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Will Smith's Speakers


Guest davidness

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I've never understood the logic of mixing on speakers like that, way way way too loud, and makes everything sound "pretty good". Dandy for impressing a client with how wonderful they sound, but in 5 minutes your hearing is altered for the rest of the day.

OTOH for just rocking out, they can spoil you real fast.

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way too loud...

Mike,

You are assuming they have playback levels set very loud?

Bruce

Not assuming, I've been in many studios and they are way too loud. You have to have it for the clients, but it plays hell with the engineers hearing.

Surely they have a volume control... There's no cause and effect between those speakers and playing too loud.

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Surely they have a volume control... There's no cause and effect between those speakers and playing too loud.

I totally disagree. Cause and effect maybe we could argue, but human nature and opportunity results in turning it up 99.99999% of the time.

Those speakers have no normal distortion cues that people associate with loudness, up to the threshold of pain most poeple will have no idea how loud they are without some point of reference like trying to speak.

At the 1/10 watt level your ears will start to fatigue and the muscles within the ears tighten up to protect the mechanism, which requires increasing the volume to get the same sensation, and the cycle repeats.

Headphones have there place in the studio, mostly for insane playback levels musicians like, but are very limited in what can be practically done with them on the engineering side.

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Not assuming, I've been in many studios and they are way too loud. You have to have it for the clients, but it plays hell with the engineers hearing.

IIRC, it should be set between 85-90db. Then, played back in someone's home at those levels, the balnce from bass to treble would be rpetty close to the way it was mixed.

Too bad many don't follow those rules. If mixed louder and you listen at a lower level, the bass and treble will be lower than what they intended.

Bruce

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Surely they have a volume control... There's no cause and effect between those speakers and playing too loud.

I totally disagree. Cause and effect maybe we could argue, but human nature and opportunity results in turning it up 99.99999% of the time.

Those speakers have no normal distortion cues that people associate with loudness, up to the threshold of pain most poeple will have no idea how loud they are without some point of reference like trying to speak.

At the 1/10 watt level your ears will start to fatigue and the muscles within the ears tighten up to protect the mechanism, which requires increasing the volume to get the same sensation, and the cycle repeats.

Headphones have there place in the studio, mostly for insane playback levels musicians like, but are very limited in what can be practically done with them on the engineering side.

I have to agree with psg, 100%. A good engineer will listen at an appropriate playback level.

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The best studio I ever worked in used big Westlakes for playback. They are used for ultimate clarity...to hear the little stuff you might otherwise miss. Yes, they'll play loud, but not while I was there. Just realistic playback. That squares with what Westlake says about their studio monitors. BTW, they are fantastic speakers. Probably the best I've ever heard.

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They seem pretty standard in high quality studios. I see them in pics of Japanese studios all the time. Tad? The assumption for loud doesn't make sense. That would be like saying all studio engineers listen loud and that just isn't the case.

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I've never understood the logic of mixing on speakers like that, way way way too loud, and makes everything sound "pretty good". Dandy for impressing a client with how wonderful they sound, but in 5 minutes your hearing is altered for the rest of the day.

OTOH for just rocking out, they can spoil you real fast.

Maybe for the same reason I could never live with 5 1/4 inch woofers and shoe box speakers. Just no dynamic range. Not an excuse for excess on average SPLs though. You would think people in the business would be particularly concerned on anything that may damage their hearing, wouldn't you?

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Surely they have a volume control... There's no cause and effect between those speakers and playing too loud.

I totally disagree. Cause and effect maybe we could argue, but human nature and opportunity results in turning it up 99.99999% of the time.

Those speakers have no normal distortion cues that people associate with loudness, up to the threshold of pain most poeple will have no idea how loud they are without some point of reference like trying to speak.

At the 1/10 watt level your ears will start to fatigue and the muscles within the ears tighten up to protect the mechanism, which requires increasing the volume to get the same sensation, and the cycle repeats.


The same thing happens with the better Klipsch speakers. Sometimes the pulses on your chest are a better indication of just how loud the music is.
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