Studio Monitors for Near Field Listening?

[rockhound]

I can tell you for near field I love the JBL Studio 530's absolutely killer sound from such a small package. If you wanted to go a little larger than look for JBL LSR32's even more killer sound. Both of these are passive speakers and like watts.

[mr clean]

19 hours ago, glens said:

"Studio Monitor" is a dimensionless attribute, which means "whatever the studio was (is) using at the time."

 

I believe there were some pretty crappy Yamaha speakers that were in vogue for some time, too.  Then there's what the mix / mastering engineer uses to produce the end result.  Rumor had it back in the day that 6x9 car speakers were used by some, since that was considered the target audience.

 

So back to what I posted earlier, "what makes a studio monitor a 'studio monitor,' and why?"

 

NS10M Yamaha was used alot, and from what I have heard didn't sound that great like was said by glens. I heard some were given to Studios by Yamaha just so they could say the Studios were using them.

 

 

  

[MEH Synergy]

4 minutes ago, mr clean said:

NS10M Yamaha was used alot, and from what I have heard didn't sound that great

They sound AWFUL. The point of them is that if you can make you mix sound great on NS10s, the mix will likely translate well to a variety of systems 

[DizRotus]

A friend gave me a pair of these.  He assumed, as an audio enthusiast, I’d be thrilled. It was interesting to see and hear what were often used to mix pop recordings to sound good from car radios.  They actually sounded better than expected—which is damning with faint praise—but not interesting enough to not sell them for several hundred dollars on eBay.

 

[Marvel]

33 minutes ago, Westcoastdrums said:

The point of them is that if you can make you mix sound great on NS10s, the mix will likely translate well to a variety of systems

 

I'll use Klipsch, then. If my music sound good on them I'll be good to go. 😁👍

[Marvel]

1 minute ago, DizRotus said:

not interesting enough to not sell them for several hundred dollars on eBay.

 

 

They're back... being made in Nashville. $199 ea.

[moray james]

cabinet central vertical orientation of a woofer and a tweeter  or a WMT is not done because it makes the speaker work/sound better the opposite it is done to save money in construction. Tweeter and or mids are off set intentionally to spread the frequency of edge diffraction from one side of the cabinet to the other. To have a loudspeaker that works well in the near field you need one which integrates well and that translates into small, a full range or a DC (Dual Concentric) two way like the Revolution series XT series mini is what you want. The Tannoy XT Mini they call it a four inch driver but the actual cone is 3.25 inches in diametre. Theses are simply astounding loudspeakers and they will not fail to impress you with both output level and bass extension especially when placed near a boundary. These loudspeakers do not sound small in any way and they stage and image with the finest available. Make the effort to find a pair and audition them. Mated to a sub or two they are giant killers. They do sound best after a full burn in period. The horn loaded tweeter provides better than average efficiency and directional dispersion. These are now my primary listening/evaluation loudspeaker as they provide incredible resolution into recordings.

 

[tigerwoodKhorns]

20 hours ago, rockhound said:

I can tell you for near field I love the JBL Studio 530's absolutely killer sound from such a small package. If you wanted to go a little larger than look for JBL LSR32's even more killer sound. Both of these are passive speakers and like watts.

 

I have been tempted by these, especially around the holiday when they were on sale, but just do not need any more speakers.  Glad that you are enjoying.

[tigerwoodKhorns]

20 hours ago, glens said:

 

So back to what I posted earlier, "what makes a studio monitor a 'studio monitor,' and why?"

 

Oh I got it.  I found the answer.  This guy had it in his post.

 

20 hours ago, glens said:

"Studio Monitor" is a dimensionless attribute, which means "whatever the studio was (is) using at the time."

 

 

[rockhound]

17 minutes ago, tigerwoodKhorns said:

 

I have been tempted by these, especially around the holiday when they were on sale, but just do not need any more speakers.  Glad that you are enjoying.

Me too have been eyeing them for a year or two when the dropped to 300 a pair I pulled the trigger and glad I did.

[mr clean]

5 hours ago, rockhound said:

Me too have been eyeing them for a year or two when the dropped to 300 a pair I pulled the trigger and glad I did.

I heard they were on sale too late. I have been wanting a pair for awhile. I may have to pull the plug anyway.

[Marvel]

On 2/22/2020 at 3:34 PM, glens said:

"Studio Monitor" is a dimensionless attribute, which means "whatever the studio was (is) using at the time."

 

I believe there were some pretty crappy Yamaha speakers that were in vogue for some time, too.  Then there's what the mix / mastering engineer uses to produce the end result.  Rumor had it back in the day that 6x9 car speakers were used by some, since that was considered the target audience.

 

So back to what I posted earlier, "what makes a studio monitor a 'studio monitor,' and why?"

 

I was in a couple of studios where thee were some 6x9 speakers on the meter bridge, not i any baffle or cabinet at all, just hooked up.

 

The Yamaha NS-10 became extremely popular, and the wiki link below seems pretty accurate from other other articles I've read. Mentioned in the article, is the fact that the NS-10 had a very good bass attribute. There was a short decay time on the bass. The bigger story may be just how few professional studios there were in the country. There still aren't, even though there are probably hundreds, if not thousands of nice recordings made is home studios/personal spaces.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_NS-10

[garyrc]

9 hours ago, mr clean said:

I heard some were given to Studios by Yamaha just so they could say the Studios were using them.

 

An old marketing trick.

 

In the 1960s, one light meter company gave every cinematographer in Hollywood (broadly defined) an XYZ meter so they could advertise, "Every cinematographer in Hollywood owns an XYZ light meter." 

 

In the early 1970s, Wally Heider in San Fran used Altec coaxes, the 604E, I believe, as their main (real) monitors, installed above and in front of the mixers, about 8 feet away (my estimate).  So did Swanson sound in Oakland. 

 

There were a lot of JBLs being used as "real" monitors.  In Sausalito, The Record Plant used custom speakers with wood mid horns, but I think the drivers were JBLs.  A rumor was that they also used Nitrous Oxide.  Nothing but the best.  The Different Fur Trading Company used the smallest "real" monitors I saw; they were JBL 4310 or 4211 or 4312 -- I don't remember which. In Europe, B & W (801F?) were popular.  A studio in the South (memory again) used Klipsch, one even using Klipschorns, which their chief engineer considered to be the best for monitoring..   The LA outpost of The Record Plant used some Klipsch Professional. 

 

I said "real" monitors, because they used them critically, to mix to.  In those days, the little (sometimes 6x9) *#~@#^/*# speakers, sitting on the board, used to guess at what the sound would be like through a very cheap *#~@#^/*# home or car speaker, were bought off the shelf at a place like Al Lasher's Electronics in Berkeley, or maybe Radio Shack --- no attempt was made to get a good speaker -- the question was, "Will the mix be articulate enough, revealing enough, full & rich enough through a truly bad speaker?"  I don't recall these ever being called "monitors."  That term was reserved for their good speakers.  Some years later, when more expensive peanut speakers were set on the board, people -- and advertisers -- began to call some of them "monitors."   Even though small, a few were designed to have "flat-ish" frequency response, but I would worry that the often seen, two way, direct radiator, small woofer varieties would have a ton of modulation distortion, so if low quality is desired, why not just use a 6x9 from Al Lasher?   Some small "monitors" have jacked upper midrange at, say, 2K, tending to harshness, to alert mixers to any harshness creeping into the recording.  In many cases, it is not working.  By now, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a switchable one with either "flat" or "harshness detector."  The BBC used to have just the opposite, with the "BBC DIp" providing a few dB of attenuation at about 2K.  That is also true with one of the Audyssey options.  Their dip is called "Midrange Compensation," and reduces the signal about 2 dB at 2K, perhaps handy if an engineer back at the studio was asleep at the board.  In newer Audyssey equipped preamp processors and receivers, midrange compensation can be removed by the app.

[Vinza]

Why not the Klipsch RP-500M or even smaller RP-400M, or the powered R41-PM / R51-PM.

 

[MechEngVic]

On 2/23/2020 at 4:46 PM, garyrc said:

Some small "monitors" have jacked upper midrange at, say, 2K, tending to harshness, to alert mixers to any harshness creeping into the recording.  In many cases, it is not working.  By now, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a switchable one with either "flat" or "harshness detector."  The BBC used to have just the opposite, with the "BBC DIp" providing a few dB of attenuation at about 2K.  That is also true with one of the Audyssey options.  Their dip is called "Midrange Compensation," and reduces the signal about 2 dB at 2K, perhaps handy if an engineer back at the studio was asleep at the board.  In newer Audyssey equipped preamp processors and receivers, midrange compensation can be removed by the app.

Interesting. I see many Klipsch speakers have a "2k " hump in their frequency response curves. In doing Klipsch mods, I found that reducing the hump too much and trying to flatten the FRC lessens the Klipsch sound; that midrange tone that I've become addicted to and find lacking in other brands.

[danalog02]

As a former recording engineer here in the Nashville area, I have used many near, mid and far field monitors for recording and mixing. I never really used or enjoyed them for any sort of recreational listening because I found most of them fairly clinical and surgical/dry. When mixing, you're trying to make the mix sound balanced across a wide array of potential listening situations: car, headphones, earbuds, cheap speakers, party speakers, etc. We were usually trying to make it sound as good as we could across the range. Many, many studios used the ubiquitous Yamaha NS-10s, a speaker I hated then and now. It was taxing to listen to and I was always tired after using them. I used Genelec 1030-somethings for a long time. They were powered, accurate and very surgical. You could hear every EQ and dynamics change easily, but they were very sterile and not musical at all. I always did like Tannoy Gold's and tannoys in general were quality. If I had to pick a Klipsch speaker to mix on today, I'd go with the RP-600M for sure. It's the right size and you could easily use them as nearfields. Pair them with a quality Bryston or similar amp and you're golden. I never used subs mixing, because it was too hard to get a good balance and everything ended up too bass heavy or light depending on your setup and room.

[MechEngVic]

I use my KLF-10's in a near-field set-up. They are on either side of my desk, 7 feet apart, 45 degrees toed in, flush with the seat-side of the desk.. At this angle, the 90 degree horizontal dispersion of the tweeter gives me good stereo imaging sitting right at the desk, my ears about half a foot back of the plane of the speaker fronts. At 3.5 feet back (I just roll my chair back) I'm in the sweet spot. I don't have to worry about high frequency room reflections because I'm so close, but I still get a room-full of bass. It's like listening to headphones only better because you still get all the visceral impact of the woofers which is what's missing in headphones. It's kind of addictive.

[danalog02]

I always found it funny that people would ask me about great sounding "studio monitors". Most of the studio monitors I listened to were nothing special in the excitement department. They were meant to present the broadest possible spectrum of tonal variation. My theory behind the popularity of certain monitors like the Yahama NS-10 was not that they were so much a great speaker as they were easily repaired. Most studios had an extra pair or two in a second room or a closet along with spare woofers and tweeters, although you'll find many used NS-10s with fused tweeters as they were constantly blowing. Unlike home audio gear, studio gear is put to work regularly. Studios aren't gonna sit on a piece of gear that isn't making them money as it means they have funds tied up in a mic or a preamp they could be using elsewhere. You don't want a client sitting around twiddling their thumbs while your monitors are blown. They're paying for that time (or maybe they aren't and you're working for free). Reliability is paramount. I'll take some Fostex T-40 or Sony MDR-7506 headphones over something much more expensive because (1) the studio musicians don't care, (2) they are going to be abused, hence they need to be easily repaired with obtainable parts, and (3) perfect is the enemy of good enough. Super high quality monitors were to be found, sure. Some places kept the high-end stuff, but the problem with that is that you've blown your budget on a great pair of speakers with no backup. A studio might build a big set of far-field speakers, but they were generally only used to "make it sound important" when a record exec or non-musical "producer" came through. No one mixed on them.

 

...and Auratones. I didn't care for them. They were ok for checking your mix "clock radio style" but not really for anything else. It was easier to just burn off a CD and run to the car to check it.

[tigerwoodKhorns]

1 hour ago, danalog02 said:

I always found it funny that people would ask me about great sounding "studio monitors". Most of the studio monitors I listened to were nothing special in the excitement department. They were meant to present the broadest possible spectrum of tonal variation. My theory behind the popularity of certain monitors like the Yahama NS-10 was not that they were so much a great speaker as they were easily repaired. Most studios had an extra pair or two in a second room or a closet along with spare woofers and tweeters, although you'll find many used NS-10s with fused tweeters as they were constantly blowing. Unlike home audio gear, studio gear is put to work regularly. Studios aren't gonna sit on a piece of gear that isn't making them money as it means they have funds tied up in a mic or a preamp they could be using elsewhere. You don't want a client sitting around twiddling their thumbs while your monitors are blown. They're paying for that time (or maybe they aren't and you're working for free). Reliability is paramount. I'll take some Fostex T-40 or Sony MDR-7506 headphones over something much more expensive because (1) the studio musicians don't care, (2) they are going to be abused, hence they need to be easily repaired with obtainable parts, and (3) perfect is the enemy of good enough. Super high quality monitors were to be found, sure. Some places kept the high-end stuff, but the problem with that is that you've blown your budget on a great pair of speakers with no backup. A studio might build a big set of far-field speakers, but they were generally only used to "make it sound important" when a record exec or non-musical "producer" came through. No one mixed on them.

 

...and Auratones. I didn't care for them. They were ok for checking your mix "clock radio style" but not really for anything else. It was easier to just burn off a CD and run to the car to check it.

 

Great to have someone with direct experience. 

 

Wilson speakers started out as monitors.  I have heard full Wilson systems with MAXX speakers (full room treatment and very high quality system driving them) and although impressive, the sound was I guess extremely sterile is the best way to describe it.  It seemed like 'several layers' were taken away.  It was impressive, but did not seem worth the effort to create that type of sound. 

 

So if you could use any speakers to mix on every day, regardless of price, what woudl it be? 

 

 

 

[danalog02]

Yeah, studio stuff always looks and sounds impressive until you realize that it's a working environment. People get attached to their monitors because of predictability. When an unfamiliar set of tracks come across YOUR monitors that you've spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours listening to, you know what to do. EQ and dynamics application and changes are apparent not because the speakers are perfect, but because YOU know how they should respond to certain things.

 

Unpictured in that image I posted above is that the room I'm in comes right off a kitchen. Sitting in front of the monitors, you never had a great idea where your bass and kick drum sat in the mix, so I'd get up and go lean in the doorway to the kitchen and listen to my mix. It gave the bass frequencies room to finish their wavelength and told me if I needed change the low end any. Worked every time.

 

Hmm. Price is no object choice of monitors? Probably the monitors my mastering engineer friend Eric uses. They're custom built with dual 15" TAD drivers and large horns handling mids and highs. He drives them with a tube amp (Manley, I think) and a custom DAC he built. You can hear a gnat fart on those bad boys. It's beautiful. This is a pic in his old room. They've since built a new studio.