"Pro Audio Monitors" are all crap. Use these instead.
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- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
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As usual, my title is on the provocative side. There are a couple of speakers on the market labeled as pro audio monitors that are good, but they are few and far between. As I discussed in my previous video (part 1 of the pro audio monitor lie), almost all of the speakers on the market are small and have either ports or passive radiators in them to hype up the bass using resonances to enable them to produce a wider range of frequencies than would otherwise be possible from their size using a sealed cabinet. Of course this is not forbidden. Manufacturers are allowed to make such speakers and you are allowed to buy them. But ported small speakers have a big trade off... time domain accuracy and distortion. Calling inaccurate small speakers with resonant ports "pro audio monitors" seems misleading to me. In this video I continue the theme I started in my first video and discuss acoustics, bust the small room small speaker myth and explain why NS10s and auratone 5Cs are small but not subject to my criticism. In fact, I RECOMMEND them for small or otherwise bad sounding rooms where headphones are less desirable.
Dude went from looking like a deposed dictator in a bombed out bunker in Berlin to living the high life on a posh Argentinian ranch with no questions asked by the local authorities.
ahhaha
😅🤣😂😂😂
😂😂🤣
if you are making a clever reference to my haircut, i'd like to point out that hitler didn't shave the sides. but i think i should probably get a better haircut at some point
He's in hiding from the speaker manufacturer stasi
I've lost count on how many times I've spieled to folks about how your speaker quality means nothing if your room sounds like shit. That, you're better off treating your space very well and having mid-tier speakers than having top tier speakers and no proper treatment
agree
Yet Andrew Scheps says he wants the room to sound like cr@p because that's how most rooms will sound playing his song. Saying that, he also completes a lot of work on headphones too so there room is removed too. I'm a firm believer your ears and brain adjust anyway so best to simply not change headphones.
I'd add now with DSP 'room correction' being as good as it is now, you could grab a pair of kali audio speakers and a ARC studio and if your room is well treated you'll get exceptional results
@@SamHocking While I'm no Scheps myself, I will take a gander that he uses NS-10s or similar, sitting on his enourmous console. I would also bet that his "crappy" room sounds better than most of what I encounter, hence my original comment. His room is floor to ceiling rack gear, amd such, is it not? Please correct me if I am wrong in that, I may be thinking of another big name. The thing is though, having a room full of gear that physically fills the space is going to improve diffusion and so if monitoring with NS-10s, you're actually sitting in a half decent position, providing you aren't cranking the volume. I also don't agree with that statement because all crappy rooms are not equally crappy. Getting the mix right is paramount, yes? So why WOULDN'T you equip yourself with the best possible odds to achieve that by investing first in treating the cubic meter where your optimal listening position is? IE the space where your head occupies, plus a given radius ouwtward based on your budget. Many don't realize you can just focus on treating for that one, critcal spot to start and work your way out from there. Pardon the spiel, I have been in so many problematic rooms that it drives me bonkers and until someone experiences a well treated room for the first time, in their own space, it's akin to them seeing colour for the first time. We jave budgets for plugins, hardware, cables, mics, desks, chairs, etc..... but then you give someone the deets on proper room treatment and then all goes silent......lol. Cheers dude!
@@NothingHereButMe Being a bit of an audio generalist, bouncing around alot of places and systems, I've found it to be hit and miss, entirely dependent on the space you're in. Still helpful though when there is no other option. More specifically in correcring a particular speaker's biases as opposed to fixing the room
2:31 A couple of reasons. These are all nearfields. Pro mixers, in a real studio, also have mains and subs available, with which they'll check their bass. The NS10s and Auratones are precisely for checking for what's poking out or missing in the mids, as well as time domain issues.
Whereas, a home producer usually has a small minimally treated room, so the nearfields are the mains, and might be monitoring thru room correction software to try to mitigate ported bass and room mode resonances, and they'll be using headphones and the car to check bass levels, and software to analyze time domain issues visually, and some people even use machine learning software to mix to a reference track or to dynamically balance the mix.
IOW, I think people would choose monitoring based on their needs and situation. If someone has the need and the budget, and wants to set up a pro studio, then go ahead and copy what pro studios use. For people who just want to make music at home, without building a control room and live room and dead room and whatever, they have the corner of the living room or the smallest bedroom, then they're going to be bored and/or annoyed with a pair of "if you can make it sound good on these, it'll sound good on ANYTHING" speakers. They'll be on forums soon after, asking if they should buy a subwoofer or different monitors altogether.
I think a bigger problem with ported monitors is that people often place them too close to the wall. And the Portnoys farting. I hate when people drive them too hard.
NS-10M on a meter bridge or at 1M from your head is NOT in the acoustic near field. Could it be in an actual anechoic room? Maybe? "Near Field Monitor" is marketing jargon.
Very well said. Agreed 100%. I would hate the sound of an “accurate” speaker blaring at me for hours. I often find them too bright and piercing.
1/ Buy Yamaha hs5's
2/ Stick a master EQ with low and high passes and a few tweaks to focus midrange (google for the literal settings to make your hs5 an NS-10)
3/ enjoy modern sound, with the ability to turn your speakers to and from an ns-10 whenever you want
4/ enjoy.
Thanks for the summary!
@@Fred_Free NS10's have a frequency response chart
Match your hs5 to that chart
its the same thing. Frequency is sound. EQ is shaping frequency. The NS10's just focus on low and high mids, you can absolutely recreate that with any high quality studio speaker
But hey what would the literal pro's like Finius that do this worldwide know lol.
@@Fred_Free They're not used in many producers studios nowadays.
The reason people used Ns10s was because they were literally not made to be a reference monitor; they were made and advertised as "bookshelf speakers" : aka, the thing people at home would listen to records and tapes on.
They had no tweeter, fully coaxial; so producers in the 80s and early 90s would mix using them to make sure everyone would hear a great mix on the speakers they have at home; as tweeters weren't widely used by normal people, so using tweer/woofer split speakers for mixing wouldn't give the best result for everyday listening.
Nowadays, that style of mixing is irrelevant. Even the cheapest home hifi systems have tweeters, most earphones and earbuds have split systems, were no longer living in 1980 so producers dont mix like its 1980
people still use the ns10 because there's an old phrase "if you can make it sound good on an ns10, it'll sound good on everything" because they were literally trash in terms of sound quality,
but nowadays that phrase applies to AirPods; and producers are mixing using something that a huge % of the world actually listen to music on, not 1978 Yamaha speakers that cost $10k if you can find them used now as they're so rare.
Yamaha HS are way more common In all studios nowadays.
No… HS 5’s are nothing like NS-10’s… horrible
@@Fred_Free Of course you can. If you think you can't then you don't understand what a speaker is. All speakers have a frequency response and you manipulate the frequency response with an EQ. Simple as that.
I don't agree that sub bass is relatively unimportant in mixing. It is very important and It's very hard to fix bad low end in mastering. In some genres it is just as important as the mids. Advising producers to buy monitors that don't have bass is like advising designers to buy a monitor that can't display red but has perfect blues and greens. It doesn't make sense. A professional needs to see/hear the full spectrum.
well ,the master mixing table has some of the best studio monitors ever made as all frquencies are important but if in cd ,the sound looses a lot in the convertion , the reason why a lot of people use still turntables as i do but i also have a good cd player and might have more records then cds but bought before to 1993 when starting to buy more cds as in my city they stoped selling records and was hard at the time to find new just released albuns, has i used to drive 600kms to stay for one week in Madrid Spain i could in a week see at least three great concerts of the best bands at the time and when going to a big music store in madrid where i alwas went, my surprise when seeing most of them new LP´s in record(vinyl) for sale, but as i was in the youth hostel just outside madrid en la casa del campo , i couldn´t leave there my things so i couldn´t buy records and drive around with them in the car for a entire week, i didn´t bought any, but saw a incredible concert after seeing the tour just before the release of the second cramberries Lp wich was in a closed space, Aqualung , but some daysv after , REM had just restarted to make toursb with the just released Monster Lp with the new band with one album, that i enjoyd a lot, opening for them , Grant Lee Bufallo, after i bought all their cds ´till they split sometimes i even hear them today, had a hit that the video used to play a lot on MTV , "fuzzy", one of the concerts i enjoyd the must in the 90´s, REM had a more hard version of drive with a very nice drum rythm with a break that sounded incredible good.
@@JaroAtry I know it’s a bit of an appeal to authority fallacy, but given that we’re specifically criticizing AP and insinuating that he might not understand the sub bass, but he’s a well-known mastering engineer for Tommy Four Seven, Paula Temple, and other big time techno producers. The kick/sub is the foundation of techno, and I know (from personal experience as a client) that he understands it.
@@dangayle But this doesn’t say anything about my argument. Does the fact that someone is a successful sound engineer mean that I have no right to disagree with him about anything?
@@JaroAtry shure you right,,,full spectrum by mixing and djing ist the most important thing,,,also the good ballance between volume and room you play,,, studio mon. are developed for the purpose of use,,,whitch not live mixing i think,,, i have played on 8" krk aramis membrane,,they are only one that can handle the power of playing if goes bit higher on volume,,,but its still not the sound that you beed🤷♂️they are too much clear and you hear every change throu mixing, ,too much sensitive,,,in my opinion,,, 2 sats and sub,,,or 2x 12" fullrange boxes is the right way,,,and sub is most important to hear,,,can't be eaten or shadowed under mid range....✌️
@@JaroAtry I totally agree.
As a bass player, if I find myself in a 'bad' gigging space - reflective surfaces, odd layout - that's muddying the bass, I eq the low end down.
Really helps to clean up the bass in that space. Helps the notes come out clearly.
I guess it's a similar to what you're referring to here.
pretty much yes. best case is that the room is hat of course!
*great
A mixing room needs to be heavily treated acoustically. And by that I don't mean slapping 1 inch foam all over the room, you need to invest most of the money to bass frequency absorption and also mid frequency diffusion.
i do the same i have it soft not hard equalization like if it were two hills being in "o" level at 1.000 hertz but the mid lows and mid highs have them a litle up, it makes like you said the instruments being reproduced clearly not a bass continuos hum, both freuqencies at the end of the spectrum 30 herzt and 22 hertz are a litle depressed , it shows better what is being played ,bass guitar or six string guitars have the voice at regular level, the cd normally have a diferent type of mixing or as an example if one increases the high´s the voice is what it distorts first, while in records the distortion appears first on the cymbals, some friends do have the treble at maximum but i notice that it not only increses the more high pitch sounds but all benefit from it, while in 70´s control or integrated amplifiers when decreasing the treble the sound under is clearer as in after 1980 amplifiers ´till today the sound when in direct in comparison sounds a bit dull only in early 90´s noticed that as i was using still a Pioneer 76 system by components, only was using not the pioneer turntable but a 79 SL-1310 with original cartridge and stylus from technics , sounds a lot better than new turntables and cartridges around 1.000€ that i´m using at the moment in my older 70´s system while in a modernm one have the P10 from Rega with a Hana Umami red cartridge as i have acess to hana cartridges by a lower price than the Alpheta 3 by Rega that is one of the three that they give you to choose from when almost a year ago(in two days) bought it as my christmas present, this with a Receiver from Magnat the MA5100(tube ,pre-amplified) if memory doesn´t fail me with some transpull 1500, and it sounds good to me has since the 70´s i hear my dutch and deutch friends telling me to try magnat speakers and only maybe three or four years ago i bought them Magant, and because my litle ones have already their litle ones, i have two extra-rooms that converted them to listening rooms as i work with comopnents at a professional level i known how to install perfect the speakers and room acoustic, also have a home studio assembled by my father in 1970 and improved since then, that i today still record demos for bands with young kids that sound better than usual to me has i look for a litle originalitty, only said this to show that i know how to improve a room sound and because the house is very old, the ceilings are a lot higher and the room , one as 39 square meters, i´m using only half of an ancient ballroom on first floor that has a door with old glass framed in wood to divide it in two, that i isolate perfectelly the room division so the sound doesn´t flow throught the dividing wooden sliding door, it really increases a lot the sound quality and as altenative speakers bought some recent elac speakers that having only one speakers output on the receiver i´m using a crossover network, to conect both at the same time also at night i use the more litle ones to not have a loud sound at night and benefit of the speakers having less output power or less watts , the magnats are huge and others are litle with stands, both have a great sound
@@RUfromthe40s it used to be quite common to see multiband EQ as part of a hi-fi separate setup. We shouldn't be scared to EQ our listening spaces!
On a positive note for the ns10 argument, I use mine daily and love them but , the love only came after I replaced the caps in the crossover with modern film equivalents. Its fair that people bash there sound because pretty much all of them are still using a forty year old electrolytic capacitor in the crossover to the mid bass driver. As most of us know, a forty year old lytic cap is pretty much guaranteed to have sailed way out of spec. Replacing the crossover caps improves things quite a bit and flattens and extends the frequency response. It doesn't turn the old ns10 in to a giant killer, but it dose make them do what they're good at quite a bit better, fast and flat through the mids. They do something that my 2.5k ported ribbon tweeter bla bla's cant get near even with treatment and room correction. I have also been through many 'great' and fairly expensive small ported monitors rammed with dsp and crappy d class amps that fail after a few years and i'm kinda done with the B.S. the only speaker that i still want to try in my small'ish room is the atc scm 12pro and a f**king good class ab amp that can be serviced for life. Amen.
great point. i replace the caps and tubes when i buy second hand vintage guitar heads too
he's not even sitting on the couch
maybe he's just skinny and mentally focused enough that he can balance the very tip of his tailbone on the front corner of the couch frame
the sofa is CGI. i'm actually sitting on an ns10
😅😅😅@APMastering
Best comment👏👏👏👏
😂 didn’t even notice.
There is in fact a near field speaker, and they are, by design, made to be listened at a close range.
Dispersion, sensitivity, dynamic output, sound pressure, polarity, phasing and much other factors are quite (a lot) different between near, mid and far field speakers.
I have a pair LS35A near field, one of the best monitors I have.
From someone who struggles to separate the subs from the kick & bass, I aprecciate this information.
I did know that the bass response from "studio" monitors (eris e5 in my case) wasnt accurate, but I thought it was just because of the room and woofer size.
Thank you 🤝
The worst mixes I've ever done were all in big-ish treated rooms on big-ish monitors that were too far away from me. It was impossible to get anything to translate correctly outside of those rooms. The best mixes I've done recently have been in my small treated room with small monitors close to me, not too loud, and referencing on headphones regularly to check the low end. It's not a perfect system by any means, but it's working out pretty well for me at the moment.
@@Nomad_Audio how in the hell are you checking low end in headphones, when low frequencies need some serious space to even form??? no gripes with your comment otherwise, just found it ridiculous as i usually do it the other way: check bass in a club or somewhere with big sound and check the highs and higher midrange in headphones
They do not need space to form you weird person. They are loudest at the diaphragm and follows the inverse square law
@@magenta_strk3720 lol yeah, you know you can hear 20hz in headphones right? what are you smoking. no room modes either, and with open backs no resonances or high group delay... it's the cleanest bass you'll get unless you're outside (almost anechoic).
@Artcore103 you’re right, subwoofers are a snakes oil anyways, what am i thinking. And obviously, checking mixes in cars is just a fad, when you’re mixing in headphones you’re HEARING BASS.
Now without sarcasm. Headphones are a surgical tool best used to focus on midrange and high frequencies because they need a shorter time to form, delay is less and headphones overall excel at producing those frequencies. If you check frequency response charts, you’ll see that a lot of headphones have a moderate roll off before like 50-70hz, but there’s a lot of information in before that, that headphones simply can’t replicate at needed volume because they are right at your ears. But you know what can? Subwoofers. They are designed to produce frequencies from 5hz to 120-200 and they are excellent at that. And in that range can be all sorts of mud that WILL show up once you take that recording to a big installation. You’ll loose energy simply because you’re hitting the amplifiers with excessive information and they will limit your whole signal as a precautionary measure for example, i’ve seen this happen a lot of times in our venue. LF focused places can show you a lot of things wrong with your track and you have to check mixes at big sound. That’s just facts. You can’t just have like a pair of hd600 and say, “i have mastered mixing just because my midrange is great”
Bass is vibes and vibes rule and move people on the dance floor
@ answered to you, but formatted wrong, sorry
I'm just glad you aren't cold anymore bro
lol
I second this sentiment. Also thank you for justifying my desire to have at least one Auratone for a mono mid mix check. I’ve been saying I probably need one for a little too long now.
yes but now i am concerned about his food intake
@@milanmacik6094 Do you really think that is an appropriate comment? Post a picture of yourself maybe and let people comment.
@@RishiJParmarno he's right, i should work less and eat more
Great job renovating your pad with that Makita Saw and two lengths of ply from last week, what a transformation!
lololol
@@SamHocking His parents let him film in the living room
I was anticipating this video!
I would love even more speaker content.
Can you go more in depth about what exactly time domain means, how exactly it influences your mixes and why ports make it worse?
check out the radiohead track like i say at the end and you will experience it first hand!
@APMastering will try that!
Bro’s set up went from Antarctica to Dubai.
Airbnb
IDK. I use a Sony 2.1 speakers z323 system, and after listening to MANY music genres and movies, I found that the subwoofer dial should be a 1/4 of the way (Just below the 3rd dot volume marker) and all speakers should be isolated with foam padding. It works well for me anyways. The bass is a bit flabby, and the extreme highs aren't there, but for under $100 they do the job in my situation.
This was truly eye opening. I have never considered the time domain effect of the speakers but its very very obvious. And when you combine inaccurate home studio rooms with boomy speakers, you will get essentially a sonic mess - that makes it very hard to make good decisions in deed. I have btw. for this very reason stopped using speakers and only mix on headphones now with Realphones - and get much better consistent mixes. Its not because headphones are better for mixing - its because I have actually created a really bad mixing environment for my small speakers. Thanks for the video!
If you use proper studio speakers, they're typically biamped and active, having 24db/oct Linkwitz/Riley crossovers that improve the radiation patters and possibly even DSP enhanced, they will not have the horrible waterfall graphs of the speaker in the sample. Having said that, the delay of the bass area from a speaker are nowhere nearly as big a problem as typical room modes are. If you put a very simple two-way speaker to an anechoid room, it will sound near perfect. Put it to a normal room, it will sound bad most likely unless well designed.
@Munakas-wq3gp im pretty sure the time domain is caused by the port, the fact the box is a resonator.
my take away is use a sealed box, and sealed sub if you want
@@piworower The delayed bass energy is not a problem as I said, due to the wavelengths involved. The room modes however are a major issue regardless of the fact and require extensive treatment in most common rooms.
he eloquently describes the impact of the mid range on a sparkling mix, supports this with science and detailed explanation. Lemmy back in the day said: I turn down bass and treble on my amp and volume up. Same thing isn't it?
Thanks for the video. I had some Tannoy Reveal monitors as my first pair, rookie mistake. I could stop the playback, go get a cup of coffee, then come back to my seat and the bass was still traveling around the room! That's half a joke. But I could stop the playback and still hear the bass for a split second. Such a blurry mixing enviro. It was freaking impossible. I tried some other sets of monitors and ended the search with Focal CMS 40s, which are good desktop refs. They have bass ports but the bass doesn't keep going. And you can shut that down with Aurelex foam or even toilet paper. Just stuff it in the ports. I find that I use a good set of studio grade headphones to work out the details of a final mix, and use the Focals for referencing. That's a better way because you don't get the influence of the room. My headphones also allow some breath back and forth from the room, just enough to make it feel natural.
I had that Avantone. Man, that's hard to listen to. If you can make your mix sound good in that, then it will probably sound good anywhere. Just use one for a mono mix, right up the middle. If your track doesn't work like that, it's going to sound bad when a full stereo mix isn't in the cards, like at the gym, or open rooms such as big event rooms, restaurants, any open room. Check out the Beatles Sergeant Pepper in one of those environments. What a mess concerning stereo mistakes. And the cymbals sound like Ringo's hitting trash can lids. Can't fix that, it seems.
Great video!
nice comment!
Auratones are like a magnifier for your mixes. It’s key to do 90% of your work with frequency limited monitors and check on full range. If your mixes are wonky it’s more likely your room than your choice in nearfields
This dude was so excited to make this video, he didn't even finish getting his hair cut.
lol
😂
To minimize interaction with room acoustics a speaker with a relatively narrow and even directivity is the way to go. Many of the best monitors use this approach and will have a waveguide to help achieve the smooth directivity with frequency. The Genelec, JBL professional and others use this design pattern to good effect. For near field monitoring a coaxial speaker like the Genelec is great. With the woofer offset from the tweeter some distance from the speaker is often preferred to get the offset angle to be small so the sounds appear to blend.
Definitely. I'm not sure why this guy is focusing so heavily on bass response linearity when mid/high directivity is a much, much more important factor for nearfield monitoring and mixing. Genelec kills it in that category.
Small sealed speakers can sound amazing. I built a pair of full range speakers with thick, solid cardboard tubes. They have no baffle, the tube sticks out the back of the speaker and is the same size as the driver. The drivers are flawed but what they do, they do it extremely well.
Sounds like how transmission line speakers work
Got a question. Now o want to make electronic music at home. The largest room I can setup my studio is 3.5x5m with ceiling height of 3m. Money is super tight however I do have a pair of kef ls 50 meta speakers which do come with bungs to close up the ports. Obviously I will position them in an equilateral triangle pointed towards me and have a topping interface. Now I know they are not studio monitors and I will have to power them, but I wonder if I could use these for a while for the following reasons 1) they are 2 way coaxial so I could bring them closer or further without driver time alignment issues and how successfully I have treated the room. Secondly the speakers have quite a narrow dispersion pattern which I thought it would be advantageous since any reflections (which I will treat ) would be limited to a much smaller area, so less problem area theoretically. Thirdly the speakers are much more flat than most speakers on the market and lastly I do have a UMIK-1 and do know how to use REW to Analyze pink noise at my main listening position to fine tune the frequency response that I could not take care of with room treatment, and lastly being a 5 inch woofer the bass below 70hz ain’t the greatest which by this video may be a good thing? However I do have 2 subs I can position properly and do bass management on to try and get a flat response from 20hz to 20khz. I can obviously use bass traps or I could also bring the sub right next to me so the direct bass volume to reflections would be much higher overall reducing the bass issues of phase etc.
now would this be decent if I treat the room? How far away should I place the speakers? Is there a rule of thumb like once reflected soubd onky makes up 20% or less of the total sound by adjusting distance that’s how close I need to go? Is the idea of a sub really close to me a good idea? And I do have the option of another room that’s smaller which is 3x4m will this be worse off still given my situation? I also have a pair of dt770pro headphones but I don’t think they are accurate enough witg quite heavy bass from memory of looking at it’s frequency response but should I just try and get them calibrated fit a custom profile and be done with it? The kefs in geveral have the best hologram like soundstage I’ve ever experienced and I’m sure it’s the fact it’s driver aligned alongside minimal room interaction they make them so good so it would be a shame not to be able to use them.
Thanks !!❤
On well designed speaker, the CSD goes hand in hand with bass content, and it doesn't much matter if it is ported or not. So if you have good but bassy speakers, just roll the bass off and you're done. Similar with slow bass. Tighter suspension high motor force 21" driver cut off below 45Hz, put in smaller enclosure sounds fast again.
ported designs inherently increase resonances because that's the principle through which they amplify at their tuning frequency
@APMastering if that was the case you would only see a "resonance" at the port tuning frequency. instead you are comparing non normalized waterfall plots which is skewing your analysis. the barking is good, its just up the wrong tree.
To say that nearfield speakers "don't exist" is a bit misleading. A speaker designed for nearfield use may or may not sound good in the mid- or far-field (diffuse field). If its off-axis sound tracks well with its on-axis sound-i.e. it has near-constant directivity-and its output capability is high enough, then it may indeed sound just as good. However, its in-room diffuse frequency response may be too downsloped if it was tuned to a diffuse field target when listened to on-axis in the nearfield (or anechoic).
i can grant that but you're not arguing against the usage of the term
Spot on. Constant directivity, time domain coherency above 300hz (specifically at nearfield listening positions), and linear response at that listening position are the most important factors by far when considering nearfield monitors. Constant directivity and nearfield listening position keep the room out of the equation, psychoacoustically speaking, until you're down to the bass range. Sealed or vented, doesn't matter all that much aside from port/enclosure resonances. In-room bass linearity should not be a main priority for most studio monitor applications, unless you're working in some high end mastering studio. Even then, those mastering studios still struggle to achieve a ruler flat bass response free from room mode influence. Decent studios know how to work around these limitations.
People play music on systems that have big bass frequencies all over the place, so you have to have them "in your neighborhood" when you mix and try to push out (just right) the most important thing in the mix, yes you are correct "the mid range". It's more difficult but when you do it right the mid range is always there, anywhere. Super high frequencies I agree, but still they are connected to the bass levels. So you have to have speakers that have it all. I recommend 2:1 system and you're golden, especially if you mix dance music or something similar with heavy bass ... The best thing is to master the song on speakers you're listening your music all the time; your ears are listening music on that speakers for years and you have different reference points to compare your mix. Otherwise you're "flying blind" thinking your mix, mastering is top notch but maybe it's isn't and you go back and forth like crazy just because of your new speakers (that you have to have; you saw a new commercial...) that you change every 2, 3 years making yourself a living hell on earth for your ears and mixing.
I just noticed the measurements on Erin's Audio Corner channel of the Yamaha NS10s, does not look good to me. I think those Sun Audio Purified 4 would also be great for studio use, they measure extreme neutral and have the cleanest measuring midrange available. Purifi woofer, Bliesma tweeter, DSP and maximized radius because of spherical woofer enclosure. Needs a sub though.
Interresting to see the totally different takes on these from APMastering here and Erin's Audio Corner. They are crap for hi-fi listening but they are a important mixing tool for sure.
I got so sick of wondering if my speakers were lying to me as I always have to mix in an untreated flat that I decided to bypass the issue entirely and bought a pair of LCD-Xes. Which, idk, may not be 100% ideal for mixing on, but they seem to do the job for me.
That's true and often overlooked, that a poor direct to reflected sound ratio can interfere with one's ability to hear artificially reproduced sound with detail and accuracy... Regarding the problem of ringing though, that ported speaker cabinets introduce ringing is common knowledge, it's a compromise in which extended low end response is achieved at the cost of time domain persistence... Which is why so many sound professionals use sub-woofers with the crossover at 80Hz (some will even toggle the sub on and off during mixes), and as you say, sometimes loudspeaker cabinets with limited lower frequency response... But psycho-acoustically, and from a practical standpoint, ringing in the lowest portion of the spectrum hasn't been a problem, as evidenced by literally tens of millions of wonderful recordings have been produced in the last 70 years. So far as subjective experience goes, it's a matter of personal taste. Most people have grown accustomed to the characteristic sound of ported cabinets, or may not even have the ear training to notice; to each their own. For those who seek better accuracy in the low end and have the ability to hear it, there are plenty of choices out there. It's worth note that most speaker manufacturers do not provide time domain information in their performance specs, and one might think they're being less than honest in that regard, but the truth is, they are probably justified in the omission of a performance deficiency that most prospective customers either wouldn't hear, or wouldn't consider as being paramount. Oh... and one of the big criteria that differentiate "near field" speakers from others is their size; in that regard, manufacturers very deliberately design for speakers to be used in the near field, i.e. relatively small cabinets and small cone sizes. So, what in common parlance are referred to as "near field" speakers, that's a category that resulted from choices made by both users and manufacturers over the course of many decades. P.S. I have modified some of my cabinets with increased damping, which results in low end roll-off... but yeah, it's sounds "tighter" and less "muddy", so yeah, to each their own! If it's something an individual cares about, then by all means!
i do agree. most people are probably very happy and don't notice but i'm trying to bring attention to this kind of stuff because basically nobody else is on youtube
What should be mentioned: in addition to a good basic acoustic treatment of the room, you can also calibrate speakers to adapt them to the room and the positioning (e.g. the Genelecs you mentioned, but you don't have to take the largest model from ‘The Ones’ ... ;-)). Of course, this doesn't clean up the entire time domain, but you can achieve significantly better results with greater precision, especially in the bass range - without having to make the compromise of using speakers that simply don't play as low.
i don't feel like eq etc weil do much in a bad room since typical fluctuations in bass are off the order of like 30db or more
@APMastering In general, I'm totally with you regarding room treatment first, but calibration can be a perfect addition. In my 11 m2 room, boosts of approx. 15 dBs are compensated and it of course makes a huge difference. Physics rule - therefore you cannot compensate for nulls / deep notches with positive gain.
I just fixed my room thanks to you! The "Feral" kick is nice and tight!
I remember in my teens we used to listen to most of our music on little record players such as the Dansette with a tiny speaker and a 2 valve amplifier. The enjoyment was no less than experienced nowadays with enhanced bass neodymium speakers and sub bass. The 70s and 80s saw a HiFi/sound system revolution and we became somewhat obsessed with the gear we listened to our music on however there is much to be said for focusing on enjoying listening to the actual music itself rather than listening to the quality of the equipment. I listen to a wide range of genres on a $100 Bluetooth speaker now after owning many quality HiFi systems and feel a sense of relief that I’ve no need for a stack of gear and cables and many knobs to twist. As for the analogue argument, most digitally recorded music today sounds infinitely better than the analogue recordings we listened to on crappy gear in my youth but not necessarily more enjoyable. There was great music then and there is today. Digitalisation has given us greater access to a vast amount of music old and new and has enabled musicians to record affordably and get their music to a wider audience
The waterfall plot thing is the real reason NS10s went down in history. Many other youtube videos completely overlook this. I won’t be buying a pair though, as a bass music producer I need my speakers to produce low end, even if it’s not as tight as I might like in an ideal world. Thanks for the vid, keep em coming!
I make bass heavy music. In my experience the low end is around 100hz and below which is a tiny fraction of the actual song...the entire song is written using sounds from maybe 30hz to 20,000hz.. so....The ns10 will play from about 100hz and up..thats like...90% of your song that you can really get sounding GREAT with ns10's. the other 10 percent you can't do accurately anyway unless you have a great room with alot of acoustic treatment...so regardless you end up using meters and headphones...my point.....I highly recommend you look into ns10's to mix your music....alot of the actual character in my bass sounds are about 100hz anyway...my super low end bass is usually just a sine wave which....basically you just use a meter to balance. you don't really need to hear it at all honestly...its a literal sine wave sub.
I've tried, w/ futility, to explain this to more than one person. You can't just EQ correct to match the physical speed of a speaker cone... There is no software that can make your Kali LP6s sound like an NS10/Auratone (in 4 dimensions... where we listen to music).
@@djelvis1 well technically 50% of a song are the frequencies between 10k and 20k Hz but that's not how our ears work.
For electronic music the fine details below 100 hz are very important
@@Ebbelwoy I rented out a really nice studio in london a few years ago because I was having trouble getting my kick and bass to sound right...I wanted my music to sound good in the night clubs and this studio had a pair of massive AUGSPURGER speakers...like a $20,000 stack. they also had a small pair of genelecs and a small pair of ns10's powered by a quad 405 amp. I worked in that studio for HOURS on the AUGSPURGER speakers. literally hours...at the end i was convinced I had nailed the mix. I had been referencing a really great sounding song to try and match its aesthetic....when i was done out of curiousity I switched over to the ns10s. I swear to god my jaw dropped.. my mix sounded like absolute shit...This was the moment i RAN and got a pair of ns10's and a quad 405 amp. Full range systems are honestly a bitoverrated. I have a pair of focal trio's which are very nice but i do most of my low end mixing using meters and headphones and get 90% of my mix done on ns10's. I'm only sharing this because it was an absolute game changer for me. if you mix the mids right....the low end is easy. Keep having fun....cheers from the USA
If I have to make a decision between my low end being completely missing, or my low end being a bit uneven, I’ll choose the latter. Even if it means transients not being as snappy. You can always check on headphones either way
I did some research on the Yamahas back in the day and what made them so good. Even though they were originally sold as bookshelf speakers, they have a clarity in the mid-range that is hard to beat, and that's for a number of reasons: it's not ported, the mass and the stiffness of the woofer, the originals were glued at the seam so that improved rigidity. You can tighten the bass and improve the resolution of a lot of monitors by stuffing a sock in the port. You can also remove the influence of bad room acoustics by monitoring at lower volumes, which has the side benefit of preserving your hearing!
I could not disagree more about those old Yamahas. A good monitor has a pretty flat near field response above 150Hz, and you do NOT need bass reflex speakers for that. You mix and master the bass in neutral, full range headphones to avoid the room response. It is true that you do not need deep bass extension for near field monitors, but you do need a neutral frequency response above the bass frequency range.
The old Yamahas are really not good. The treble frequencies will be too loud in the finished product to match that midrange bump. Some listeners mistake that for great detail, but really, on a great set of hifi equipment, you do not hear what the sound engineer heard.
tell that to all the engineers who made your favour records
Those records are great because of the music. I have left purist hifi equipment because you need tone controls or preferably a good EQ to get the best sound from commercial recordings.
There are huge tonal differences between different recordings, which is why an audiophile can never be satisfied with their high end purist equipment. Some music recordings will always sound good, while others sound bad, and the reason is that the music has been produced by sound engineers with wildly different preferences, practices and equipment.
The saying goes if you can make it sound good on a NS-10M it will sound good on any system. They are unforgiving.
You can still put a big speaker in a crappy small room, just roll it off at the same frequency as the Nightmare NS10 rolls off. Then you can get all the midrange insight you like, without the Nightmare of a basic frequency response of the NS10.
I'm listening to this video through my red Tannoy Reveals... I feel attacked. 😅
Good points though!
😂😂😂
haha yeah but they are still a classic. just not the tightest bass
I had to turn off the sound and watch the rest with subtitles, just to not upset my two 90's girls. Great content as ever, man.
I've had my NS10M studios since the 80's when I bought them new. I bought them because all the "big" studios had them, and I wanted to hear the same thing in my home studio as I did in the studios where I did my mixing and mastering. I've always teamed them with a subwoofer(now I use an Adam Audio T10S), so I can hear my lower frequencies.
I disagree, if people are going to listen to music on a shit system that can only reproduce mid-range I don't give a flying fuck what it sounds like to them. I give a flying fuck about it sounding like the live performance does. And that means a need to reproduce the full range of audio.
This.
It's not about that tho sir it's more about the fact that if it sounds more clear on the crappy mid range bumped speaker then it should translate on others
Y’all nailed the mids bit! Part of the reason I have tiny KH80DSP next to my honkin’ ExMaxchina Quasar MKII is for that.
If y’all want a funny story, I upgraded to Focal Twins when I was in college…living in the dorms. Big mistake, and I learned the hard way! There are *some* speakers that now try to strike a balance here (Kii Threes, Genelec The Ones, the newer KH) with mixed results.
Good luck with the new speakers you built and congrats!
Oh also! Present Day Production took a similar route with their MUM series! I really want to try a pair, and y’all should rope them in for a chat on this!
I think they did a good job here too but their speaker comes in at more than double the price of mine when you DIY it, and mine will have more bass. Although they do use very high quality parts and they probably sound good - although I haven't heard them
not double the price, 4x the price actually. 8k for a pair vs 2k
I found Horrortones lovely for listening. I had a (rough old) set of real Auratones as my daily speakers and they were so pleasing. No flub, all class. :-)
also known in the industry as awfultones lol
No crossover in a sealed box, with a genuine full-range driver has a lot going for it, except very deep bass and above 10KHz. If you get your midrange really-right, your mastering step can fix or unfarx the rest. Have a good arrangement of a good song, played on kazoo and paint buckets for #1 with a bullet.
Horatones... The pair I had back in the 1980s had crappy drivers. Maybe better with a Dayton Audio RS series driver and enough box volume...
i believe a flat white surface may be added to reflect the light of the window to the front of the subject to cheaply control the backlight blurring it. intersting content, thank you
Great Stuff, man. It's awesome when someone get's to the truth of the matter. I'd love to hear your thoughts on "dynamic mics are better for untreated rooms." I bought this hook, line and sinker; but now I'm having doubts.
i love dynamic mics and often prefer them for many things but thats a myth. the size of the diaphragm is more important. large di cardioid cond mic is better for bad rooms than some dynamics
@APMastering that's super interesting. I've been using a 58 to record vocals and it seems like I get less room in the recording, but I'm super close to the capsule when singing, just a couple of inches away from the corner of my mouth. I've recorded singers with a 57 at a distance closer to 8 inches and I get a lot more of the room.
@ use an md421 and you'll get even more room. and that's not the worst mic for room
I’ve noticed this guy makes some click baity video titles and then you watch the video and he’s more nuanced than what you expect. I think some people argue with him without watching guys videos. I think he makes good points although I do think some of his criticism of Logic Pro X in past videos is outdated.
Having good results in a mix is about many facts to be in your favor... First and all ... Having good arranged music to work with, good performers *musicians* ( if it's not the case of an electronic piece that comes all from the box) After that....a good recording process, knowledge, abilities and experiences about this processes ( recording, mixing, etc ) After.....a decent sounding room... And then, a good or decent couple of speakers that most over all you get to know well as reference to work with OK?! .... All beyond this point became what I call small impact improvements. No one needs a Mars made speakers to get good results. In my case have been a live and studio recording mixing engineer for 30 years now. Have seen a LOT of different situations and have heard incredible results with very limited gear sometimes in my case and in particular productions that I got involved with, but also in other colleagues working over very poor limited equipment and even some cases even on crappy sounding rooms sometimes. And the results can be compared with the ones on major studios with excellent overall gear plus excellent sounding monitors and calibrated control rooms ... This can be a very large topic to talk and discuss about. But In my experience It's all about what I mentioned at the beginning of the comment. Everyone needs to be aware that there is an industry all around this activity also that always wants to sell you what ever, and mostly...... you don't need 🤫
You talk a great deal of sense. especially the industry wanting to sell you stuff you don't need. i am an amateur sound engineer (30 years of messing around with sound and analogue synths) i can tell one waveshape from another just by listening, people really need to learn to LISTEN, before they claim they can engineer music, its as much about training your ear as the speakers or the room. The 'gear heads' i know are constantly spending money on equipment and their 'mixes' never really improve. i have used the same speakers for 30 years (sonab oa5's, omnidirectional and not really designed for a stereo 'picture' and very bass light by most peoples standards, bet you are laughing now!?) and yet i do get compliments for my mixing and sound engineering. Comments such as, 'this was recorded in a pro studio, right?' The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as my dear old mum used to say.
@fuccasound3897 The way it's! Happy new year! Keep on with your good results! 🙏
As always these things are determined by :
1) Cost
2) The overall studio environment including how much high end equipment is to hand
3) How good is the mix engineer
Well, some people saying that Feral sound the same in the room and on headphones... in 13 years I witnessed no room that translated that sub the same as a really precise headphone did, even expensive mastering rooms. I understand that it doesn't sound pleasing or beautiful as a "kick sound", but he's correct, Radiohead's Feral since its release has been the ultimate test for systems, because it has all sorts of kick drum lengths, fast transients and varies widely in dynamics, very challenging to say the least.
I never make any final decision for sub frequencies on monitors, always on headphone, but I'm all in for having low frequencies on monitoring, without it you can't understand the overall picture of the music. Even with low end time domain being unprecise I prefer having it, I worked for 20 years on midrange focused speakers and its not pleasing, you feel something's missing. Said that, my system is very light on bass and sub, people even comment that it's very light and the reason is the aforementioned. I'm still a midrange focused engineer as most of us that deal with acoustic instruments, but I need to have the low end and I think knowing that it's not precise you can use it only for its benefits.
For me, the best practice is to have a room treated the best you can and having a 4-way+ system may deliver better transient response, because each driver works within a tighter freq range. Never tested them but looks like HEDD has the best solution for tighter spaces, you can use it sealed and its dsp has time alignment for the listening position, looks promising.
nice comment. 100% regarding feral. yes i think if you are aware of the limitations of the bass in an inaccurate listening environment and check with headphones then there's nothing wrong with having some bass. i worked for many years with a less than optimal time domain performance in my low end as i was using two 10" subs but still mastered thousands of tracks and got good results but i would generally also reference on headphones and my acoustics were outstanding. i cant imagine that setup in a bad sounding room though, id just use headphones instead
*ported subs
For subbass, my Sundaras with some gentle EQ on the low end really show some crazy performance for their speed, low distortion, and flatness on the low end.
Thanks for your thought on this subject. You make great and valid points. I produce, record and mix lots of records for commercial release at my studio near Dublin Ireland. There are 2 control rooms at the studio and various live spaces. As i moved from being a recording artist into production I was baffled ( kind of a pun) as to why my Control Room wasn't sounding like some of the great rooms I had had the please to work in. In my early mixing days I was using a sealed pair of PCM monitors and found myself moving closer and closer to them because i guess I knew on some level that 1st incarnation of my control room wasn't a great sounding space. My focus quickly shifted to education myself about acoustics and I urge every serious mixing/ recording/ mastering engineer to tale time to learn about acoustics. The practicalities of it are not rocket science, we don't really need to know all of the ever evolving theory. The most profound thing I did in the control room was to begin to manage the low end which was achieved by a number of deep bass super chunks, tuned absorbers. I found a substantial ceiling cloud above the mixing console and beyond to be a huge benefit. I gradually added 2d quadratic diffusers to the back walls and continued testing. The room was finely tuned by an acoustic professional and beyond any speakers I have ever invested in, this acoustic work was the most beneficial work I have done. The same goes for the 2nd CR and and all of the live spaces. In the 1st CR I now work on a pair of Focal SM9's switching between full range mode and and focus ( kinda does the NS 10 thing but in a more enjoyable way) I spend some time on the NS10 and a mono aurotone. I really dislike any type, brand, or design of headphone, sealed back or open. They have never worked for me. Maybe on the very rare occasion I might check a reverb tail but other wise they only gather dust. Mixing on NS10's, although very useful and revealing, is extremely fatiguing and sucks a lot of the joy out of mixing. I find using references and spending lots of time on the bigger 3 way SM9's to be much more fun and with just as good, if not better results. I am not debunking your methods or advice as they are very effective methods to achieving great translatable mixes. I was also very happy to see that you encouraged prospective mixers to really focus on proper room treatment before anything else. This is the gold standard if you want to hear massive positive and real changes. My 2nds CR has obscenely huge soffit mounted ATC clones with 2 x 12" bass drivers, mid driver and a tweeter. The are head crushingly loud and that is their soul purpose. I don't mix on them but I definitely check drums or playback mixes for bands on them. The mid and nearfields are both sealed boxes. Where can I check out your mastering work ? I am always looking for potential collaborators
Regards
hally
thanks for sharing! sounds like youve had some really decent experiences with acoustics and monitoring in your studio spaces. on my website i have a few hundred credits scraped from discogs, or you can just search me on discogs
100% about acoustic treatment
Great video, I knew that headphone video was coming. :) I hope my 770s are on the nice list and not the naughty list.
"Feral" was indeed a very interesting experiment. On my monitors - front ported Focal Alphas I noticed that the kick was indeed fatter and less defined when in comparison with some headphones - a pair of old AKG Q701s. Also I noticed that the kick would occasionally disappear into the base line when listening on the monitors, In comparison the kick remained distinct from the base line on the headphones.
That said my monitors are primarily for gaming, films and music listening these days and for that I find them subjectively very enjoyable, so I'm not rushing out to get something more suited to music production.
There's a reason pro control rooms tend to have multiple pairs of monitors.
40 years of audio experience speaking .. HiFi and Recording. I use Yamaha NS10T's the original (the basis for the NS10 Studio) This info is correct.. thanks for the outstnding presentation!
Please make of those "Tier" videos including as many popular options as you can and want to! I would like to see how the Adam A7x, Yamaha hs8 or Kali LP8 perform!
Hi mate, just wanted to mention that I love your way of talking about these things: very straight forward and clean, fast, no bs.
and as a selftought producer and mixer, these information you give me are very valuable. thanks for that.
I use mid range mordauns soft speakers,my mixes have never sounded bad again
Positioning is really a point worth emphasizing. I had speakers for a little while that always sounded too bright for me in nearfield. Eventually I figured out I needed to move them farther away. Sounded fine after that. Difference was everything. From bright to balanced just by moving them into midfield position.
i like bigger speakers for tracking but always use ns10m for mixing and checking ns10m like high damped amps i use a crown d150 for my ns10
LONG LIVE D150'S
ATC’s are becoming super popular for professionals because of the accuracy in the mod frequencies but they’re not fatiguing like ns10’s. Sold my NS10m’s a few years back.
ive only heard big atcs and they are good
Youre one of the only people i really trust when it comes to audio gear and plugins! A+
Breaking news: youtuber with no knowledge in speaker design showcases that he has no knowledge in speaker design in 17 minute video
🧌
@APMastering sure, keep living in denial and keep baiting people with false information videos
certainly going onto the 'audio youtubers to avoid' list
Sounds like you bought some shite speakers and this kind fella has alerted you to your mistake, This has resulted in you being angry at yourself but your not muture enough to understand your emotions yet.. my 5year old girl does the same
@@Amansshed this is a more promising theory than OP's
@@Amansshed Projecting much huh lmao
It also depends on the end use. I know it's not so relevent now but back in the early nineties, our audio guy at the TV station I worked at was mixing using Yamahas and I said to him at the time the he should be mixing to a 3 inch mono speaker because that's what nearly every TV set would have had back then 🙂
I will not go as far as to say that you are saying things that are not true, but I do want to point out that there are most definitely differences in sound quality between entry level studio monitors and more expensive ones. My Solo6 BE's have way more detail, especially in the bass, than those cheaper ones, and that is down to better design and, mostly, better materials. But of course, as they are ported, they will exhibit some of those time domain issues you talk about. But because I am a not mastering engineer and simply a bedroom producer who uses those speakers as close to my ears as physically possible (about 60cm between ear and speaker) the room is less of an issue and I can focus on the detail in the sounds I'm working with. And that is what's most important to me.
sure more expensive will hopefully sound less bad. we're not in disagreement there but having a full range monitor in a bad sounding room will never sound good even if you use them as near fields
@APMastering Of course and I'm not trying to say that. I do understand the value of room treatment and the plan is to do that in my next house.
HI.
Very informative video. I have Tannoy Reveal for about 13 years and I am happy with them, but there is still too much bass in them. I'm thinking of changing them to Yamaha Hs5. At the moment I am looking for good headphones for mixing and mastering. I am wondering between Sennheiser hd600 and slightly more expensive hd490 pro. Which of them do you think are better? Which would you recommend? Or maybe some other model in this price range?
Best regards
Airwindows' brand new 'Cans' (free HP monitoring) might be nice to include in your headphone-buster vid.
I'm a big fan of his Airwindows Monitoring too, his plugins are a wild adventure in sound design too!
I have just tried it for the first time and had excellent results so far. Took me a minute to realize that Chris has the output set like 14dB low by default...
I noticed placement of speakers when your sitting down in front of them to work is way different from just hooking up your sound system on your furniture wall, basically moving them inches created different sound pressures and resonance to how the Left and right mix met my ears , the angle even the volume plays part of an optimized setup
En hora buena llegó otro de tus excelentes videos. 🎉
I am very happy with my Genelec 1030A for over 20 years now. The missing Bass has always been easily fixed in the mastering.
Weaver drop the reaction so I can understand what’s going on
lol
@APMastering You’re a real one man. Keep up the informative videos!
@APMasteringAnd please for the love of God, ignore the hate comments. Don’t let them turn your channel into a reactionary channel.
True that, true that, @WeaverBeats has been the "gateway drug" to MANY excellent audio engineering channels!
Uh? Don't let them turn your channel into to a reactionary .. uh?
Have you not seen every one of his titles, rage bating anyone who knows anything about audio production ? LoL
Reactionary IS his whole self-marketting schtik ! And look at the attention it gets .. it works and he knows it.
Interesting points. I have KRK V4's, and I sealed the ports with compression foam, which tightened up the bottom end. I wonder if this is solving the problem you mention.
yes it will help improve but you will just have a bit less bass
@APMastering It sounds fine actually. I use a sub if I want to check the extension... again, of course it's ported but it's ok
Scenario untreated 20m² room and standard 6.5" studio monitors close to the wall, about 1m distance to the ears. How about adding a subwoofer (e.g. Kali Audio WS-6.2) with frequency crossover at 80Hz and use generally low volume while mixing. Will that reduce the bass problem or will it potentially add more problems?
more problems. also volume does nothing to room problems. same problems at all levels
do not add a sub unless you have a very very well treated room
I had an engineer friend back in the day that had a set of the Yamaha monitors with white cones. I don't remember the exact model but they were discontinued because the wood used to make the cone came from a tree that was put on the endangered list or something like that. He swore by those, and the other Yamaha's that replaced them. He had some much more expensives ones too but he ended up using those just for listening to music because they were louder and had more bass. He only mixed on the Yamaha though.
@@CynHicks these are definitely NS10 based on your description and the fact about the cone material
@@horriblemind He was right then?! They did sound... perfect for a lack of better term... I remember being impressed by the response they had. They sounded.... incredibly clean and "sparkling." I'm a musician not an engineer.
I remember hearing my first project on them and it sounded bad. He fixed it using those monitors in the time it took to listen. Gave my track a sparkling effect. 😁
I have the crappiest room with yamaha HS7+sub ... The sound is horrible, but I just use them to listen while I produce and play instruments. For mixing I found that using some Bayerdynamic 990 and just checking the "mainstream" sound on some ATH-m50x gives me better results than with my monitors.
I think the biggest issue is that you had the sub... get rid of it and everything will sound less horrible
I'm just gonna keep using my Optimus T-200s that I bought in 1978. (Back when Radio Shack was actually the #1 seller of speakers in the world.) I have used them as critical listening speakers, Studio Monitors, stage monitors, small/medium room PA speakers, etc. They have yet to let me down.
Have you measured the time response of your diy speakers? I'm curious how the transmission line compares to sealed designs
it's hard because ideally i need to do it outside on grass 4m high with low ambient noise.... i just can't do that right now
@APMastering Hello, I wanted to ask question related to this. I didn't have opportunity to listen to big PMC's, however I did listen the smaller ones the old AML1, and they sounded slow to me in the low end. I was wondering the same question, why did you opted for TL design ?
@ small TL designs are basically a scam. this is because the whole underlying principle is completely ignored when the line is shorter than about 2.5m and then it just functions as a bad sounding port
@APMastering Your explanation is now very logical, and now that I think back you already addressed the importance of the length of the TL port in your DIY Studio Monitors video.
Long time ago, a friend of mine, that attended the same university as I, made a huge 3way TL speakers, apparently at the moment very popular design amongst electro-acoustics professors at our university. He used "the best" drivers and components. The crossovers etc were all analog, this was almost 20 years ago.
He was not into audio production and he wanted to hear my opinion on how they sounded to me.
I came to his place, so no studio, a regular room and we played some music, my comment was "I could mix on these speakers", since then I have this DIY speaker project in my mind, but even though I did have technical subjects during my education, I was never into electronics, components, dsp etc... I was always more interested in creative side of things, and in time I developed and expanded my knowledge on room acoustics, but now I regret for not being interested more in technical side of things, but it's never too late.
PS: Great stuff, I love your channel.
@APMastering send em to amir :D
Ypao and audyssey do a nice job of balancing speaker outputs, correcting room acoustics and elimination echoes imo. I want my next car head unit to have auto eq in it.
It takes a while and work to run it and get the speakers set up optimally but it works if you'll work with it. I ran it probably 100 times in different ways. Took so much time to set up that now i don't want to upgrade because i don't want to go through it again. I have 3 sets of speakers i haven't heard in 4 years because i refuse to go through the set up again. But I've been happy with my speakers for 4 years and it's kept me from buying new speakers because i want to try them. I mean, what i got I'm quite happy with and I'm usually never happy with audio.
When i see people who continuously changing stuff and talking about this or that not being correct, i wonder are they using corrective software or trying to build a speaker that works set flat? I think that's a waste of time and money not to use correction software.
Gracias por tanta información de valor! esperando con ansias el de auriculares!!...
coming next!
@APMasteringOh nice please talk about planars like the avantone pro planar and audeze
I've been really confused between many of the high-end monitoring speaker models that brands like Focal and Adam Audio produce, and I've been worrying about how much acoustic treatment will cost me. But now, after thinking about it and doing a lot of research, it seems much more affordable and makes more sense to grab the NS-10s and put them in my non-treated room, leaving the low-end and the shimmery top-end to professional-grade mixing headphones. Please give me your insights on this, I would really use your help!
Definitely awaiting that headphone video!
i put so much effort into finding good headphones, i'm happy to do a video sharing my findings
@APMasteringI’m guessing most of your viewers are “home producers” with not that much space, and not a huge budget, so it makes sense to go over headphones.
@APMastering Please do.. 🙂
@APMastering are the slate vsx headphones + the software so shitty?
@APMastering we will love to hear you!
What do you think about equalisation of the monitors?
Big speakers, small speakers, big room, small room, near field, mid field--doesn’t volume play a part here?? With all these different factors, wouldn’t volume be a big one? So let’s say you have a “small”ish room yet something like 8 inch monitors. Wouldn’t there be a play in volume to get these larger speakers to sound “good” in a smaller room? Even if the treatment is technically subpar? This is where I think reference mixes would be crucial. I’ve always thought that reference mixes are the saving grace to non-ideal listening conditions. What say you, mister mastering fella?
(Coming from somewhat of a beginner)
volume is not an important factor because room acoustics behaves the same regardless of loudness. also small ported speakers can sound better when played quieter because of port turbulence
You need to compare the different speakers in the same room. Sometimes the difference is immediate, sometimes is subtle and required time to judge. Never judge too quickly. And if your ears are not good, or you have poor taste in music (and let's be frank, 80% of people have very poor taste regarding music and sound quality), probably it won't make any difference.
Please can you arrange to show a waterfall plot of your main monitors in the next video?
not in the next because i'm moving house and studio but will do as soon as i can
You say very correct things, but very few people understand this, or do not understand it at all!
Curious what you come up with for headphones. I mix on headphones, and I really don't see why it isn't more common. Making a bunch of noise and spending the time and money acoustically treating a room and setting up/buying great speakers just isn't worth it for 90% of amateur producers, which let's be honest, is most of audio production youtube.
You can cross mix headphones, but I haven't heard headphones yet that can properly sound like audio is coming from in front of you, rather than in your head.
You are correct. However its more than that as its actually part of a workflow and culture: Which I have coined 60/30/10. Its about the priority of mids then the support frequencies of sub and air. Anyway, I have spent a couple of years researching and developing the best of NS10/Auratones and turned it into an outcome...added some art.
I am just about to release mix translation speakers that take the best of what has gone before and they are not a listening experience. I use ATC for mid field/loud reference and these expose so many issues on reference mixes on first listens. Eg Do your monitors tell you whats wrong with the kick on the classic "Jump" by Van Halen? Instant recognition. Its not so much a plug for the monitors but the WHY and in about 3 weeks I begin some vids on VISUAL MIXING to support the speakers (although you can use the NS10 etc). I sold my NS10s etc after these were complete as they add so much more. Not for everyone but they are on display at NAMM tomorrow opposite the Focal stand with Wes Dooley
Sneak preview here for those who are interested
ruclips.net/video/-ij93VxfPz4/видео.html
Does anyone use the "NS10 hack" when mixing ?
high pass at 200hz - low pass at 4k and optional to mix in mono to emulate mixing on ns10's.
Fot the last year I've been mixing on neumann ndh30 for the kind of work i do radio advertising, before that i was using audio technica mx50's which were rubbish for that kind of application.
the ndh30's give me mixes that translate seamlessly onto whatever I play the adverts on, abd I just bought some focal alpha 65's (used) My room is not treated so I;m just going to use them for broad brush strokes and the ndh 30's for fine detail.
just looking at the ns10 hack to get more working use out of my new focal monitors.. any thoughts?
sonarworks have the ns10m and the aurotone filter curves that apply to you specific speakers and room measurements
Dude, no need for this hack. There is a volume where every speakers sound the same. This is the ultimate home studio hack. After doing EQ and effects and first balance, leave the room, have a coffee or whatever. Go back inside and play the mix with the volume knob all the way down. Slowly turn up until you can hear the quietest part of the song. At that level, all speakers sound the same. Trouble shoot whatever you don't like at your perfer volume and repeat the process of coffee/lowest possible volume, turn up, do adjustment.
It's not either or.
I have my Dynaudios and a few good pairs of headphones for tracking.
I mix on Avantones driven by a hefty Adcom power amp.
Double check on old JBL 3 ways (non ported) driven by an even larger Adcom.
The real problem is expecting one tool to be adequate for totally different jobs.
I need the wide bandwidth to be sure I am not recording hum, buzz, or computer noises.
But when mixing you are spot on, nail the midrange balance. Then double check you aren't blowing speakers with low end or piercing ears with high end.
Title says pro audio speakers , proceeds to comment on shite budget speakers.
And if your music is for clubs , you better pay attention to your sub freqs, if you've not got a sub in your stood you've got no clue what horrors will appear in the club
headphones
He will deflect,so there's no point. Like you said HE said pro speakers then talks for three years about JUNK speakers..ONLY on YT..
There a 2 misconceptions: first most people don't listen to music on proper speakers. Second flat frequency response doesn't equal great sound. A friend of mine owns Bose 301 II speakers which are frowned upon by "audiophiles" but sound grreat in her room
One major problem with your classic speaker choices. They all need a power amplifier. The bedroom "producer" is going to use the powered, ported, crappy speakers and the pro is going to use the pro stuff. Simple.
Keep this quality content coming,no bs approach.As you start as a bedroom producer who have 10k or 20k for speakers,I would suggest more diy monitors content.
I'm realizing I got incredibly lucky with the sounds I'm getting with the space and speakers I have. I'm using Behringer MS-16s in a spare bedroom with slanted popcorn ceiling, thick curtains covering a closet, and carpeted floor. It's the most quiet and accurate room I've ever heard in a studio.
Serious question: would it make sense to block the bass reflex ports on my speakers to avoid your mentioned time domain issues or ist this thought utter nonsense?
it might make them sound better or worse, i can't tell without knowing the speakers but usually it does not damage them
@APMastering i got krkr rockit 5
I have a pretty horrible pair of active ported 2-way monitors that I was sent for review some years back - they somehow manage to completely disconnect the bass from the midrange and turn the entire lower octave into one note. I put them in my kitchen with a Chromecast audio dongle for a bit of background music when I'm cooking and they were still unlistenable so I stuffed a pair of socks in the ports and now they are improved to being simply really bad. I'd say give it a try, leave them blocked for a few days then remove the plugs and see what you think. Make sure you don't cram enough stuff in to interfere with the speaker, and make sure you can grip whatever you use to pull it out. I've been intending to cut some foam plugs for the ones I have (not KRKs by the way) but the socks amuse me 🙂
@@AndiPicker will try
You are just reducing air flow into the cabinet which will make it overheat if its active. You wont actually be improving the time domain response at all, but you will lose all the low end. If you could be bothered with this task you would need to find a way to make the cabinet and port acoustically inert to improve the group delay. You can't accomplish that just shoving lodging some foam in a bass reflex port
Just be perfectly clear though. you cannot make a ported design function like a sealed design, but you can greatly reduce air turbulence and increase the efficiency of air flow which will reduce resonance somewhat, reduce group delay and improve time domain response. KEF uses some novel materials to make their ports do some of this as one example and Technics did something with their ported designs in the SB-C700* (lol) that improved phase response. a ported design is essentially a Helmholtz resonator though, and you cannot completely stop it being that completely no matter what you do to it.
You should check out NHT speakers, pretty much the most revealing speaker I have ever heard. I have the SB3 powered by Rotel RMB-100 and matched with a NHT CS-10
lol the thing so many have learned the hard way. I remember my first pair of mixing monitors. My dorm-mate talked me into buying the "best sounding" pair. My mixes were HORRIBLE and I mean embarrassing and thanks to peer pressure insisting good sounding monitors=good mixes, I continued to pull my hair out for months trying to figure out WHY my mixes only sounded good on my "good monitors". Irony improved my mixes when I needed some cash and decided to trade in my expensive "good" monitors for some less expensive "lousy" yamahas with limited range and a very flat, dead, "unimpressive" sound. As far as rooms go. Unless you have a VERY good education and the RIGHT tools, you will spend a fortune trying to treat most rooms.
agree!
I have a small room which is about 12' by 11' with an 8' ceiling height. The room sounded dreadful with comb filtering and terrible standing waves. Although it was very hard work and expensive I built 20 large and deep porous bass traps and 20 large tuned sealed membrane bass traps. I designed the membrane traps to be centered on the the bass standing wave frequencies. The end result is astonishing with no standing waves and amazing 3D stereo imaging. I use quite large speakers that produce serious deep bass and in my treated room they sound lovely. The materials to build the traps cost me around £3000
however, the end result proves it was money well spent. In my experience there is no substitute for extensive acoustic room treatment. Measuring and calculating the frequencies of the standing waves is easy. Designing the membrane traps is also easy using some very simple maths.
This video has a lot of midrange and highs in the lighting.
lol yeah this was shot in an airbnb with no sensible lighting
Very true. Small/budget monitors are often hyped at the frequency extremes to give them showroom appeal. Many people will choose monitors on the basis of a relatively short demo, so those which grab the ear are more likely to get the nod. If you listen to half a dozen speakers in quick succession at high volumes, your ears will quickly become fatigued and you're likely to go for those which impress. A shame.
He is right, most music is in the mid range.
Also human hearing is most sensitive in that frequency range.
I have 2 Eckhorn18 MKII in stereo bass. They are running into the 20Hz area. No bass resonances at all and dry and punchy bass instantly. Compared to whide range Fostex top horns. A dream of a system, immaging and there is bass sound without rumpling.... ;-)
And you can get it as loud and live as you want it - with lots of headroom. And the Room is 4 x 6.5 m..... and the speatker at a highth of 1.15m (including top) are sitting in the corners - not too big