofer at much closer distance. So no, it's not the bigger the better.
In conclusion, you are definitely not an engineer and you clearly don't understand enough to talk about speakers. It's simply isn't the bigger the size or the more expensive the better ( or in this case more accurate ). It's really no shame if you have no knowledge in a particular field, but I'll suggest you stick to the general expert recommendation if you're not capable to understand such simple physics. Small speaker for small room, big speaker for big room, long rectangular room with medium to low sub-bass and etc.
@@LEEKING2005 Thanks! Dude has found his "scam" shtick and now runs out of "scammy" products.
i'm sorry but you wrote so many letters but they have 0 explanations, arguments or physics. just random agressive REEEE from marketing journals. and the most funny thing - you are all mentally ill braindead audiophile people. there is no any accuracy, and can't be. coz for recording you are using small diaphragm mic, but then for some reason you starting talking about "acuracy". cringe bshit marketing of scammers.
Ouch, I would go cry in front of my big speakers after reading this if I was him. Spot on brother.
Well done
This has got a lot of upvotes now (no idea why). But I will respond:
intro: low frequency reproduction is NOT inextricably linked to the mass of the driver so you start out on a very poor footing. sensitivity could feasibly be higher with a lower mass but higher linear displacement. So no, this is wrong.
1. you are describing the challenges of room acoustics and not addressing anything I said in the video
2. you start off by vaguely saying "things about the long port"... etc... and I'm wrong. I don't know what you are actually attempting to object to in terms of my video. You go on to to say that ports have a steeper roll off which I agree with and so I don't know why you think this is a critique. Then you say the other drivers should be separated. This completely misunderstands TL design, but OK, you can separate them but again this is not critiquing anything I have said.
3. you say some stuff about the challenge of designing a good sounding room which I don't find particularly objectionable but again I don't know why you think its a critique of my video. You then say smaller diameter drivers sound better or are more accurate. Well this is NOT true. It depends on your goal. What is better suited to producing 25hz? An 8" driver or a 15" driver? It depends on the goal. If you are responding to my "bigger is better" statement, I was talking about cabinet size and not driver size. And I think that was obvious.
conclusion: you just insulting me now with no basis for doing so and finish off by saying "Small speaker for small room, big speaker for big room" which is not a particularly good rule. I literally say I will discuss this myth in my next video at the end of this one.
Low tier comment ending in disrespectful bullshit. Try harder.
I turned my floor into a singular resonance panel using quantum locking and cold plasma hydraulics, which can provide up to 126dB SPL down to 14Hz.
I sit in a hammock to mix and master, and instead of a ceiling, there's a damping system that is essentially open to the sky outside.
I can now play a sinewave and levitate from my hammock to change a setting on the EQ - also levitating next to the speakers and amps.
I'm loving these videos!
LoL I'm loving some of these comments. I'm having a laugh without even watching the videos on this channel.
best comment ever
@@APMastering ayyyy! Thanks mate! 🙌🏻
Talking about sine waves, I'm still not sure I'm not offended about that "sine waves are not music" comments. I'm taking my theramin and going home.
I simply hover in the middle of the air, transforming myself into pure neutrino particles and have the sound directly energised into my brain
Here’s a bit of reality…
Just a dose of perspective.
Professional Mastering engineers are not using small speakers from the Sweetwater Catalog… let’s get that out of the way.
Recording engineers that also “do mastering work”, most certainly many are using smaller, bookshelf-type monitors… also,
A huge percentage of truly professional and high profile recording engineers are using smaller monitors as well… why? How can this be?
It doesn’t take a chart or hyperbolic exaggerations…
It’s simple.
The single most important component of your monitoring system is:
You.
If “accurate” monitoring was the factor that determined the quality/success of a recording… we can just toss 99.69% of all music ever recorded and released. Because NONE of the legendary studios (or engineers) that made the records we (still) regard as pinnacles of recorded music, used monitors that come close to matching the specs laid out here.
Not suggesting the scientific data regarding linearity and response and performance is anything less than true… accurate.
Just pointing out that accuracy is irrelevant. Not an opinion. It’s just there proven by history. It’s simple fact.
This takes nothing away from the truth that you and I would potentially benefit from larger monitors…
But it’s important to remember because the seed of doubt or insecurity planted in a mind about the gear one uses, is measurably more inhibiting than the gear itself.
Don’t fall victim to this skewed, if well meaning line of thought.
Put even more simply, IF you can’t use (any) bookshelf-sized monitor to create beloved, revered, “successful” recordings… why are there so many “pros” that CAN afford $120k monitors that don’t spend money on them, and rather use smaller monitors?
Of course the answer is that accuracy is less important than the experience, taste and skill.
Use what you have, what you can afford… don’t buy anything believing the gear will fix YOU.
3 sets of different types of monitors is more valuable than any one set.
Accuracy is relative. Always.
100% with you 🙏
But I think the point is not that you can't mix on small speakers. You can make a great mix on anything if you have a good understanding of the soundproofing, but the point is that it will be much easier to get a good mix with more accurate monitors.
It's like, a colour blind artist could paint an amazing piece, but generally we accept that it's gonna be easier if you arent colour blind
@@anandboss7034 Using your colorblind artist as the example…
You’ve taken for granted that the flaw in her vision, is only a “flaw” in your world. She’s going to paint what she sees… and her “perfect” is perfect. Your interpretation is not.
I think the point of the video was to get views.
As this video was technically geared toward mastering, it’s slightly more true that bigger is better, but even still… at all times, the brain attached to the ears is the single most important factor… and more guys and gals than you’d think use medium/modest sized monitoring with inarguably successful results.
@SHUTUPANDRECORD well yes of course none of the flaws will be visible to the color blind artist, but let's not act like her perception is the only one that matters.
If you care enough about your music to the point that you want to mix it professionally, you're probably putting it out in some way for others to listen.
If your just making stuff for your self only, putting this much effort into mixing is kinda pointless.
@ Man I’m not sure where in your life you picked up this mentality, and I am not being sarcastic or condescending.
Listen:
1. Your first sentence again misses the glaring point: YOU declared what she paints as flawed. This is not reality. It is only flawed by YOUR viewpoint. Relating to music, if that artist has declared the painting perfect… and for our purposes, she is the mastering engineer in this scenario… her perception is the ONLY one that matters.
To further illustrate in terms of music production, let’s call her “color blindness” Small Monitors. On her pair, and across all the testing she might do in a car, headphones, earbuds… whatever… she considers the mix finished and done to her satisfaction.
Because you put it on bigger monitors and hear stuff YOU consider flaws is beyond irrelevant.
Point two and possibly even more importantly:
The idea that some art is more “real” or “important” than other is just foolish, and wrong.
It’s this mentality… that there’s a difference between “real” work and I guess “amateur”, that is the enemy of the artist. Now, I understand you mean no offense to somebody making songs in a bedroom or living room, whatever.. but the damage is the same.
The PLACE and MEANS you record need not have any effect on how “professional” it can be.
Anyway, I’m just sad when I see somebody type stuff that conveys the idea there are two classes of artists. Or art.
Again, I’m not trying to insult or be argumentative. Just addressing points you’ve made and enjoying the discussion.
"In the next video im gona show Earth is flat" 🤣
flat earth is too dumb to get started with
😁😁
@APMastering “You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.” - George Orwell
This guy has a youtube strategy. A brilliant one. And doesn't care about anything else. Everything is a scam. Eq's, compressors, speakers, coffee pots, doesn't matter. He won't stop.
LoL... I know right. I gotta laugh at your comment! Love it! But in all seriousness the channel is actually a true reflection and representation of himself. He's the scammer. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
@@fernandoortegacomposer coffee pots are definitely a scam though
i just use the scam thing to draw attention to myths and marketing. is it overblown? maybe but people enjoy my format and this reflects in the views... especially considering i only started by channel earlier this year
@@APMastering You made a typo in your reply. 'by channel'... I'm sure you meant 'my channel'. Any time my friend! Thank me later.
@@APMastering You're confusing engagement with enjoyment.
I definitely did not enjoy the video - it was cringe - and was unfortunately encouraged to watch it by others for the high BS content. People slagging off the content in chats all over the internet.
Which is a shame - you won't want that kind of reputation. But that's a very predictable outcome of the style, so I am sure it must be planned and thought about ...
Uhm. Subwoofers. There's something called subwoofers. Yes, yes, we all know that a five meter long exponential horn give the best sound, but no one has space for that.
Monitors for recording/mixing should have bi or tri amplifiers (one amp per elements) and if you don't have space for huge speakers, get smaller and have a subwoofer. Past that, use your ears.
That's it.
biwiring and biamping is mostly audiophile woowoo. subwoofers are mostly ported and have horrible time domain characteristics. that said, i was using dual subwoofers for years and my setup was good. but not as good as my new speakers hence them being on reverb
Subwoofers (plural!) can sound good when they’re dialed in right.
In most low end studios they aren’t though, and end up sounding absolutely horrendous. You can’t simply throw a woofer under your desk and call it a day, it’s proper difficult to get them setup.
@@APMastering No, now you are completely wrong. Biamping is essential, because the elements will interact with each other, and the amp will get a complicated dynamic impedance that changes when the elements fight each other.
Sure, if you get a really powerful amp it probably doesn't matter, but again, people don't have infinite money and infinite space.
Unless you are paying an expert to build custom monitors for your giant studio, you have limitations. For any sort of budget monitors, they need to be biamped. Full stop.
@@RegebroRepairs im not talking about low quality crappy gear. high quality passive monitors don't need to be biamped and manufactures like pmc are even skeptical of it
@APMastering Well, now you point have gone from "small studio monitors are a sacm" to "you are too poor to record music" and I think that's a pretty stupid attitude.
Funny that you mentioned the dunning Krueger effect then say that ports ruin the transient response then recommend speakers that work off of quarter wave resonance which have very similar problems plus phase cancelation above the tuning frequency.
Dont get me wrong there's nothing wrong with transmission line but suggesting that ported designs are the devils work shows a lack of understanding.
Realistically if you want rapid fast transient response you need sealed speakers but they suffer from efficiency and low end problems in sensibly sized enclosures (unless you horn load them but that comes with additional problems)
The entirety of loudspeaker design is just making favorable tradeoffs and if someone works in a small studio making music that doesn't have anything besides the kick below 100 there's nothing wrong with a ported enclosure
You can bring back the efficiency easily when you put more sealed subs into the room...
In my working room of my studio, i have 4 12 inch in 50 Ltr sealed box each, which go straight down to 20 Hz, with around 1% THD at 20 Hz at 86 dB SPL...
In my listening room, i am planning 4 18 inch in 100 Ltr. sealed cabinets each, which go straight down to 20 Hz... easy...
but i'm not against sealed. i recommend
@APMastering
When you recommend sealed cabinets ?!
WHY don't you build a speaker with a sealed sub section ???
Instead, you built a speaker that is worse than a passive radiator or normal vented box...
@@haraldklingsporn4087provide evidence. my design has a lower Q factor and lower resonances than smaller ported designs. just look at the literature
"...so they look less stupid against this large wave"...🤣🤣🤣 tears😂.
@@thecliqueshallsetyoufree8745 my head was hurting at that lol what was that all about?
Dude seriously. These speakers look cooler was an actual point.. that’s gotta be a pro right there. 😂😂😂
Just watched this again. I have this terrible feeling that your next video will be called, "Your headphones are crap. Don't trust them." LOL.
most headphones are crap. some are good
Small speakers are fine if you use subwoofers for everything below 100-200 Hz. You can just place the monitor on top of the subwoofer for perfect time alignment. Just apply crossovers and room eq below the transition frequency and you're done.
Nice speaker build. I built something similar using a 12" Dayton sub in a TL. Sounds great. One question. I'm surprised to see the mids and tweeter that far apart. Is it to do with the size of the tweeter magnet preventing them being any closer? Cheers.
thanks. it's a stepped baffle design and its not possible to make them much closer because then you cannot damp the tweeter diffraction
@APMastering Cheers for the reply. I'll take a closer look, I was on my phone earlier so couldn't really see. BTW, I'm using the same amps, great sound and features. I'm enjoying your channel.
Why is everyone on RUclips always trying to debunk everyone on RUclips..?!🤷
So refreshing to see common sense being introduced into the deliberately confusing and often unnecessarily labyrinthine world of audio.
As a grey haired lab person, I take offense at the assumption that I would understand the mathematical complexities of moving bodies and soundwaves in 3-dimensional spacetime on the intersect of complex broad-spectrum stereophonic musical program material, and the associated resonance and harmonics. Go ask an AI, my calculator ran out of digits.
That being said, there is no replacement for displacement, every room sounds different, there is no such thing as accurate reproduction, people are basically deaf, the sound you are making was never real in the first place, and the best listening position is 1/4 ƛ of the lowest frequency you want to be able to hear.
love this comment
@@APMastering Thank you! I Loved the video, you make a good case.
What are your thoughts on the Dutch & Dutch 8Cs? They are kind of in their own category design-wise (along w/ the Kiis), they have a desktop speaker "look" but are actually quite large & are more of a "midfield" monitor imo.
@@jamescodes-z5i phenomenal speakers!!!
The more I see your videos the less and less I actually believe you’re a mastering or any kind of audio engineer. A lot of what you say simply isn’t true or acknowledged within the audio recording community that I’m part of. Plus, we need to hear your masters to see how good you are and watch you master. As I haven’t seen a single bit of equipment.
He's a scammer trying to convince the world that everything is a scam LoL.... Doesn't even have a portfolio. I stopped watching videos on this channel a long time ago. A video may pop up on my feed I then click just to read the comments. No point in watching the videos cause they are based on a reflection of himself.
lol wut literally just go to my website and on the first page is a couple of hundred records i've mastered
not worthy to listen, it's just big mid for artists that achieve 5 streams
goal post shift. the statement that i don't have any info or whatever is factually incorrect. at least hate me for something that's true
I think his masters sound really good. Go have a listen for yourself. Snag the album name from his site and then plug it into a music service. It's a pretty wide array of genres.
I gave up on speakers and just imagine using my minds ear what everything sounds like
if it made Beethoven famous it can't be that bad
Amazing 🤣
hahahah good idea
@@2GooDProductions bro that's next level
For all you've said in this video, i have a tiny control room, a pair of kali in8's and a single diy subwoofer and i get great results tracking and mixing. Granted, it took some work, but it's completely possible and i believe a small pair of nearfields and sub is the best option for someone with a small studio like mine. I dislike the current popular narrative that if you have a small room you should just mix on headphones. I own a pair of slate vsx but i hate mixing on headphones and my mixes turn out far better with speakers despite my setup not being the most optimal. I think the whole 'small room = headphones' is really bad advice and doesn't teach people to learn properly about room acoustics and monitoring, which i think is really important to understand when learning to mix. I agree with a lot of what you said in the video but i do take issue with that particular point.
well the thing is, its extremely hard, if not impossible, to get a great sound in a small room because the smaller the room, the more treatment you need to correct the increasingly large problems but then thicker insulation means you have less space in the room and if you optimally treat it, there's not enough room left to work in. So it is just pointless for the most part.
@APMastering I wouldn't say it's pointless. You're right in that you need a lot of treatment, and that eats up a lot of space, but it's totally possible. It won't be perfect but it can be done.
In terms of size (room volume), there are two physical rules:
* Directional factor, i.e. how directionally can medium and low frequencies be radiated.
* Depth of the frequency response/radiated sound power/efficiency/magnetic flux of the stator magnet
But even these rules are not set in stone; they can be delayed with complex technical tricks,
just as it was possible to expose 10 nm semiconductors at 193 nm, although the limit should have been 48 nm.
Immersion, special photoresists, phase masks, multiple exposures.
Public address systems are mainly so large because you want an efficiency of 10 to 30% rather than
the usual 0.1 to 0.5% (@200 Hz) or 0.01 to 0.05% (@10 kHz) for hi-fi.
"Massive time domain distortion is bad m'kay?"
"Check out my wicked transmission line monitors"
Hahaha nice one
yeah they have lower distortion
2:53 this doesnt make any sense, does it? just because a diaphragm is small doesn't mean that its not capable to move at a rate of 50Hz. it certainly cant push as much air as a larger cone, but the genelecs are still able to produce that frequency
they produce that frequency in a way which is reasonably loud because of resonant ports. these ports cause time domain distortion, that's my case here, I'm not saying they cannot produce the frequency
@@APMastering
And you think, that your long port, called Transmission Line produce less THD ???
In a sealed room, a sealed speaker can play down to 0 Hz. Max SPL depends on the displaced volume and the room volume. The loudspeaker drops with -12dB/oct from its resonance frequency, the room has a pressure chamber effect of+12 dB/oct depending on the position of the listener. Pole placement turns this into a linear frequency response.
If you want an extremely clean bass response, you should set aside your superstitions and familiarise yourself with the necessary installations, such as DBAs.
@@haraldklingsporn4087it's not a port when it's 2.8m long, inverse tapered and highly damped
@@frankklemm1471 What you're saying sounds like it makes sense, but I don't understand. Can you explain more?
Small speak has a purpose and apparently you are not aware. You are a sound engineer and you are telling us that small speakers are a scam because of their low end not accurate 🤣🤣 Of course they are not, if we use them it's because of that fact. NS10 are the most popular monitor in the history of sound engineering. Not because of theirj low end. Your video is total nonsense, you just want to show your science but often you are missing the purpose of why things are made fore.
you didn't watch my video. NS10s are not subject to the criticisms I have with ports-
I agree that all brands claim flat response which is funny but at the end all of those speakers that you talked about are near field speakers for small rooms/low budget or for sound engineers who like their mid range or need to check low end behaviour on smaller speakers.
But If those brands clame that they can replace a 12 inch driver with a large cabinet then ok you right.
I think you should first take lessons in audio-technique yourself, before you try to teach others.
not only do i have a degree in it, i've taught at university
@@APMastering Well then you should know the function of studio monitors and how to work with. You also should know why most of the time the engineers work on near- or midfield monitors. Or as often said, the huge monitors are for the clients. If you work all day on recording, editing and mixing you would know why.
@APMastering just out of curiosity what degree and what university?
"Look at this tiny genelec in comparison to a 50hz wave. Now look at this big mastering speaker that is also tiny in comparison to a 50hz wave"
Even the highest quality speakers will suck if acoustics of your room is bad. Focus on knowing your room, apply acoustic treatmnent and then look for studio monitors. All of this monolog without mentioning such an important aspect.
well i 100% agree. acoustics is planned for part 2. i can't say everything in one single video
So, for a complete beginner who lives in a small apartment with no treatment, who wants to make drum and bass and other bass heavy styles of music, what list of equipment would you recommend? Nothing too expensive. But enough to just get started and progress. I'm all ears.
hd650 headphones
since you said bass, heavy, I'd chime in and say try hd490 too, and compare them to the hd650 and take what you prefer. AP might disagree, but I'd also try something like Sonarworks or IK's equivalent for your headphone model, on a trial basis. And see which you get on better with, 490/650 with or without corrective EQ.
But...What's the frequency response of that Makita?
it's unbelievable
7:55 Most speakers got those fat surrounds today. Which means, the mix should translate.
It just depends on the type of music being made and the audience is going to.
People into car audio SPL and SQL are more than likely going to be playing bass heavy music. Usually car audio woofers have thick surrounds. Jbl, skar Evl and zvx, sundown X, NS,
Did you used to work at Halfords in the car stereo section?
no, if you look at the speakers I built I don't think they'd even fit in a car
Yo, AP!
Would you consider making a video series on “the best of the worst” and break down some of the better reference monitor offerings under a few key price points (£1000, £2500 and £5000) and breakdown the design pros/cons and which rooms/setups they may suit etc?
You challenge people’s thinking and (and beliefs!) at times, which can be uncomfortable for some, but it’s great for the community to have healthy thought provoking discussions.
I liked what you did with the headphones content. Few people can justify spending thousands on headphones but any half serious engineer can afford a pair of Sennheiser 650s. Brilliant video.
I think the community could benefit from a similar view to speakers for smaller production rooms, with budgets on the more restrictive end. It’s not hard to get advice on what to do if you have all the resources. The harder advice to provide is what to do on a budget, without the bias’s and marketing nonsense.
🇬🇧
I can't add up how many errors there are in this. You don't seem to understand the concept of near field. I am inter alia an audio and mix engineer and have specified and constructed various studios, speakers, and other professional gear, some for other manufacturers. You completely mischaracterise how soundfields in small rooms work and ignore pressure response. Soundwaves are pressure waves not transverse waves. According to your nonsense, headphones could not reproduce bass. Yes of course big speakers can have better LF response. They are just better, but they are for the far field. Their main feature is however higher sound pressure levels. That's because they are not designed for the near field. In the far field much higher levels are required from the LS for the same SPL at the ear. The PSI monitors you pointed to are a ported labyrinth design. The entrained energy in a ported system is a function of the entrained volume, and so small ported speakers have less group delay than larger ones, on average. The problem of distortion due to high excursion is nowadays readily digitally rectified, and Philips fixed this via motional feedback in the 1970s. I suggest you stick to your areas of expertise. PS I don't like labyrinth designs, and if you think 12" speakers are sufficient for far-field bass, I have to disagree. PS2 try Wilmslow Audio for parts and materials. No connection, just a prior customer.
didn't read most of your comment because you start off with a misunderstanding of my video. I have nothing against nearfields, my gripe is with ports with low cab volume
By your usage of "inter alia" I assume one of the other things you are, is a lawyer? :)
@@christopheranderson2100 No, just educated ;)
@@APMastering Well that's again a misunderstanding. Small cabinets with ports are less problematic than large ones, for a whole range of reasons. If you just had said "Big speakers, all else being equal, are better than small ones" I can't see any point of dispute in that. I am not aware
of any manufacturer alleging that their small speakers produce more bass than their large ones. And you still fail to understand sound propagation in small spaces.
@@jrgroberts If your education included Latin, that would be very educated indeed.
Yamaha HS5s are on sale for 300 a pair right now...
Such a perfect size of speaker....
My top budgef speakers..
Kali lp6 lp8
Adam tv5
Rokit G5 5
Yamaha hs5
Tannoy gold 5
Presonus eris 5
I'm curious as to what you think of the NS10m Studio's. I'm currently using them in conjunction with headphones (for sub bass etc). I can't have much bass in my flat due to neighbours, but I've been quite happy with this setup so far. Good vid mate.
the ns10 studio is very good
I watched this thinking (without him saying so) that as an ex-Navy Sonar Technician with countless hours of training in sound, maybe I will build my own one day *if needed*. Then came the Sales Pitch which, by the way, you can find online for free. Man... sorry bro, you had some points but, some of this is just plain wrong for decent monitors. I feel bad saying that as you've put time and effort into this video but really, don't try and sell plans for a good set of monitors at the end. Just cut the vid at around 14:20 OR Link to you Building some monitors - I would have been Much more impressed. Sorry for the shade man.
that's fine if you don't like sales but i'm allowed to advertise my products, otherwise i have little motivation to make videos, that's why i'm on youtube, ultimately to advertise. but i don't lie or invent stuff, everything i say, i mean, and believe to be true in my experience and research
Same issue with TL speakers. It's tuned to a certain frequency, but whenever it's an other wavelenght going in, it's either delayed or coming before. Tested some TL speakers and sounded really bad. Ever heard of PuriFi or Kartesian on PR speakers ? Actually, for me, this is the best of both worlds. BR/Port have a sound at the tuning frequency which chuffles and it's aweful. For PR, unless you go close to the Fs, they actually sound really good without distortion, especially with the brands said before. And, BTW, better have higher distortion at Unisson/ good Harmonic Frequency, rather than a really low at, 3/5/7th Harminc Frequency. Low harmonic distortion doesn't mean anything unless you say which harmonic it's effecting.
well any time you have even harmonics you probably have some amount of odd harmonics too but I agree being more specific is usually better. But it's not only about the harmonic distortion but also time domain distortion. I'm not familiar with you brands you mentioned but IMHO a TL which is done in a small cabinet is doomed to sound terrible. There's no way you can call it a TL with a straight face when the line is less than something like 2m long and not well damped or with sufficient diameter. Even with glass fiber bats if the line is not sufficiently long, you will not have a TL but rather a shitty kind of port tuned to a weird frequency.
@APMastering Have a look to them, they literally killed the game in my opinion. And the TL speakers I heard were an Ultra rare and totally ahead of their Time 50kg/piece Onkyo Scepter 3001. I've only heard this one though in TL design. Room/amp pairing (Siemel pre/power amp) might have cause this though ? May be but couldn't bring them home to test in my room unfortunately...
@@ThomasL Onkyo Scepter 3001 is not TL. its cool but not strictly TL.
@@APMastering Yeah well it's a mix between Ported and TL
"All this time, it had become quite plain to Hare that the others knew nothing about spectacles."
There's so much that a small speaker can do that a big speaker can't. Imaging for one. Any speakers with large baffles have pretty poor imaging due to smearing from the baffle.
Also a small speaker is more suitable for a smallish room (which is the average home studio) often creating more bass than a large speaker which will either cancel its own bass out due to standing waves or the bass will be so overpowering that they will essentially be useless.
ALSO! and importantly , Nearfield monitoring can only be done on smaller speakers which allow you to get closer up to hear more detail and have less room interference. You cant near field monitor on large speakers due to the time alignment of the large drivers which need the listener to be much further back.
Small speakers are not a "scam". Most audiophiles still lust after the BBC LS35A monitor. The first true mini monitor which still competes with the top monitors of today,
my baffles have substantial amounts of foam which results in less smearing. Disagree with the small speaker small room thing, will address in my next video. Agree with the near/mid field distinction, but I recommend passive sealed cab nearfields like NS10 or auratone, not all these crappy modern active ported designs. the BBC LS35A is a sealed cab with foam on the baffle! You are proving my point here....
Why would smaller speakers not also cancel their own bass due to standing waves, if placed in the same place in the same room? +1 -1 = 0 just like +5 -5 = 0.
@@Motorman2112 physics, more bass in a smaller room equals more issues. Having speakers the size he recommends in the average person's home studio is not a good idea.
Yes smaller speakers can also have issues with standing waves but a small speaker in a smaller room will have less issues than a large speaker.
@@APMastering the baffle is the front panel of the speaker. Surely you would know this if you are promoting yourself as a speaker expert? This is simple terminology. The baffles do not contain foam on any speaker including the ls35a. They are the panel that holds the drivers and they play a significant role as they resonate ie move to some extent with the drivers.
THIS is why in smaller speakers you hear more of the drivers than the front baffles and hence less smearing, better soundstaging, imaging and also improved detail.
And to state that ported designs are "crappy" is arrogant beyond belief. Some of the most incredible speakers in the world are ported.
Acoustic suspension systems (sealed box) can have benefits due to minimizing internal reflections. But they also have there limitations. Hence why many of the most well regarded large studio monitors (and small ones) are not sealed.
@@Feelingawesome0the foam in my design, as well as lipinski and dunlavy are integrated into the stepped baffle design. you are just playing word games. large studio monitors don't use sealed boxes because extension is important, which you can get better from ports or TL designs.
How long did it take you to build your speakers? Also, how big does a room have to be in order to be past the threshold where you personally would recommend mastering speakers over headphones
it really depends on how well the room is treated more than anything but if its like a single bedroom size then its too small. if you couldn't at least fit a king size bed and a wardrobe in the room for example, then its too small.
I'm in a 5.1x3.6x2.7m room that's treated. As far as what I've discussed with audio professionals, my room is the bare minimum for a professional studio
Are you going via the spread "controversial stupidity to sell your own half measured merch to the lowest hanging fruit method?
The amount of bs spread is incredibe. Bet your clients love it
obviously im making entertaining videos and promoting stuff im selling, that is no secret, but why is anything I'm saying BS?
You can extract deep bass from small speaker by simple EQing either passive or active. But the compromise is reduced max loudness and higher distortion. There is no substitute for cone area for the deepest bass and lowest distortion especially at high levels.
sure, I don't disagree
Please don't talk about things, where you have no idea about !!!!
PLEASE DON'T !
I tell you that as a speaker builder for over 40 years now !
would you care to elaborate? for example, do you think I am incorrect in saying that ports increase time domain distortion?
@@APMastering
The more i watch the video the more annoyed i am !!!
What do you think you have with your "special" AP Mastering Speakers ?
WHAT DO YOU THINK ?!?!?
You built a Transmission Line Speaker, a speaker with a longer, folded resonance tube ( a tapered or maybe straight one ), tuned to ??? Hz !!!
So.... it IS a port... an long one !
BELIEVE it or not !
Google it and make a "scientific" research about it, if you think, that is really better than a normal vented speaker...
Shortcut... Transmission line have the worst bass behavior in Time ( Phase ) and Frequency ( Comb filtering like a organ pipe ).
Another shortcut, cabinet order:
1. = the best choice ( Time / Phase / Frequency and Accuracy ) is Closed Box.
2. is passive radiators
3. vented box
4. is Transmission line
Horns ans stuff like that are at point 4.
When you don´t believe it... GOGGLE IT !
You maybe think closed box is easy to build. NO it is harder to build, when you want do it right !
Next....
So... only big speakers can reproduce 20Hz for example ?!
Whats about Headphones ? With a 40 to 80mm membrane, without air between Membrane and ear ???? I know there is air between Membrane and ear, but way less than in a room... HOW can they reproduce 20 Hz, with such small membrane excursion vs. a 20 Hz Wavelength ? It´s a question for yourself, i don´t need a answer !
You mentioned the two 6 inch woofers in your special speakers !
Where is the difference between these speakers and a two way monitor with a 6 to 8 inch woofer, paired with a 12 inch Sub in a closed enclosure ( better 2 subs, one for each channel ) ?????
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE between a Coax speaker system, a normal 3 way speaker and a Main / Sub combination ???
I tell you... Time and Phase !
Time and Phase is the point, why many people don´t like Subs, cause they sound boomy... YES... they sound boomy ! When Time and Phase is not correct adjusted !!! WHEN Time and Phase is correct, you can't hear whether a sub is playing the first octave or not !!! The Google tag for that is Step Response ! The Step Response gives an overview how the single speakers react to an impulse, over the time domain. So Tweeter comes first as the fastest speaker ( right on the initial impulse ), then the Midwoofer, more or less than the Tweeter ( depends on moving mass, RMS, and B/L ). Then........ a long time later, the subwoofer as the slowest speaker, cause of the upper woofer things. So and that is IMPORTANT, you need to delay the tweeter and the mid woofer, down to the slower Subwoofer... The Step Response is near the same for a 3way speaker like yours and a normal Main / Sub combination... Google it !... Of course the sub can be slower in time, when the sub stand 10m away from the mains, but that is not a problem today, especially not in a full active system !
You tried to slow down the tweeter against the 6 inch woofers, but you have forgotten the 12 inch Woofer !
DO you really think that your Transmission line Speaker has no Time, Phase or Step Response problems... REALLY ?!?!?!?
And the worst thing about your video is... You mentioned the room with not one single word !!!
So for me it is only a marketing video about your "special" speakers !
WHY ?
Cause you did not mentioned Transmission line speakers in your video, especially not as a bad choice ;-)
Back again... The room is the biggest problem !
Cause the sound of Speakers, will be damaged by the room ( room modes and early reflections ) down to around 60 % of the real potential of a good speaker... When you treat the room to a Tech3276 compliant room, for example, the accuracy rises up to over 90 %
Btw. Early Reflections are the problem for the sound changes, when you move your head from left to right, out of the center position !!!!
I have a Tech3276 compliant room, a smaller one with a RT60 middle time around 150ms. AND i have smaller speakers as Mains ( 6.5 woofers with a AMT Tweeters in a 11 Ltr. cabinet = size of a YAMAHA HS80M ) together with 4x 12 inch woofers in closed cabinets. And i can tell you that this system goes straight down 20 Hz... straight, no f3 !!! This system has a PERFECT Step Response over the complete system of 8 single drivers. A good Group Delay of under 10ms at 20 Hz ! A good Phase behavior and all that in a Reflection Free Zone ( RFZ ). Cause of that, i can move my head between the speakers and the sound is still the same. The 12 inch Subs btw. have only 50 Ltr inside each. The system is complete active. Each speaker driver ( the subs are paired ), have their own channel with Phase, Delay, Crossover, EQ and Amp... and only ONE DA conversion from the DAW to the speakers...
Have i mentioned that the THD is around 1%, at 20 Hz and 86dB SPL, in a production ready room and i can hear between 50 dBA and 100 dBA without a significant loss of quality ?
The overall weight of the rock solid system incl. amps is 340 kg and the amps have overall 3500 Watts ( Class AB, not the digital crap, 3000 Watts for the subs to easy control them with low THD, 280 Watts for the mids and 220 for the Tweeters ) !!!
THAT is Mastering Grade, with costs less than 10K and under 13K with room treatment !
And no... i don´t sell anything, no blueprints, no BOM !
@@haraldklingsporn4087 huh? I didn't delete anything. so I'm wrong because "reasons". OK.
I tried 3 times to answer with many important details...
2 times a the large text, as it is...
The third time i cut the text into 4 parts cause i thought the text was too long... and even part 1 was deleted after seconds !
@@APMastering In medium-sized loudspeakers, bass reflex systems reduce the timing errors of sound that is essentially perceived with the ears. For very low frequencies they increase, but even in perfect rooms (or outdoors) the differences are not audible.
I'm talking here about 8-inch woofers and bass reflex resonators tuned to 28 Hz. In the 40 to 50 Hz range, these are clearly better than closed enclosures. And that's where the music plays. The max SPL is also increased in this range.
And especially in the high-end range, this range is hardly reproduced cleanly and crisply, but rather blown up.
Negative list:
* Sonus Faber Amati Homage
* B&W 805
* Estelon AURA
I like it balanced at 80 Hz to 200 Hz without the hi-fi hump, below 80 Hz it can go up very slightly. And then you should dampen the room properly.
I have a degree in physics and I thought there was a compression wave involved with sound. Doesnt this mean you might have confused length with girth when talking about size of wave. Isnt wider better?
the length of an air column is the determining factor for the resonant frequency. the diameter influences the tambre / harmonics more
Glad to read so many comments regarding the faults in this video.
Sad not seeing any comments and responses from AP mastering.
i've literally replied to dozens of comments add debunked a lot of the baseless objections
@@APMastering Okay, the first few which were criticisms, and popular, when I checked, had no reply from you. If I am wrong, then sorry for that.
You haven't debunked a lot of baseless opinions ..
.. you have instead reasserted your opinion .. which is wrong.
Can you grasp the difference?
@@natdenchfield8061 provide evidence
@@APMastering I believe your replies are the evidence
Hello, the idea of building diy monitors is tempting.
I was looking at wilmslow audio tl15, but it would be too complicated to import it to my country.
I'm wondering what is your stance with the front wall SBIR considering how deep the speakers are?
In my experience, the moment a speaker is deeper than 30-40cms, the front wall SBIR is becoming a problem if the front wall treatment is not deep enough to attack the frequency of interest, but paradoxaly if it is deep enough it pushes the face of the speaker further from the boundary pushing the fw SBIR frequency even lower.
So, to make long question short, will you flush mount them or you have other means to battle the fw SBIR considering their depth?
PS: All of this I asked has no meaning unless you have a giant room to put your speakers very far away from the front wall.
i'm considering soffitting them in my new studio. i think the depth isn't such a huge problem but it depends on the room
@APMastering In my experience measuring multiple rooms, non resonant sbir dip was always showing up almost precisely at frequency equal to 1/4 wavelength of the distance between frontface of the speaker to the boundary behind... Although, I was always shooting for +/- 3db unsmoothed up to 200hz, someone could live with more
@@konjstip6156 granting that, the size of the room will determine the quarter wavelength position. this may not converge with the placement of the baffle
@@APMastering Warp Academy guy has a pretty nice video about Front Wall SBIR that aligns with my experience, and I don't claim I am an expert on acoustics, I am just a guy who experiments here and there and who is obsessed to get as smooth low end response as possible lol
I saw a guy on RUclips , a rap beats producer who had giant pmc in an extra small room, I may be wrong but I was under the impression that to get the full range of frequency response you need to be able to push a bit which in a small room doesn’t work because the power is to loud to quick is this correct thinking?
no, with pmcs you can listen as quiet as a mouse fart and it will be great. the problem with a small room is that a small room sounds shit whatever you do
@@APMastering
A small room can sound good, when it is treated right, i mean right, after Tech3276 !
@@haraldklingsporn4087 Not able to produce accurate low end. Physics do come into play.
Wow! I read a report of a LS developer from Visaton. He explained about a lot of difficulties when he developed a cabinet with TML.
He was fighting resonances on certain distances inside the TML with damping materials. The result wasn’t much better to a sealed cabinet. So I’m wandering if it’s worth to go TML since it needs more material and experiments to fight problems which you wouldn’t face with a sealed cabinet. Btw. I own a pair of TML-Speakers in D’Appolito design since over thirty years.
small TLs are garbage. that's the problem.
@ are you talking about the width of the line?
@@G4Nazarener diameter and also importantly length. if you don't have a length above 2m you will just be making a bad sounding port
I agree with your specs. They are very accurate. So, once you’ve nailed that mix using your 125k speakers or DIY monitors, does it mean every listener now needs a pair of those speakers to properly hear my beautiful and expensive mix?
no, it just means you are able to hear everything as it is. I know of someone who makes electronic music solely using his built in laptop speakers. It's not wrong, he just can't hear what he is doing and gets a surprise when he plays it in a club
Looking forward to part 2. The whole time i was thinking about the NS10 since i'm more focused on mixing than mastering. IMO, NS10 are a good option to get the mid-range right, which will translate on most speakers. Once that's done, then you can double check the bass and highs with some headphones.
Coming soon!
This video seems to have poked another hornet's nest and has attracted another barrage of triggered comments. Before I write anything else I want to make the rules around here clear:
*I am pro free speech and critique*.
*I am against disrespectful conduct*.
That means, if you leave a genuine critique, no matter how much you disagree with me or how wrong I think you are, I will NEVER delete or sensor you. However, if you come onto my comment section, guns blazing with name calling and low tier troll bullshit, instant block.
I don't tolerate unproductive disrespectful behavior from anon trolls. Even if your comment comes across particularly uneducated, that's fine, you're safe, it's just if you come on here insulting me or anyone else in the comments in an unfriendly and disrespectful way, you will be immediately blocked without further warning. Note that I do NOT silently shadow ban. Any time I block someone I will write that I have blocked them immediately after the comment I felt deserved it. Also note that some trolls comment in 20 different places and I might decide cumulatively that they need to be blocked and one comment in isolation seems less egregious.
Now, specifically to this video...
A lot of people are saying I'm wrong because of *reasons*, because I'm not even wrong, because I'm selling courses, because I'm wearing a jacket and beanie, because I must be wrong. In case you haven't realized, none of these are legitimate substantive push backs. You are allowed to upvote bad objections but I'm not particularly interested what are the top comments, I'm interested in the intelligent critique which ironically tends to get fewer upvotes. I sincerely invite genuinely high level criticism from people knowledgable about speaker design and there have been one or two interesting comments but the majority has been this kind of low tier stuff.
Also, if you think I'm pushing $125k speakers or think NS10s are crap, like lots of people have said, you literally are just demonstrating that you didn't watch the video.
I planned part 2 before I recorded this one, which is why I talk about what I will discuss in part 2 at the end of this video. But please take into account, it's VERY DIFFICULT to make a video which appeals to an audience where I'm seriously discussing the theory of speaker design when some of the most common objections to my video were "but headphones are smaller than speakers" and "you're a scammer because you think X speaker is not amazing" etc. I cannot do all levels of difficulty in one video. I'm really trying to cater to all levels but boy it's hard.
The answer is simple...
Don't make another video about this topic...
Please don't...
Why ?
The answers are in the comments... short cut... Cause your speakers have many design errors...
Maybe you can catch some noobs with this party speaker... But you annoy the semi professionals and the people from the brands, which you call scam !
^^^ haters trying so hard to destroy whilst creating nothing of value themselves. Meanwhile I'm doing cool stuff and you spend your day being angry at random people on the internet.
These are words that are intended to distract from the actual topic...
I hear these ( similar ) words often from people who have no good arguments or hard facts anymore ;-)
Okay... i wait for round two ;-)
Seems like I cannot comment /: I wanted to shout-out some useful info on this topic.
But yeah, this kind of controversial topics for views sake without useful information is annoying.
Lets try again. Audio judgement channel and 'Working in tandem' by pro sound web.
Mix and Master on Headphones, then check on Commercial systems like Earphones, Headphones, and Loudspeakers.
That's what my grandfather always told me as well.
What do you think about PMC 6s? They are small but have the labyrinth. Great video and explained really well cheers.
i would NOT recommend them. the point of a TL design is that the line is long enough to absorb all the low end. with a short line this doesn't happen and then you end up with a worse mess than a port
@APMastering Interesting. would you recommend going for the PMC 6-2s instead? the size up. They look like two 6s on their side. I'm on Mackie Hr824 MkII's and looking to get 6s, but only if it is going to be a big step up y'know.. I think the 6-2s would be a bit overkill for my studio size tbh. cheers
Cool speaker you made. I've gotten people all offended when i would bring up that their monitors started to roll of from 70hz and 50-60-hz the important part of bass and kick drum feels almost like it's missing couse it's rolled of 10 to 15db. I was trying to mix using their system and they kept telling me to turn the volume down couse my instinct was to try to turn it up so i could hear the bassdrum more clearly. They were blaming my mixing skills couse i could not hear the reduced lows. They said it would be fine and no one would notice the difference. Lol. I have 12inch subwoofer with my Genelecs going in my own setup
You are 100% correct, Its obvious you studied deeply into sound reinforcement because in order to capture unified sound most engineers back in the day had to have three in closed speaker boxes separated from each other and had to build crosser technology, which most studio have no idea how easy there lives are not having to do this... thanks for your knowledge.
THANK YOU. I can show this to my wife to justify the giant set of vintage ATCs on eBay I want to buy.
😂😂😂
Interesting video. What is the saw doing on your desk ?
I used it to make my speakers
I knew that bigger speakers are always better, having a sub along with the monitors is a plus just to check what's going on down there with my project and reference songs. When I get enough room gonna build these. Great Video 👍
thanks, nice one!
I’ve just refreshed my memory on TL design. How long did it take to dial in the Transmission Line? I’ve heard they are really finicky to fine tune/damp and threading that needle is where all the magic is! Curious 😊
it's propaganda from pmc to prevent people DIYing it. providing the y are long and damped it's fine
Frequency is time, not size.
Waves have a physical size. You can measure it. Hear about that trick where you can turn a grape into plasma in a microwave? Same deal. Reason bass traps sit away from the wall rather than on it? You bet. Reason bass instruments need to be larger, and treble instruments smaller? The waves are like hermit crabs, they want a home that's the right size for them. :)
@@Vossst Thanks for the reply. Let me add that waves only exist over time, so seeing them as "distance" can be problematic in a world of time and space. Sure, their "length" matters, e.g.as pertains to calculating room modes and such. But a pair of headphones can reproduce 50 hertz and 10 kilohertz just fine for musical purposes - both tones generated at the same distance from the ear. The devil in the details is the word "per" in "per second." If we chose a longer distance from the sound source than the half inch inside the phones, say 1,130 feet at the beach, peak amplitude from the low A on a piano will arrive at our ear about 27 times per second and, from a tuning fork, about 440 times. If we move twice as close to the sound source, there's now only room to get half as many total pulses in a second. But pitch from the speaker down the beach won't drop an octave; it will remain the same. Either way, the 27.5 hertz wave will be about forty-one feet "long" and the tuning fork's about two and a half feet "long." But this doesn't matter for pitch. Multiply each "length" by the frequency and you'll get the same answer: 1,130 (because we got that number by division in the first place; that's the "per" part). I find it's helpful just to think of pressure peaks impinging on the eardrum per second. Cheers.
Should have said "those numbers", not "that number." We took the distance and divided it by the frequency.
Notwithstanding the nonsense spouted in this video, frequency does in fact have a size relative to the time.
@@devon-graves-studio-D I know what you're saying but can't say I want to follow you there, Devon. Mainly for semantic reasons. Yes, the spacing of moving events, say spl peaks travelling at 1,130 fps in air can, of course, be expressed as a distance in feet. Personally, I still like frequency expressed in its pure meaning, which is how often something occurs over a stated time frame. The frequency of presidential elections, for instance, is three months per year but has no normal spatial element (I think. I suppose you could measure them as four trips round the sun each). Love your channel, btw. Matt
I love the idea of how people making early acid house tested out their tracks through the massive pa systems, loads wrong and completely inaccurate with those systems/spaces too, but it's a cool idea testing music in it's intended context and evaluating sub response in that environment. totally get where you're coming from with this, especially since one of the take home messages is that you can build more accurate monitors yourself rather than giving into the equivalents of logitech speakers at the same expense, anythings better than that and the consumerism around that whole setup
the only mastering here, is being a master on clickbait videos, well played.
why clickbait?
@@APMastering
Sorry... you really ask why ?
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I bought a pair of PreSonus Studio E8 Eris 8's...got them for a good price...8"bass/mid unit...a 1 1/4" tweeter with mesh guard & 100° x 60° wave guide, +6db - -6db pots for volume/gain, midrange & treble...a 3 position shelving switch for the bass level depending on how close to a wall...i use them with everything at 12o'clock & the volume at the unity setting...used with XLR quad balanced cables on Dynaudio speaker stands they sound pretty good used with my PreSonus 1810c interface....those big transmission line speakers with 75mm midrange dome & Volt bass units are great but the tweeter level looks a bit high but i don't know the height of them.
3 - way transmission line monitors, fantastic but not the cheapest out there..lol
A cable isn't balanced. The 2 pieces of equipment that you are connecting have to be balanced. And just because something has xlr connectors on it doesn't mean its balanced.
@052RC .....it is balanced, the manual ,box, demo's & reviews all state the XLR & TRS in/outputs are fully balanced...i use quad core sheiled cable ,if it was'nt balanced it would not work, it comes from a PreSonus 1810c interface which i know has balanced monitor & line in/outputs...a quad core cable has 2 + & 2- wires & an earth wire... PreSonus are hit & miss with the Eris 8's, some people complain about hum but i have had no problems, so far so good, i worked at various music venues for yrs along with playing when younger & working for REL Recording Studios...i know what balanced is bud after 48+ yrs in the music business, i use balanced Sennheiser HD660S1's headphones to, real balanced as my Zen Dac ll has a 4.1mm Pentacom balanced TRRS headphone output along with a single ended 6.3mm output..
Dude just thinks of a good video title, then makes shit up for content.
exactly, the speakers i built were made up too, it was CGI, they don't really exist
Hi, loved your video thanks! what room size with be suitable for these speaker ?
spacious double bedroom or larger
That Makita can cut through the mix for sure. Anyways: finally someone talking about this.
nice one. yeah it's a great saw!
What would you say to someone who wanted to get a dolbe atmos setup? Buying 12 speakers without being rich, you almost have to go for smaller speakers at that point? Is there an alternative?
yeah don't bother with atmos, it's a gimmick
@ lots of people disagree and say if the music is mixed well for it, can be great.
Andrew Scheps has talked about it a fair bit
@@RishiJParmar But then like everyone else he has stopped talking about it because nobody cares ... atmos has been a failed corporate push for like 8 years . I think that companies like apple or meta didn'tt think they would failed VR the way they did . Atmos for music will end up like NFTs
@@chrisrevel2801 Yeah the barrier to entry is too high and it sounds shit on headphones. At some point in the future tech advancements may well make it more accessable. And whether its atmos or another standard, the concept is likely to stay because like I said, it can be a great experience.
I gave up on speakers and do everything on headphones now
good call
Same. I just check the balance and the stereo image on speakers.
For sure, I do most my work on headphones just check the low end and FX on the monitors. The way technology is right now, they're replacing speakers for so many of us...
Yeah work a lot on head phones then test stuff on different speakers like car ,Bluetooth, 5.1tv speakers, monitors,pa etc
Why should that be better? They are even smaller than monitors.
Why you picked up those 2 vinyls to be part of the background? Did you master them?
just random
@APMastering No matter how many technical analyses are done on what's right or wrong with sound, no matter how much you dismiss audio equipment or DAW's by analyzing everything technically, there's something very important you forget to mention, and it's the most important thing for both a musician and a sound engineer/producer. You can sell courses and others can sell plugins or hardware, promising perfect results, but nowhere is the perspective and personality in sound sold, nowhere is a good pair of ears or the audio experience sold, and above all, the soul that each unique artist or producer puts into their work. The notion that you need the perfect equipment to write or produce or mastering music, and the specific 'golden rules' have led, despite today's advanced technical means and knowledge, to this current 'mess' of endless recycling and a sound that is technically perfect but sterile. Music and sound are a form of art that you are technically deconstructing, not recognizing that imperfections are part of human life and that without them, everything ends up sounding the same.
you DON'T need perfect speakers to make music but you DO need as close as possible to perfect speakers to be a professional mastering engineer. that's what i am and that's why i built my speakers and then shared that with everyone for a nominal cost
@@APMastering Clearly, you've misunderstood my point. Do you believe that monitors are the most critical factor for a mastering engineer, or is it their musical knowledge and overall aesthetic sensibility that truly enables them to capture a unique sonic signature in the mastering? How effective can a mastering engineer be if, beyond their technical skills, they have a limited musical background and are unable to grasp the nuances and style of the music they're working on? What role do speakers play when these fundamental prerequisites are absent? How significant are speakers when the mastering engineer lacks imagination and creativity, and their approach is overly rigid and subjective? To excel at mastering, should an engineer be solely focused on mastering techniques, or is it beneficial to also be a skilled mixing engineer and musician?
What struck me negatively in some of your videos was the dogmatic absoluteness of your opinions. Unfortunately or fortunately, there isn't just one truth but many. I'd genuinely be interested in hearing some of your mastering work.
I had to add a subwoofer to my monitor speakers. You are right. They sound much much better now. They were sounding good before, but only after I added separate device to handle lows, they started to truly shine.
Um, you're comment "sound isn't a sine wave..." I have no idea where you are coming from with that because it very much is. It is exactly that. A 'sine wave' is the specific form of an energy waveform a particular energy pattern, sound in this case, is composed of... so your statement makes no sense. Perhaps what you actually were thinking is that the waveform being shown in the marketing material wasn't showing the true picture as it is a simplified version of the true waveform, and also which (the marketing version of the waveform) doesn't show aspects of the sound wave that degrade it from what one would optimally want. That would be understandable.
But music is not 'A' sound wave in the singular, of course as you know it is many thousands upon thousands of sine waves. But I guess he is saying that the tests are done with a single sine wave sweep at a set volume that gives the best result. a any louder and the test is out of spec same with quiter. Makes sense if true.
@@CaptainProton1 First, he said "sound isn't a sound wave." That is just false. Second, these 'multiple waves' you are referring to get merged into a single wave when they are in the same space. Think of it this way, when you throw a pebble into a pond, it creates ripples, when you throw a second pebble into the pond, that creates a second ripple, however those ripples interact in a way that the surface of the pond has a single combined ripple pattern at any point of being sampled. There are differences if sampled from different points in space, however... in the case of an instrument that creates harmonics, etc... those harmonics are basically not generated from different localities and thus are overlayed on the wave pattern of the current time/locality. It is an additive/subtractive combination. That's why sound cancellation works. A better example might be this, think of what one would see if they put a microphone in the center of an orchestra and put an oscilloscope on the incoming signal. It would be a single waveform, not multiple waveforms for all of the instruments. that waveform is exactly an electrical signal that exactly represents the sound wave the microphone is picking up (excepting some minor differences due to physics in the microphone and wires that induce distortion into the incoming signal..) and that single wave contains all of the sonic information for all of the instruments playing at that moment.
Music is not inherently a bunch of sine waves. While it can be analyzed or broken down into sine waves mathematically, that’s not an accurate representation of what music truly is
@@FreemanHubbard Yes it actually is, on a physical basis. Take some physics classes.
@@joseph.cotter Sound can be analyzed as sine waves, but in reality, it’s a continuous pressure wave in the air. Sine waves are just a mathematical tool for describing it, not what it physically is. That’s like saying a picture is physically made of pixels. It’s a representation, not reality.
I’m a videographer, I do some work creating marketing material for some hifi brands. One of them told me that hifi speakers usually cost maybe a 16th of the price that they actually sell for. Most of what you’re paying for is a brand name. I also watched some videos recently of Klipschorns being broken down and all the comments were people saying these 20,000$ speakers had a few hundred dollars worth of cheap off the shelf parts inside.
Your speakers look great but the acoustic center, the space between the mids and tweeter, are too far apart. I can't imagine that they image very well ?
they sound great. they are not supposed to be listened to super close
Do you have some mesurement of the quality of your speaker ?
soon, see my post
Guess it's headphones then. 😆 Even if I had 2000 bucks and a sufficient room I severely lack all the skill needed to build them.
yeah it's a big build
Haven't you thought of maybe hooking up with some local carpenters, or just people with DIY skills? I've got a few mates who've knocked some quality stuff for me, like desks etc, for just a few hundred, minus material costs. I'll check up on some of these speaker construction sites AP refers to and get some quotes. Because this has piqued my interest. My only problem may be room size. My room might be just under the minimum requirements.
Since most people don’t have ideal listening rooms with good treatment, the best speakers are ones that minimize the room interaction while maximizing resolvability. For active monitors in a small untreated room (which is not ideal), speakers like the Kii Three or Dutch & Dutch 8c monitors are best as they calibrate themselves to the room. For passive speakers, open baffle are best, as they minimize sidewall room reflections. Speakers like the Gr-Research NX Extremes or Spatial Audio X5 open baffle speakers can still sound amazing in normal relatively untreated rooms because of the nature of open baffle and how it minimizes sidewall reflections (you still have front and back-wall and floor and ceiling reflections, so it’s not perfect).
Absolute nonsense
critique asserted without evidence, dismissed without any
@APMastering same as this video
@@DawnHub666 Hahahaha, exactly!
I rarely comment, but this entire channel is so hilariously riddled with misinformation (let alone this video), that I absolutely recommend anyone and everyone unsubscribe and run away. This man clearly wants to funnel you into his scam courses as opposed to doing any sort of actual work or delivering anything of value.
@@adalundhe 🧌
Where is YOUR discography? Love to hear what you end up with. There is so much to take issue with here, I need an audio starting point.
my website. not so much of what ive done on there but there's a bit
@@APMastering recommend a specific track that you have fully mastered?
I just looked at my little speakers. They are somehow frowning and sad now. LOL. i will update them tomorrow with googly eyes because my studio is too small for speakers that weigh as much as a high-quality mini fridge. i wish i had the space to build some better speakers and I always look forward to your videos! I'll just have to rely on my current setup and my ever-aging ears.
Umm… you said magic doesn’t exist, and then you caused a speaker to levitate?? Disproving your point??
Just playing with ya, obviously 😅
😂😂😂
😂🤣😂🤣
You just reminded me why I own my AE22’s 😊 Should I make some massive transmission line speaker stands? 🤔
sounds fun
i made my own 1 way speakers (kinda like mixcubes). dirt cheap, best imaging, tone, 'musicality' and all that, but obviously no bass. i mix bass by analyzers.
i own focal 6be monitors, and those sound more boomy, but in all other respects way way worse. did cost me about 2k
i also own relatively cheap, but quite big and fine consumer grade 3 way speakers, and i noticed that more 'ways' (as 'drivers') a speaker has - less coherent and mixable image it gives. maybe it is fixed to some degree in those 3 000 000 000 000$ speakers, but still i dont think it is possible to eliminate this issue 100% just because of physics itself.
also made music for about 5+ years 100% in headphones, own like 20 headphones from cheap to expensive, closed and open, dynamic and those with electric membranes between magnets (forgot the name of the tech) and never got to place where i can mix good stuff with it. no matter what (correction eqs, room emulations, crossfeed etc) - music made in headphones just sounds off. maybe it is just me, but i pretty sure i saw this same opinion in internetz for 2 million times.
---
oh also transmission line is still a port, it still adds time domain issues, phase incoherences and all those nasty things. only way to solve that is closed 1 way speaker design, whis is also dirt cheap and easy to diy
EXACTLY. Passive single cone cubes can have absolutely excellent transient response and extremely low time domain distortion. Just not suitable for mastering hence my quite large speakers but yeah you definitely get it. Mid range is king in the mix.
Hi Duke, I’m wondering what is the purpose of such a video?
Which type of audience are you targeting?
Did you ever think about how theory can match the practice?
I just make content I want to make, I don't sit there and think about the audience. RUclips has a large audience and people who are interested will watch it
please, make video about headphones 🙏
yes, please
coming up
@@APMastering sweet!!!! 👏👏👏
When I listen to the 2350$ speakers and I measure them with the more popular measurement systems they totally pass the frequency and distortion smell test. In so far as time domain smearing by the monitor, one must remember the room dominates any listening experience. You’re basically misrepresenting the real facts. Clown show audio sponsored by Emotiva.
ported designs are more room dependent than TLs
@@APMastering Small rooms where most small speakers live are notoriously lacking in fundamental bass trapping and also usually have one or two nasty room modes that dominate the listening experience. Larger speakers may offer more headroom and if they have a substantial waveguide may offer improved imaging above 1k or so. Transmission lines may indeed indicate some sort of improvement in LF anechoically but they are not by any means immune from poorly performing rooms or bad speaker placement. Well designed active speakers like the ones you seem to bash in your video offer far more improvement than a traditional passive speaker that you seem to favor. There are a lot of good small monitor choices out there for a lot of good reasons. Your video attempts to distill monitoring design to a few talking points which is just wrong.
@@willburrito9710
I have a small room with 1. mode area around 40 Hz... Untreated it was a mess.. 1900ms long standing waves and 55 db of level at the target RT60 time of under 700ms...
But i made it and i use 4 12 inch subs in this room with around 1 % THD at 86 dB SPL, at 20 Hz...
I paired the Subs with "bad" small Nearfields ( 6.5 inch woofers and AMT Tweeters ) and the full, i mean full active system sound fantastic.
You sound like someone who doesn't really work much in the actual recording/music world, or someone who doesn't work at a professional level. The best speakers are those which make your mixes translate the best to other systems. Laughing at £2-4k speakers means you're laughing at mixing engineers who create fantastic sounding mixes on speakers in that price range. Plus, these guys could happily work on £500 monitors and get 99.9% of the way to a perfect mix.
Understandable esp. for mastering engs. There is probably an unstated reason why NS10's get used as often as they do, the reduced upmasking by essentially having a 6db pass at 100. I think anyone missing out on getting down to 30 or 20 is losing something. Sure the car test, but one you can actively listen to at your DAW, so, basically just some HP's.
In the high-end audio world, "mastering speaker/monitors" are kind of a joke. They're for victims of effective marketing that don't know any better.
please substantiate
I had actually thought (many many years ago) that the point of mastering speakers (which were all those nasty Yahama things with the yellow cones and way too much mid) was that something would sound consistant (albiet consistently awful with too much midrange) no-matter who/where it was listened to...
If you were FORCED to go the 2.1 route (assume you had one or more custom sealed subs that produce all the bass you desire) what size of evil ported desktop monitor WOULD you go for?
I know most of them are ported and you hate that, but sounds around the tuning frequencies will be crossed over to the sub(s) anyway so I don’t see an issue…
So this makes me wonder if there’s any point going for an 8” desktop monitor instead of a good 5-6” desktop monitor?
if you have a sub u would never use ported speakers id get 5" sealed
@APMastering yeah I get it, but as you note, almost no monitors ARE sealed? So 5" ported > 8" ported so long as the port isn't getting involved?
(TY for reply - new subscriber, love the debunker videos)
So things that should have been discussed at least in passing but seemingly weren't mentioned at all
1) Acoustic treatment - if your room isn't properly treated it doesn't matter if you have £1000 or £100000 speakers they will still sound less than their best to awful
2) The midrange and treble performance of any system discussed in this video. If you think people who would consider buying a high end mastering grade pair of monitors are only interested in the bass extension I think you've thoroughly misjudged your audience. Since nearly all critical details of a mix occur between 500Hz and 8kHz this range, and in particularly the phase coherency of any system where the crossover point between mid and treble is in this range is absolutely critical
3) The downsides of large baffles in terms of diffraction, baffle step, soundstage
4) Sealed box monitors including those from for example present day productions MUM8 and MUM10 which use high excursion but very low distortion purifi drivers (widely regarded as some of the best woofers on the market)
5) Measurements of waterfall, phase & distortion and specs of your own speakers
6) Why not combining smaller monitors with a sub would be an option or judging the bass end using headphones would be another.
1. agree. next video
2. agree. next video
3. agree which is why my baffles have loads of foam
4. agree next video
5. coming soon but i'm in the middle of moving studio
6. agree next video
Ok, "Genelecs sound like shit, it's a fact, but don't worry, you can build a better speaker yourself, just follow my course" 🤣. Thanks for the laugth.
it's not about being better than genelec it's about physics. clearly went over your head
@APMastering indeed, I am not an engineer in acoustics, nor am I in electronics. But I firmly believe that building such quality gear is not done without expertise by buying 4 hours of a youtube course and having a go at it in your garage.
Literally just clickbaiting and shilling his crappy speaker plans. And getting arsey in the comments
@@teamflashtv not sure why you think the word shilling is more fitting than advertising. it's quite obvious i'm advertising, that's why you know about my course. shilling is just the wrong word here, especially since it's my own course
@APMastering "a person who publicizes or praises something or someone for reasons of self-interest, personal profit, or friendship or loyalty." And most blatantly a clickbait merchant who gets arsey in the comments 👍🏼
Can you make a video where you demonstrate and prove that the Genelecs are crap?
I can do next time I go to my friend's studio who has genelecs. in the meantime, just look at the charts online: www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?attachments/genelec-8330a-csd-waterfall-meaurements-powered-studio-monitor-png.147036/
huge time domain issues
doesn't say genelec is bad...says the marketing is fake at the end of day
@@MrGreekBlade He said it is crappy.
I want to see you doing a Klippel Measurement with your personal Speaker 😂
@@APMastering ok
Thanks for the free the sample " "it's got a bit of bass but sounds terrible " 😊😊
Are you sayint that if I play a professionally mixed song in my cheap monitors and it sounds great, I'm being fooled?
@@Y42 yeah man i agree. he's angry.
No, but you may not be discerning enough to know what is missing..
They got you 😂
Yes.
Would it not be easier to just add another woofer to a closed cabinet than mess around with TL ports. Seems to me it would also reinforce the entire range, not just a single target freq.