Studio Monitors Constructed In Anechoic Chamber But Used In Any Room Type

[SIXTYNINER]

Hello all ,
and welcome to this thread about studio monitors ,

it is quite common to find here and there discussions
regarding problems related to the use of studio monitors
in rooms intended for control rooms,
set up at the least worst,
without first assessing whether the room itself is suitable for such use ,

and that it is deemed that it is the monitor that is unsuitable ,

or the one-third-octave equalizer is inserted to make correction attempts that leave time to be found ,

but being the studio monitors built and tested in anechoic chambers ,
for obvious reasons ,

would it not be appropriate to explain this to the buyer before he makes the purchase ?

 

[pucho812]

Would the buyer understand it?

 

[JohnRoberts]

This is fairly mature topic of inspection (including near field monitors, etc).

The control room sonic environment has evolved over the years as studio mix engineers have moved away from huge flat console control surfaces to compact digital mixing systems.

Ethan Winer wrote about control room sonic treatments in his book (he also makes and sell bass traps).

JR

 

[SIXTYNINER]

Would the buyer understand it?

It is very likely that it is just that ,

since home studio digital technology has spread ,
almost all musicians (and not) , young electronic music makers , etc.. ,
have equipped themselves with some kind of DAW ,
pre , mic , studio monitor , etc.. ,
to record demo , but also trying to get the final master ,
also without sufficient sound engineer knowledge...

it is true that internet help a lot ,
thanks to the easy accessible of the info ,

but it would appear to be not enough .

 

[pucho812]

This is fairly mature topic of inspection (including near field monitors, etc).

The control room sonic environment has evolved over the years as studio mix engineers have moved away from huge flat console control surfaces to compact digital mixing systems.

Ethan Winer wrote about control room sonic treatments in his book (he also makes and sell bass traps).

JR

most first time buyers have no idea about such things. They buy before they read at the recommendation of some sales guy who's sole purpose is to make a commission for themselves. in the end they have a ton of foam on the walls that does little to nothing to address any problem they may have.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I don't know how much the recording world has changed since I last did a deep dive into studio monitors (last century). Big dog studios often employed multiple playback monitors for different purposes.

#1) while tracking you want to hear every detail, so you don't want a speaker that sounds good, you want it to be accurate.

#2 for mixdown you want a speaker that gives you a good result, a combination of representing consumer playback, and voiced to nudge you toward a good mix result.

#3) small single driver boxes (like Auratone) to see how a mix works through limited bandwidth speakers.

Loudspeakers vary even more than microphones and will be the least linear, least accurate link in any studio audio chain. This suggests that monitor loudspeakers could be most important single factor.

JR

 

[ruffrecords]

If the buyer want the monitors for a studio then they ought to have some basic understanding of acoustics. If they don't then sell them the speakers that give you the best margin.

Cheers

Ian

 

[pucho812]

How about this one?
Listening to new monitors as ours have hit the parts are unobtanium category.
One of the engineers who’s had over 40 years of loud rock and roll insists they have a weird thing in the 3-5k region. That the boxes are great, the drivers are great, they sound good but the crossover has a weird thing in the 3-5k area. Any test measurements show this as false. Any listening tests and no one else hears that.
Who is right?

 

[JohnRoberts]

The customer is always right, unless he isn't...

ASSuming that is a multiway box the crossovers transition region can be difficult. These often fall in the primary female vocal region.

How do you test it? Crossovers have multiple variables like off axis response, lobing, etc.

What kind of signal stimulus does he complain about? Some serious listeners use recordings of female vocalists that they are familiar with. One big dog speaker maker/seller used a recording of his wife singing to dial in loudspeakers (but his secret sauce was 1/3rd octave GEC behind the curtain).

JR

 

[pucho812]

The customer is always right, unless he isn't...

ASSuming that is a multiway box the crossovers transition region can be difficult. These often fall in the primary female vocal region.

How do you test it? Crossovers have multiple variables like off axis response, lobing, etc.

What kind of signal stimulus does he complain about? Some serious listeners use recordings of female vocalists that they are familiar with. One big dog speaker maker/seller used a recording of his wife singing to dial in loudspeakers (but his secret sauce was 1/3rd octave GEC behind the curtain).

JR

It’s a 3 way box. The complaint is it sounds weird. Interpret that however you wish because they can’t explain beyond that. Honestly after that many years of loud music and no ear protection, hard to really tell if they hear it or not. Especially if no one else does. Also hard to tell when they are married to an exact monitor model that had parts originally made in the u.s. and then part manufacturing was moved to Mexico. insistent on u.s. parts only, hard to take it seriously when differences are noticed between u.s. v mexican parts but only after they read the “made in” label.
As far as testing it was a mix of test tones and known program material. Not knowing beyond 3-5k sounds weird, what weird really means hard to really say if there is an actual issue or not or if it’s just a read the labels thing again.

 

[JohnRoberts]

One speaker design trick a smarter speaker guy than me, shared with me years ago.

Play a familiar music passage through the suspect speaker (to look for issues in 3-5K I'd suggest solo female vocalist). Record the passage on a good fidelity digital recorder. Play that recording back through the speaker and record it again..... Rinse and repeat multiple times. Even subtle frequency response errors or distortion will build up over the multiple passes through and become more audibly apparent.

[edit- you will be hearing microphone errors too.. /edit]

Of course the customer may be listening with his eyes.

JR

 

[pucho812]

I suspect they are. I never argue with claims of I hear this or that even when measurements prove otherwise.
it's also not even a customer thing, just different folks for different strokes.