As an audio engineer, I can tell you that studio monitors are made to represent the mix in an "as flat as possible" manor. This is to ensure any problem frequencies will stand out and be delt with. As for good hifi systems, they are made to make everything sound great. The theory is, "if your mixes sound good on these monitors, they will sound amazing on a hifi system." This is most easily explained as "disco smile," for the positioning of the faders on a graphic equalizer. It looks like a smile. This represents boosted lows and highs, and a scooped out mid-range section. As where professional monitors are made to flatten that smile by design.
Monty Alexander “concrete jungle” is recorded in bob marleys “tuff gong” studio, exceptionally well recorded with quality mic’s and placement. Studio monitors are paradigm active 20. Small 2 way active biamp speaker with 7” bass and 1” tweeter.
Before I could afford "studio" monitors, I mixed on "home" speakers. Sounded great in the room, but played anywhere else, it sounded like crap. Mastering engineers are trying to make the recordings sound good on all systems.
Many (not all) mastering engineers are trying to get the best sound for the "system " MOST people listen to most of the time, which, sadly are smartphone or tablet speakers. Not all recordings are mastered this way, but look at the stats on how the vast majority of music is consumed. Audiophiles are a niche market in the grand scheme of things, like it or not. And as we all know, money talks. We could get into auto tune and pitch correct, but that's a whole other discussion.
Was that anything proven? Or was it hearsay or rumors? Not a fan of some of the vintage bookshelf speakers they came out with. But their big speakers; now that was something completely different. You wouldn't believe they came from the same company.
Studio monitors are designed to reveal detail and can sound harsh, tiring, perhaps a little boring with their very flat responce, they are not for long duration listening, but to simply find the sweet spot in the mix. Hi-fi speakers introduce colour and warmth to make the listening experience more enjoyable and not tiring over long periods of time. If you will, like adding your taste of salt and pepper to a dish.
True or not, I'd still love the hear the hear the first 3 Jimi Hendrix Experience album at Electric Lady Studios. I realize they weren't recorded & mixed there, but man would that be a trip!
They were mixed and mastered with Quad amps, or very similar, and Tannoy speakers. If you want to hear what the engineers heard at the time that's about all you need. I used to work at Track Records and I was quite familiar with the sound of the masters. The first CDs that came out of this stuff were just the master or a safety copy straight off the shelf and digitised, perhaps with an EQ setting as noted on the tape box - that's what you want. As far as I can tell, most later CDs have been severely interfered with by other engineers. The later ones might even sound "better" but scour the 2nd hand shops for the earliest CDs if you want the real sound.
I absolutely agree. You have to keep in mind that the skilled audio engineer is able to compensate for inadequate listening environments due to the fact of thousands of hours spent with analytic and critical listening, beside trained knowledge of how the source material will translate on different systems. I‘ve taken some wisdoms and philosophy from hifi into the pro audio realm and didn’t look back. It also depends if you’re more like an audiophile mixing-/mastering engineer, or if you’re more on the technical side. To me i love to work on a playback system that’s optimized like an audiophile hifi system, just feeling and supporting the music more and on an emotional level. Here in germany, engineers often get too techy for my taste and miss out musicality and nuances sometimes. I love the (more commonly done in america) approach to master on hifi systems and get more informations through better powering, cables and power grid-clearing, as well as EMI/EMF-tuning. Best regards from germany ✌🏼🙂
Pro sound, or pro audio, is an all encompassing term that covers live sound reinforcement, recording, or any speaker used by a musician while performing. Pretty much anything from production of music in any capacity.
Had some Dynaudio BM12A studio monitors and they were great! Olso a labgruppen amplifier with HiFi speakers. And what about live music? The equipment that they use is usually not the greatest. I do wish HiFi manufacturers would use Pro audio connectors.
Pro audio, both in the studio and in live applications, is focused on listening to the music. Audiophiles are focused on listening to the hardware. The irony being that 99.9% of the music played by audiophiles has been mixed on systems that they would consider to be no better than a transistor radio.
It's funny how people think you have to spend five figures to hear details, achieve sound stage or that their "new" equipment is going bring out a new detail that some old mics captured while being recorded on tape. I'm pretty sure these guys love buying speakers with high freq bumps and electrical noise they think is "airy." 😂
@@noahbirdrevolution just get rid of all those ridicolous thick cables and internconnects, internally do some point to point wiring from the opamps to the RCA's, using just super thin few strands of copper wire. Cut out snubbers over diodes. Delete stupidly thick speaker cable and run seperate 1,5mm2 copper wire. Delete most of the shielding. Delete large banks of capacitors in PSU's. And the details will come to you. Delete 'audiophile' pleasing solutions and there a system starts to sound better.
Completely agree. I have been down the audiophile hifi route and ended up back with good quality studio monitors and equipment that bests any of my audiophile setups
@@nicholasreeves5025 I've been an audio engineer for over 40 years as well as an electrical engineer and I have to say that much the explanations pushed here and other audiophile sites strikes me as pure snake oil.
A lot of phase shift will give you a wider sound stage. Usually, when mixing, you are listening near field so you don't hear as much of the room. The mixers job is to get a recording to sound good on any POS or 100k speakers. Your listening room has a lot to do with how it sounds. Passive crossovers introduce phase shift and can be a huge problem. Some "audiophile" speakers have phase shift that make the sound stage bigger or smaller. There is a lot more to it, but it can all be measured.
And this is what you get when you ask a question to somebody who doesn't know what he is talking about because you can't get or hear imaging from overpriced "audiophile" speakers if the imaging was created by the engineers that mixed the music. Why do engineers not use PS Audio FR 30s to mix on? The answer is simply because by mixing on the PS Audio FR 30s the music mixed will sound great...on FR 30s but not on your speakers. Think about the recordings you actually like to listen to on your system. Were they mixed on Paul's FR 30s or were they recorded, mixed, and mastered on a variety of professional speakers designed specifically to allow the music to image on your personal system.
@@systemera2902 No! The whole mixing and mastering process of good quality is designed to be as transparent as possible. The engineers involved have no control over the final listener's environment or equipment so the goal is to create as good a mix as possible and let the listener make the necessary equipment and environment choices. Reference Paul's favorites list and you will find that 99.5% of them were not mixed or mastered on the FR 30s yet the mixes sound good on the FR 30s or on other personal systems or headphones or earbuds.
I was told by a successful sound engineer that he wanted an ”adequately mediocre” system in his mastering process. That gave him the challenge of making his production sound great on most adequate home systems, while sounding superb on anything upscale.
.....”adequately mediocre” system? There is a baseline of sound quality which needs to satisfied in the studio. Whilst the studio set-up doesn't need to be orders of magnitude greater in quality than a standard home Hi-Fi system, it really can't be "mediocre" and "adequate". Good sound engineers can adapt to different quality recording systems quite easily, but to get the best dynamics and sonic responses on the recording medium they are using, a reasonably good and high quality set up is a must. An "adequately mediocre" mastering system is really treading on thin ice Mr carteddy7554 - very thin ice indeed.
@@captainwin6333a proper studio has good quality monitors with a flat response, but additionally also so called grot boxes, these are meant to emulate the average music listeners experience. switching between these two sets of speakers is fundamental to a good mix.
I think the soundstage is destroyed by the master engineers by compressing and limitinng. I have a new DAC whichnis amazing but now I truly hear how crappy and unlistenable some of my CD's are.
It’s not the cd that’s crappy, it’s the mastering source that was put on the cd. Cd is a storage medium for the master your listening too. Just a lousy master in that case. I have a lots of cd like that as well. Also vinyl like that. So, find good masters first. Hint, look fir Rudy van gelder remasters if you like jazz by blue note.
I'd dare say that high end home systems will reveal the strengths or weaknesses of the recording more than pro audio if it's a good or bad recording. Nothing is perfect so the fact that Octave Records mixes and masters with PS Audio equipment is very unique and can only be truly appreciated with that music equipment.
What better way to sell more equipment and CDs. That locks you into thinking that the only way you can hear the sound of a good recording to do it Paul is doing. I have to laugh at this type of thinking. Why don’t you just enjoy the music that you like instead of local artists music.
@@stimpy1226 I haven't bought a single recording from Octave and won't likely ever do it lol. I'm just saying that if you want a OPTIMAL listening experience that would probably make the most sense.
At least it is great marketing. But why does Gus still master on his old system? I've heard some of his work and though it is somewhat heavy in the lows (American taste possibly) he does a great job. Can't judge on PS audio gear, haven't heard it.
I would have thought that the majority of recording & mixing engineers are focused on different sound aspects than audiophiles are, so a bit of a red herring maybe?
I think that most recording and mixing engineers do a really good job, but the average audiophile system just doesn't sound good. Just listen to 'The Bends' by Radiohead. This recording is truly amazing and mostly spotless. When this recording sounds like the guy is singing in your room, listen to that system to Norah Jones. That recording ain't that bad, but quite average, it will sound pleasing on a lot of systems, only when the ugly of that recording hides underneath.
To properly get an answer, we would need a reply from a world class recording engineer or better yet mastering specialist. The recording studios that I have been in all have playback “worthy” of respect and are certainly good enough for advanced expectations. During the recording, the focus is on error free playing of the music. First in the mix or mastering, things like “imaging” (I call it the geometry of playback) or balance become specific goals.
There's this myth going on that if there are stuff in there the sound engineer could not hear with their equipment, it renders things problematic. It isn't like any previously unheard aspects to sound will be automatically just noise and other garbage. Or just because they haven't been heard by the engineer, they are not actually there. If sound was just fine with a somewhat lesser equipment, you can be sure outside of extreme cases, that it will be just fine and even better on more revealing systems.
I don't understand this. How can domestic audio, which is meant to be neutral and only showing what the studio produced, sound better than the professional equipment it was mastered on? If pro audio can't get to the standard of Hifi, how can it possibly produce music to the highest standards? If it can't produce music to the highest standards because the equipment isn't good enough, what's the point of mega expensive hifi equipment?
Most consumers are listening like they are in a cave, listening to weird reflections, bouncing over the walls and hights of the cave. They are sitting, chained by their internet connected devices, glazing at screens, unable to focus, unable to understand. Their hard earned money is spent on getting rid of some cloths in front of them, yet never do they feel the might of real music, nor do they have a desire to. They are happy with what they know and what is presented to them.
I read somewhere that the Fender Telecaster guitar was maximized to sound really good through an am car radio from the 1960s..ithink this relates closely to what you are discussing.
My question; I stream from Qobuz, very good platform. my equipment at home is diverse. I use JAMO speakers, JBL, Dayton, Altec. some Chinese mini amps and also mini DACs, Aiyoma, Fosi, Douk. If I listen Rush songs, E van Halen, I find the sound low volume, poor, no dynamic. If I listen to Tambu of Toto or Legends by Bonfire these sound is great, so much more bass and bass drum, dynamics. How does this come and what can I do about it to level it? At this moment I need to adjust the volume drastic. To enjoy Rush I need to increase but if I play Toto then I need to adjust very quick and decrease. Would an Limiter or Exciter work? I hope my English is ok for you. I am from The Netherlands.
Has to do with the original recording. Some recordings are recorded “hot” with the thinking that they will sound better on most systems. This can also be a symptom of compression especially on poorly remastered CDs. Vinyl albums have the same issue. Some are hot and others are not. I have vinyl from the 70s and 80’s and recently digitized them all (400) using PSAudio digitizer and audacity s/w. Every LP was different in terms of its level on the vinyl.
Als het budget het toelaat, bezoek een goede Hifi winkel en laat je daar goed voorlichten. Je kan beter goede kwaliteit gebruikte apparatuur kopen van een goede verkoper dan proberen het ene probleem te verwisselen voor het andere. Een mooie streamer, een goede DAC, mooie versterker en een paar goede luidsprekers en je bent al op weg. Ik kan De Groef in Groningen van harte aanbevelen, eerlijke en oprechte mensen, maar geef ze de kans om hun kennis te delen en ze jou te laten helpen. Ze hebben faire prijzen en 50 jaar ervaring.
... Says one professional sound engineer to another .... I heard a hi end sound system and I felt like I was in the concert ! ... and the other asks him directly .... Please tell me what sound system they had in the concert ?
Being a musician and "audiophile" I can tell you that most of the people I play with don't sit for long hours LISTENING back to what we play. We are 10x more likely to not really listen to our recordings. Our joy comes from PLAYING not LISTENING. Engineers, like the ones below, look for issues in the recordings. So I wouldn't really rely on most of us as I would rather play/dissect 1,000 hours of paradiddles than listen to 1 hour of "audiophile" music. (I do make exceptions at times.) I also have to add that there are SO MANY STAGES to modern music production. Each on different systems designed for step. Tracking/recording, editing, mixing, and mastering are most often done by different people in sometimes different continents. I get in trouble on "audiophile forums" for saying trying to "recreate what the artist intended" is such B.S. You have NO IDEA what any one person intended. Most musicians are OVER SOUNDS after about the 3rd take yet the producer will wheel in 5-10 different mics/snares/amps etc trying to get the "tone in his head".
Exactly. Few people know how little involvement the “musicians/singers” have in mixing or mastering. Even producers aren’t present for many mastering sessions in pop music.
simple, pro audio listen "sound", not "music". It faith to the "microphone reality". 90% of time audio guy listen environment sound, voice, guitar, drum, and special effect sound. Only less than 10% listen final product. On the other hand, home audio listen "music". It translate "microphone reality" to "you think how it should be reality". One thing you can tell from pro and home audio is: did you hear the microphone? Cause we can guess which microphone you use in a raw recording by pro audio system, which is impossible (nobody want) in a home system.
So many people finding so many recordings to be bad recordings, tells us one thing. Their systems kind of suck. Very rately do I hear a system where major mistakes were not made. Either in selection of components, system synergism, major blunders in set up, lack of proper isolation, frequency response peaks and bad room acoustics. For audiophiles who have chosen wisely and have wonderful equipment which is set up and matched beautifully well, in good rooms; near 90% of recordings sound really wondrously good. Don't think a recording's sound quality is written in stone, just because it sounds like that on your system. Where many mistakes in a number of ways were probably made. Audiophiles complaining about bad sound from recordings IMO shows how few of them % wise have really good sound and their act together.
hear hear. Audiophiles should better and try getting recordings sound better than complain. Just tonight I was deleting some stupid muting circuit out of a DAC, in this case deleting the relay and some six transistors. Only that makes it sound better, so most recordings. And 50's recordings, just on CD quality, no remasters whatsoever, sound amazing, like almost all recordings....
the ever popular yamaha ns10 is really a mediocre monitor. they said if it sounds good on this ns10 it will soungd good on anything. so become soooo popular monitor
Hi Paul we know your amplifiers are studio quality. By the way? Did you know that when Michael Jackson "Thriller", was being final mastered? The studio monitors actually caught on fire. Literally. Fire extinguishers were needed. True story
There’s a big difference between the sound in recording studios vs mastering suites. Top mastering engineers often use true high end equipment. Recording studio monitors are designed to throw a lot of information at you so you can easily hear changes and differences, even if the overall sonic impression isn’t always pretty sounding.
a bunch of engineers master to what they think customers will have. it's a part of the loudness wars apart from just radio and clubs. now a bunch of music gets tuned for youtube on a tablet and bluetooth mono speakers.
Many recordings sounded too bright to me... The room was the culprit. If I hadn't improved the acoustics of the room, I would have got the wrong speakers, recordings or ears.
bright?? old ears lose highs so old people hear without highs they hear muffled...aah you mean an old mixer.. well maybe. he should rely on some visual help looking at freq analizers. nowadays its all cumputer soft you "see" the sound. and most of the time the group and the producer are there too. many ears listening
If recording engineers and producers can't hear something in the mix, how the hell can they know it's not bad? Mixing rooms should have equipment --- particularly speakers --- that can tell it like it is. They might also want to have small bluetooth speakers so they would be able to do today's equivalent of 'mastering for car radios' as was done long ago.
Agree. they master recordings so that we hear certain way they choose? İmaging,balance,bass level etc..If they hear in a bad or coloured system, that means even we have high end we will hear same way. Or we have mediocre we will hear worse. All studio speakers for nearfiled purposes, that confuses me also I am curious how mastering engineers decide the outcome sound.
the ever popular yamaha ns10 is really a mediocre monitor. they said if it sounds good on this ns10 it will soungd good on anything. so become soooo popular monitor
To me it's about the quality of the recording & the sound engineer if you have a decent stereo and the recording is crap it's going to sound like crap I don't care how much money you have in your stereo
I will wager that 98% of studio personnel have never heard a professionally set-up, high-end stereo. They have no clue what real imaging and real sound-staging and realistic voices, etc, sound like. And that is why we rarely hear great sounding releases from studios. It is like having people build race tracks for Ferrari's, that never drove anything other than a Monte Carlo, and they think that they are experts. Like a child with a receiver... that child knows all of the controls, and has fun manipulating the sound and changing inputs, etc. The studio personnel are those children in adult bodies, with all kinds of mixing boards and equalizers and compression boxes and digital tools. They know how all of the controls work. But they have no concept of how each box deteriorate's the once virtually pristine signal. They hear no loss in sound quality, because they are listening for sound effects, and not sound quality. There are videos of mixing engineers laughing at audiophiles quest for great sound quality. They think that we hear things because we imagine that we hear things. Those mixing engineers do not make an effort to confirm their assumptions. All that they need to do is listen to a professionally set-up, high-end system, and they will get a reality check. But they will not. They are full of themselves. They do their thing, and care zero about whether or not their mix sounds compressed. In their minds, their compressed mix sounds great. It is like a McDonalds' chef that never at in a quality restaurant. And that McDonalds' chef sees themselves as leaders of the meal business.
You can't speak one language and communicate with the entire world. And so, you can't mix and master for the world either. If the studio is using the extremes of audio quality, it is unlikely the recording will sound good on a $200 consumer Sony stereo system; it will probably sound dead. You would think in 2023 all stereos would be reference quality and then have tonal and time/space adjustments for the owner to tune to his ears, room and taste. A linear standard mass produced for everyone; I wonder what that stereo system would cost if making billions of units? And the components and technology are available for every manufacturer to duplicate. Open source. Instead, we have design team after design team starting from scratch and go through all the same research to get to the point of reference...again. Reference should be a standard and not vary by more than a few decibels. I still believe external DACs with a 31 band graphic equalizer pre-analog stage would solve most the problems with the ""sound". For most the public they will crank up the bass and think this reference sounds like crap, but fix it with a few tweaks of the equalizer. Actually, today we have the technology to sell all the mix tracks and have the consumer tweak the levels and then master with EQ and compression. All can be done pre DAC in the digital realm, that is what the TRUE audiophiles should be demanding today. To be handed a completed 2 track stereo song and little or no EQ control is insulting.
A 31 band equalizer wouldn't solve anything for me in a HiFi setup. I wouldn't buy that product except for LoFi with a maximum of 5 bands as an advanced tone control. However, I use three parametric filters with very high Q factors that work in that specific room.
"pre" DAC. Tone controls are analog and may interfere with the transparency of your sound and may add distortions also. EQ control needs to be in the digital realm. What is a "LoFi" set up? Parametric provide the same frequency range as 31 bands. @@Jorge-Fernandez-Lopez
@@WildernessMusic_GentleSerene I don't need frequency range but precision and enough Q factor flexibility: 31 band eq. don't work for me. What's is a LoFi setup according to my needs ? Any setup with too many compromises regardless of the price of the system, because I can't (or don't want) optimize the speakers position, the listening position in the room, the acoustic treatment or the geometry of the room. LoFi is also when speakers frequency response is weird. In that LoFi context, a 5 band equalizer has been useful to me.
You are quite right - pro gear is basically rubbish compared to hi-end. I have always INSTANTLY turned away from anything marked as pro, or studio. The magic we hear is passed through the desks, so it is important the desk and peripherals are up to scratch.
