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.
that's it. And he's bloody cranky about anything less than that. you're a bit like a dude who bought a brand new BMW with all the latest snuff spitting on a Kia. Kia gets you from A-B just as well, maybe not as comfortable, but it will.
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.
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.
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.
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'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 ...
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...
@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...
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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 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?
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.
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.
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.
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,
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.
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 😊
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...
planar magnetic headphones for mixing and mastering? ( i'm using avantone pro planar right now). they are mid focused and i can feel down to 10hz very linear
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.
this is why Kii audio did an amazing work with the Kii Three + BXT ! No port, cardioid diffusion pattern from 40Hz upwards -> way less room interaction) , DSP control ensuring linearity whatever the playback level, super LOW THD , able to play down to 20Hz (-1,5dB) . Of course it is pricey but like a quarter of big PMC and they sound more defined, more punchy, bass is super tight, they take less space AND sound better in a poorly treated room. NOT a Kii rep here just a user who fell in love with their sound :) cheers!
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
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
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.
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.
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
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
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
@APMastering just to follow the logic, transmission line subwoofer with a built in satellite speaker is better. Vs subwoofer with satellite speaker. That is the argument right?
@@Catandbeats no, both are perfectly fine, you just have two pairs of things to set up instead of one and then you need to tune the crossovers between the tops and subs otherwise you might be phase issues and unwanted colouration. That and, if you had an actual TL sub it would be the same size as my speakers anyway, because the whole speaker is basically just the transmission line and the mid woofers and tweeter are mounted in the TL exit fold
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.
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.
Pretty cool speaker you made there, looks like the basic duntec design for midrange and a pmc style transmission line for the bass. Did you align the magnets for better time alignment? I enjoy the sound of the budget jbl 3 series monitors given the price, I think low end has always been a challenge to get right on those setups though. I mixed an electronic track on a pair of Kef ls50's once and was pretty blown away by the results, I personally don't think you can really get into a mastering grade monitor's until the Focal Be series. A cool low budget speaker that you can mix with pretty solid results is the Fostex PM03 or 04 because you can get your kick and bass level from the driver starting to distort like on NS-10s, not bad imaging either. Have also had decent results with the Slate digital headphones, not as fun as speakers but they solve a lot of issues in terms of mix translation and have pretty coherent low end.
I think the real point I was hoping you were making is that you need a decent size speaker OR subwoofer to get an accurate representation of the monitored mix... Just get a decent sub and pair with half decent monitor speakers like Adam Audio which are cheap.
This is silly. The reason why you buy smaller monitors is because they are often more accurate than the bigger monitors. There's a reason why the larger woofers and cabinet sizes often sound worse than the smaller ones. What size you get depends on your room, how far away you site, type of music needs, use of subwoofer, etc. But often the sweat spot is around 5 to 8 inches. There's a reason a lot of pros have a smaller speaker setup along with their bigger setup.
you misunderstand those reasons for smaller monitors if you think there's an objective sweet spot of 5 inches and that small speakers are more accurate. you've really absorbed the dishonest marketing
@APMastering I don't listen to marketing at all. I just use my ears. I have had over the years various sizes and types of monitors. If you don't need big volume (for producing, you normally don't), the smaller speakers are usually better. Plenty of people I know prefer the same, there's definitely a sweet spot.
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.
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).
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.
yeah let's hear his stuff and judge for ourselves if he has the authority to make such tremendous claims and statements, however well 'scientifically'explained (im pretty sure he's missing a ton of important things and just wants to justify his 125.000 investment on these ridiculous speakers, that you need a room for of at least a 1.000.000 with very very proper acoustic treatment, floating floor, walls and ceiling, to make it work accurate)
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.
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.
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
some speakers have built in clippers, which can help make the dynamics in your track loud and powerful. Different speakers have different clipping algrorithms, both digital and analog.
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?
@@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 can't get into building speakers. Could you make some recommendations on some relatively affordable monitors to buy? I've been looking at the IK Multimedia iLoud Precision MTMs.
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...
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.
@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 moved to new flat, and now I have very small room for my 'studio'. When I placed my 8 inch speakers, I heard no bass, thinking wtf. After moving my desk, so I am literally sitting in the middle of the room, I got the sound I recognise. Anyway, I know I won't be able to make perfect monitorin space here, the general goal is to make mixes translate well to the wild. I can hear what I am doing, and that's the goal. When I will have enough budget I would rather outsource mixing and mastering to someone else who has more skills and better setup.
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.
@@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 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 👍
the tl;dr of what you said is bigger speakers go lower. this is true but it disregards that smaller drivers image better and can be faster. there's a reason major studios with $100,000 custom in-wall speaker monitors usually still have a small set of bookshelf sized monitors sitting on the console. also, people do their own measurements of monitors and can compare to manufacturer specs so the charts aren't just bullshit. there's an excellent analysis of the kh-120 ii you used in your thumbnail image on audiosciencereview for reference. "I expect precision from Neumann but I am always amazed how incredibly flat on-axis response is from their speakers. I mean this is the level of flatness we get out of electronics, not something electromechanical! Despite having just a 5.5 inch woofer, the speaker dares to go nearly flat to 50 Hz! Directivity is excellent other than the woofer slightly beaming before tweeter takes over."
This is so freaking tricky that I opted to use different speakers placed in different positions, settings and places around the room to figure out things better. As other comment said, music is not real and I came to the conlussion no speaker gives you the ultimate representation of what we perceive as music. I guess that's why top end studios still have multiple pairs for different purposes. I own Yamaha's HS7, Kali's LP8 and Equator's D8 for work, each of them providing a different experience, complementing each other. I also own a pair of Mackie's CR-X3 and a pair of Edifier's R1280t which I use to test the behavior in small shelf speakers. For headphones I chose ATH-M30 because they sound horrible to me but they are popular so I think of them as a safety check, and I also have AKG 612 because I noticed they show distortion as no other pair I have owned. I have dreamt for a long time with an ideal monitoring system that I can rely 100% on, being orgasmed anytime I listen to my mixes elsewhere because of how predictably they translate to them but... here we are.
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
Yeah, that totaly makes sense physics wise But for someone like me who just starts their journey with recording, i thing small monitors would be just good enough as a stepping stone for something more proper in the future
@@APMastering Lol, seriously, the way I have everything setup right now, I am thinking about doing a mix on studio montiors, and then a mix using the wall of sound and making a video comparing the two results. I used the giant PA to help me dial in my kick sound and the result was better with my live mic than with any of my outboard sound banks, when I switched back to the studio monitors the result was still true
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.
I think there are speakers that have a large flat surface that you can install in your wall. You can actually make them yourself. Not sure about how that affects dynamics, but it could give you a large surface area to produce sound waves. I’m not sure that all this matters that much. Most people will be listening to music on crap speakers anyway.
What most listeners don’t realize is that the room and speaker placement in that room account for 50% of the sound that you hear coming out of any pair of speakers. You can have the best speakers in the world and if you put them right up against the wall of an untreated room, it will sound like garbage. Room treatment and listening room size and placement of the speakers (pulling them out far away from the front wall) matters just as much as how good/resolving the speakers are that you buy. Headphones are good because they eliminate the room from the equation and typically work best in smaller untreated rooms.
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 ?
I've got 2 Genelec 8331 and 2 subs (7350) crossed over at 80 Hz. The subwoofers are very small and don't have that much juice (150w each) but at a listening distance of 1m to 1,5m that's plenty. According to GLM room measurement there is only a small dip at about 55 Hz (-5 dB), apart from this the FR from 20 to 100 Hz is within +/- 1,5 dB.
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
@@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.
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
This is why I ended up with PSI A-25M monitors. Those little KH120As I had sounded "clean", but the smount of DSP already baked in made them have a strange sound. They didn't have the best phantom centre. The PSIs sound super clear and they don't use DSP to achieve "flatness" and bass extension, so DSP correction in the KH750 sub made them sound ultra accurate in my room. I was thinking about building my own speakers. Amazing that you've built your own. I'd love to hear them one day. I know there are a lot of people building their own speakers now the tech is here. I just haven't figured it out fully yet. Only managed to build a couple of subwoofers for cars so far. Those things are pretty easy to build but certainly not mastering grade.
@@frankklemm1471 Ah, thank for correcting me! I just presumed it would have DSP in for the speaker correction to make it anechoically flat, just not DSP-enabled for room correction like with the KH80s. Thanks again for the correction. Guess they did a good job on the driver design to make it as flat as it is. When I saw the frequency response chart, my brain just said "must be DSP'd to be that flat". 😂
so what is your take on kali audio lp-6 and lp-8 ( and taking price into account also). for listening the results from the headphones mostly not for main reference
I'm mixing on a budget and in a bad room so I do my detail work on headphones (sennheiser hd6xx) but use my first gen lp-6s (purchased used for pennies) to set track levels and do broad adjustments since it's so much easier to do that through speakers. The lp-6s are fun to listen to and a helpful addition as long as I simply ignore the bass response. Bass response is poor largely due to my room to be fair but I can still tell the low end is smeared (especially in the transients) from the inherent flaws in ported bass reflex speakers.
Yes, really, the commercial studio speakers business is a scam. Even if they are self-powered and with integrated flat-panel qualification, that is when you have to see those shortcomings and defects that you mention. I stopped having small speakers a long time ago. The myth of the Yamaha NS-10 was a clear example that the industry in those years at the end of the 20th century was not so effective in flat sound without masking and simple bookshelf speakers made that work a little more precise and easier, although it was not perfect. I have some NS-10s and I calculate that for a 3x4 meter room it is ideal to achieve the most reliable sound, and no more than 80 watts of volume, which is really loud in a control booth in a studio. Open and large studios need very large speakers to cover that sine wave response, that's why many studios have separate and soundproofed areas in the same studio. My studio has an instrument, vocal and main control section where each one is in a soundproofed room with its correct size in proportion to the dimensions. I have the NS-10 in the main booth of 5 x 5 meters and where with the soundproofing it is a 4.5 x 4.5 u, the sound is really more precise and since I made those adjustments and changes, my music and my work stand out on all the equipment and platforms, clients like my results and they have considered me a trusted engineer for 10 years.
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.
I love your channel and your mastering work man, don't succumb from the heated comments! although probably I will never have a dedicated room for big speakers 😅
Whatcha think bout the SEAS King RO4Y MKIII ? Those DIY monitors is high on my list for next monitors . Powerful Sealed woofers always sound better to me .. PLus Coaxial is great for phase coherence .
It all comes down to monitoring volume. Most people are working at low volume meaning smaller speakers are fine. Only turn them up for clients. Sure check your mix loud too.
ported designs are fairly SPL dependent and anyway, turning the volume down will not give you a more linear room response or correct a crappy speaker. the only exception is that would will get less crappiness such as port chuffing and suspension distortion at lower levels.
@ we’re not talking about room response or crappy speakers though. The genelecs you showed will audibly produce those lower frequencies especially at lower volumes. Hence professionals do mix at low-moderate volumes. If you’re claiming they don’t produce those frequencies it’s simply wrong. Your kit speakers are too big for mixing imo for so many reasons a smaller set should accompany them.
in the context of monitoring systems, it's essential to avoid placing excessive responsibility solely on the speakers. instead, it is crucial to consider the broader monitoring chain and disclose potential issues from a comprehensive perspective. why small speakers are crap? 2.1 (4”/5” + good sub) is more flexible solution than giant 3-way coffins with 'hard-attached' subs
@@APMastering low frequency range that is audible is not the range that the sub is typically designed for. what are you referring to? ofc a 2.2 setup would provide significantly greater accuracy from a mastering perspective. however, this level of complexity is not essential, unlike a separate subwoofer. since it can be freely positioned within the room, and even top “full-range” speakers typically roll off below 40-50 Hz
@@APMastering Anyone who has never heard a perfectly calibrated 2.1 system has never dealt with hi-fi. It takes a good deal of arrogance or ignorance, I can't decide to assign a feature to a product category. In this area there is everything from junk for 9.99 USD to acceptable for little money to perfect reproduction for 3000 USD with a simpler set-up. Boy oh boy.
I’m guessing that with the large speakers with the sound labyrinth, the tweeter and mid-range drivers have some small amount of latency to keep in phase with the woofer output, yes?
@@APMastering But you have forgotten the 12 inch Woofer !!! Both, mids and highs has to be delayed to the Woofer !!!! So the mids and highs peak of transient is maybe on point... But not in conjunction with the 12 inch... The 12 inch is laid back several ms. !!!
I think this is too much blah blah and little real case scenarios, NS10 are also tiny speakers and they have been used to mix many of the best sounding records. I think it has to do more on room treatment and how well you know your speakers. You can get great results with the 8050’s and well as with enormous speakers
i dare say you probably get better results mixing on small monitors than huge room sound filling speakers that bathe you in the sound! Now mastering is another dimension, maybe he is talking about that.....
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.
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
🤣😂😅
that's it. And he's bloody cranky about anything less than that. you're a bit like a dude who bought a brand new BMW with all the latest snuff spitting on a Kia. Kia gets you from A-B just as well, maybe not as comfortable, but it will.
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.
@@mykneeshurt8393 but you do get from A to B ;)
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.
"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 ...
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
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
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.
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.
Why is everyone on RUclips always trying to debunk everyone on RUclips..?!🤷
But...What's the frequency response of that Makita?
it's unbelievable
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.
"...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. 😂😂😂
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
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
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
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 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
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?
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.
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.
"Massive time domain distortion is bad m'kay?"
"Check out my wicked transmission line monitors"
Hahaha nice one
yeah they have lower distortion
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
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.
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
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.
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
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
planar magnetic headphones for mixing and mastering? ( i'm using avantone pro planar right now). they are mid focused and i can feel down to 10hz very linear
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.
this is why Kii audio did an amazing work with the Kii Three + BXT ! No port, cardioid diffusion pattern from 40Hz upwards -> way less room interaction) , DSP control ensuring linearity whatever the playback level, super LOW THD , able to play down to 20Hz (-1,5dB) . Of course it is pricey but like a quarter of big PMC and they sound more defined, more punchy, bass is super tight, they take less space AND sound better in a poorly treated room.
NOT a Kii rep here just a user who fell in love with their sound :)
cheers!
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.
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
Hi, loved your video thanks! what room size with be suitable for these speaker ?
spacious double bedroom or larger
The shitck is high level. The circular saw on the desk a nice touch. I'll be back for more.
Mix and Master on Headphones, then check on Commercial systems like Earphones, Headphones, and Loudspeakers.
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.
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
if I already have small ported monitors, would plugging or covering up the ports reduce the time domain issues?
maybe but depending on the speaker it make have undesirable side effects and you will probably loose a lot of bass
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
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 😂
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
How do your 12 inch woofer differ from dedicated subwoofers? Do you not see that as a potential disadvantage in regards to placement?
woofers are hard to place. the transmission line design means that my new speakers are essentially very nice subwoofers with a built in lipinski l505
@APMastering just to follow the logic, transmission line subwoofer with a built in satellite speaker is better. Vs subwoofer with satellite speaker. That is the argument right?
@@Catandbeats no, both are perfectly fine, you just have two pairs of things to set up instead of one and then you need to tune the crossovers between the tops and subs otherwise you might be phase issues and unwanted colouration. That and, if you had an actual TL sub it would be the same size as my speakers anyway, because the whole speaker is basically just the transmission line and the mid woofers and tweeter are mounted in the TL exit fold
@@APMastering makes sense in an ideal world. Thanks for the clarification
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.
Pretty cool speaker you made there, looks like the basic duntec design for midrange and a pmc style transmission line for the bass. Did you align the magnets for better time alignment? I enjoy the sound of the budget jbl 3 series monitors given the price, I think low end has always been a challenge to get right on those setups though. I mixed an electronic track on a pair of Kef ls50's once and was pretty blown away by the results, I personally don't think you can really get into a mastering grade monitor's until the Focal Be series. A cool low budget speaker that you can mix with pretty solid results is the Fostex PM03 or 04 because you can get your kick and bass level from the driver starting to distort like on NS-10s, not bad imaging either. Have also had decent results with the Slate digital headphones, not as fun as speakers but they solve a lot of issues in terms of mix translation and have pretty coherent low end.
I think the real point I was hoping you were making is that you need a decent size speaker OR subwoofer to get an accurate representation of the monitored mix... Just get a decent sub and pair with half decent monitor speakers like Adam Audio which are cheap.
most subs are ported and don't sound that great
This is silly. The reason why you buy smaller monitors is because they are often more accurate than the bigger monitors. There's a reason why the larger woofers and cabinet sizes often sound worse than the smaller ones. What size you get depends on your room, how far away you site, type of music needs, use of subwoofer, etc. But often the sweat spot is around 5 to 8 inches. There's a reason a lot of pros have a smaller speaker setup along with their bigger setup.
you misunderstand those reasons for smaller monitors if you think there's an objective sweet spot of 5 inches and that small speakers are more accurate. you've really absorbed the dishonest marketing
@APMastering I don't listen to marketing at all. I just use my ears. I have had over the years various sizes and types of monitors. If you don't need big volume (for producing, you normally don't), the smaller speakers are usually better. Plenty of people I know prefer the same, there's definitely a sweet spot.
@@APMastering oh, and I think about 6 or 7 inch is the sweet spot. 5 inch will struggle more with the tuning of the bass
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
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.
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).
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.
Can I hear your work? I want to listen how good the subs in your mixes. Thanks
yeah let's hear his stuff and judge for ourselves if he has the authority to make such tremendous claims and statements, however well 'scientifically'explained (im pretty sure he's missing a ton of important things and just wants to justify his 125.000 investment on these ridiculous speakers, that you need a room for of at least a 1.000.000 with very very proper acoustic treatment, floating floor, walls and ceiling, to make it work accurate)
clearly didn't watch the video
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
Great video. When I build my new studio I’ll be buying the course and building these
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
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
some speakers have built in clippers, which can help make the dynamics in your track loud and powerful. Different speakers have different clipping algrorithms, both digital and analog.
That's what my grandfather always told me as well.
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 can't get into building speakers. Could you make some recommendations on some relatively affordable monitors to buy? I've been looking at the IK Multimedia iLoud Precision MTMs.
don't do it! get some sennheiser headphones
stay tuned for part 2, I will discuss this
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.
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
Do you have some mesurement of the quality of your speaker ?
soon, see my post
I moved to new flat, and now I have very small room for my 'studio'. When I placed my 8 inch speakers, I heard no bass, thinking wtf. After moving my desk, so I am literally sitting in the middle of the room, I got the sound I recognise.
Anyway, I know I won't be able to make perfect monitorin space here, the general goal is to make mixes translate well to the wild.
I can hear what I am doing, and that's the goal.
When I will have enough budget I would rather outsource mixing and mastering to someone else who has more skills and better setup.
get some decent sennheiser 6** headphones
@ I will get a pair, but still I love working with speakers, just because of the feel. Headphones for details.
Wondering how bad my Mackie CR4's are 😬
How do you feel about Slate VSX and it's various environment simulations?
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 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!
the tl;dr of what you said is bigger speakers go lower. this is true but it disregards that smaller drivers image better and can be faster. there's a reason major studios with $100,000 custom in-wall speaker monitors usually still have a small set of bookshelf sized monitors sitting on the console. also, people do their own measurements of monitors and can compare to manufacturer specs so the charts aren't just bullshit. there's an excellent analysis of the kh-120 ii you used in your thumbnail image on audiosciencereview for reference.
"I expect precision from Neumann but I am always amazed how incredibly flat on-axis response is from their speakers. I mean this is the level of flatness we get out of electronics, not something electromechanical! Despite having just a 5.5 inch woofer, the speaker dares to go nearly flat to 50 Hz! Directivity is excellent other than the woofer slightly beaming before tweeter takes over."
Umm… you said magic doesn’t exist, and then you caused a speaker to levitate?? Disproving your point??
Just playing with ya, obviously 😅
😂😂😂
😂🤣😂🤣
This is so freaking tricky that I opted to use different speakers placed in different positions, settings and places around the room to figure out things better. As other comment said, music is not real and I came to the conlussion no speaker gives you the ultimate representation of what we perceive as music. I guess that's why top end studios still have multiple pairs for different purposes. I own Yamaha's HS7, Kali's LP8 and Equator's D8 for work, each of them providing a different experience, complementing each other. I also own a pair of Mackie's CR-X3 and a pair of Edifier's R1280t which I use to test the behavior in small shelf speakers. For headphones I chose ATH-M30 because they sound horrible to me but they are popular so I think of them as a safety check, and I also have AKG 612 because I noticed they show distortion as no other pair I have owned. I have dreamt for a long time with an ideal monitoring system that I can rely 100% on, being orgasmed anytime I listen to my mixes elsewhere because of how predictably they translate to them but... here we are.
You just reminded me why I own my AE22’s 😊 Should I make some massive transmission line speaker stands? 🤔
sounds fun
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
Yeah, that totaly makes sense physics wise
But for someone like me who just starts their journey with recording, i thing small monitors would be just good enough as a stepping stone for something more proper in the future
sure but i'd recommend seal cab, not ported
Will a wall that is 20 feet long by 8 feet high and made of nothing but PA cabinets be good for mixing?
only if they are all turned up to 11
@@APMastering Lol, seriously, the way I have everything setup right now, I am thinking about doing a mix on studio montiors, and then a mix using the wall of sound and making a video comparing the two results. I used the giant PA to help me dial in my kick sound and the result was better with my live mic than with any of my outboard sound banks, when I switched back to the studio monitors the result was still true
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!
I think there are speakers that have a large flat surface that you can install in your wall. You can actually make them yourself. Not sure about how that affects dynamics, but it could give you a large surface area to produce sound waves. I’m not sure that all this matters that much. Most people will be listening to music on crap speakers anyway.
this is called soffiting
Absolutely love your videos man!!! Cheers from St. Augustine
I heard the BB5's at an audio show. Well, actually I didn't hear them, just the music that was playing through the speakers.
really great bass
how about those bass cabs that are constructed from an array of small 4-5iinch cones. Whats going on there?
perfectly fine if they are not ported but they are going to struggle to get very low bass
What most listeners don’t realize is that the room and speaker placement in that room account for 50% of the sound that you hear coming out of any pair of speakers. You can have the best speakers in the world and if you put them right up against the wall of an untreated room, it will sound like garbage. Room treatment and listening room size and placement of the speakers (pulling them out far away from the front wall) matters just as much as how good/resolving the speakers are that you buy. Headphones are good because they eliminate the room from the equation and typically work best in smaller untreated rooms.
room is very imprudent
important lol
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
I've got 2 Genelec 8331 and 2 subs (7350) crossed over at 80 Hz. The subwoofers are very small and don't have that much juice (150w each) but at a listening distance of 1m to 1,5m that's plenty. According to GLM room measurement there is only a small dip at about 55 Hz (-5 dB), apart from this the FR from 20 to 100 Hz is within +/- 1,5 dB.
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
@@freemanhubbard6234 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.
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
This is why I ended up with PSI A-25M monitors. Those little KH120As I had sounded "clean", but the smount of DSP already baked in made them have a strange sound. They didn't have the best phantom centre. The PSIs sound super clear and they don't use DSP to achieve "flatness" and bass extension, so DSP correction in the KH750 sub made them sound ultra accurate in my room.
I was thinking about building my own speakers. Amazing that you've built your own. I'd love to hear them one day. I know there are a lot of people building their own speakers now the tech is here. I just haven't figured it out fully yet. Only managed to build a couple of subwoofers for cars so far. Those things are pretty easy to build but certainly not mastering grade.
The KH120A has no DSP.
Analog inputs, analog crossovers, analog power amplifiers
@@frankklemm1471 Ah, thank for correcting me!
I just presumed it would have DSP in for the speaker correction to make it anechoically flat, just not DSP-enabled for room correction like with the KH80s. Thanks again for the correction.
Guess they did a good job on the driver design to make it as flat as it is. When I saw the frequency response chart, my brain just said "must be DSP'd to be that flat". 😂
@@PrincipalAudio Very simple: KH120A (released in 2010) and KH80DSP (released in 2017) are different speakers.
so what is your take on kali audio lp-6 and lp-8 ( and taking price into account also). for listening the results from the headphones mostly not for main reference
I hate anything with ports that is smaller than a fridge
@@APMastering for listening but doing the work on my planar headphones?
@@APMastering 🤣 i hope you dont mean a full size fridge lmao 16 cubit feet or more
I'm mixing on a budget and in a bad room so I do my detail work on headphones (sennheiser hd6xx) but use my first gen lp-6s (purchased used for pennies) to set track levels and do broad adjustments since it's so much easier to do that through speakers. The lp-6s are fun to listen to and a helpful addition as long as I simply ignore the bass response. Bass response is poor largely due to my room to be fair but I can still tell the low end is smeared (especially in the transients) from the inherent flaws in ported bass reflex speakers.
@@WyattBrown377 transients are improved on second wave and for the price its nice. But we cannot expect mastering with that 😂
Yes, really, the commercial studio speakers business is a scam.
Even if they are self-powered and with integrated flat-panel qualification, that is when you have to see those shortcomings and defects that you mention.
I stopped having small speakers a long time ago.
The myth of the Yamaha NS-10 was a clear example that the industry in those years at the end of the 20th century was not so effective in flat sound without masking and simple bookshelf speakers made that work a little more precise and easier, although it was not perfect.
I have some NS-10s and I calculate that for a 3x4 meter room it is ideal to achieve the most reliable sound, and no more than 80 watts of volume, which is really loud in a control booth in a studio.
Open and large studios need very large speakers to cover that sine wave response, that's why many studios have separate and soundproofed areas in the same studio.
My studio has an instrument, vocal and main control section where each one is in a soundproofed room with its correct size in proportion to the dimensions.
I have the NS-10 in the main booth of 5 x 5 meters and where with the soundproofing it is a 4.5 x 4.5 u, the sound is really more precise and since I made those adjustments and changes, my music and my work stand out on all the equipment and platforms, clients like my results and they have considered me a trusted engineer for 10 years.
Another brilliant video, defo keen on building the speakers when I have the time!
nice one!
Bad Company vinyl???
built-in dsp=eq
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 love your channel and your mastering work man, don't succumb from the heated comments! although probably I will never have a dedicated room for big speakers 😅
That Makita can cut through the mix for sure. Anyways: finally someone talking about this.
nice one. yeah it's a great saw!
Whatcha think bout the SEAS King RO4Y MKIII ? Those DIY monitors is high on my list for next monitors . Powerful Sealed woofers always sound better to me .. PLus Coaxial is great for phase coherence .
It all comes down to monitoring volume. Most people are working at low volume meaning smaller speakers are fine. Only turn them up for clients. Sure check your mix loud too.
Not all monitors work fine at lower volumes.
ported designs are fairly SPL dependent and anyway, turning the volume down will not give you a more linear room response or correct a crappy speaker. the only exception is that would will get less crappiness such as port chuffing and suspension distortion at lower levels.
@ we’re not talking about room response or crappy speakers though. The genelecs you showed will audibly produce those lower frequencies especially at lower volumes. Hence professionals do mix at low-moderate volumes. If you’re claiming they don’t produce those frequencies it’s simply wrong. Your kit speakers are too big for mixing imo for so many reasons a smaller set should accompany them.
@ and yes, turning the volume down will actually give you a more linear response. Within reason
in the context of monitoring systems, it's essential to avoid placing excessive responsibility solely on the speakers. instead, it is crucial to consider the broader monitoring chain and disclose potential issues from a comprehensive perspective. why small speakers are crap? 2.1 (4”/5” + good sub) is more flexible solution than giant 3-way coffins with 'hard-attached' subs
2.1 is terrible for accurate monitoring since everything is mono in the low end
@@APMastering low frequency range that is audible is not the range that the sub is typically designed for. what are you referring to?
ofc a 2.2 setup would provide significantly greater accuracy from a mastering perspective. however, this level of complexity is not essential, unlike a separate subwoofer. since it can be freely positioned within the room, and even top “full-range” speakers typically roll off below 40-50 Hz
@@APMastering Anyone who has never heard a perfectly calibrated 2.1 system has never dealt with hi-fi.
It takes a good deal of arrogance or ignorance, I can't decide to assign a feature to a product category.
In this area there is everything from junk for 9.99 USD to acceptable for little money to perfect reproduction for 3000 USD with a simpler set-up.
Boy oh boy.
I’m guessing that with the large speakers with the sound labyrinth, the tweeter and mid-range drivers have some small amount of latency to keep in phase with the woofer output, yes?
yes my design has a stepped baffle with the mids set back and the tweeter set back even more
@@APMastering
But you have forgotten the 12 inch Woofer !!!
Both, mids and highs has to be delayed to the Woofer !!!!
So the mids and highs peak of transient is maybe on point... But not in conjunction with the 12 inch... The 12 inch is laid back several ms. !!!
I think this is too much blah blah and little real case scenarios, NS10 are also tiny speakers and they have been used to mix many of the best sounding records. I think it has to do more on room treatment and how well you know your speakers. You can get great results with the 8050’s and well as with enormous speakers
i dare say you probably get better results mixing on small monitors than huge room sound filling speakers that bathe you in the sound! Now mastering is another dimension, maybe he is talking about that.....