Monitors.

  On 5/22/2021 at 4:58 PM, dingformung said:

prolly best to mix on cheap/crappy/imperfect speakers so the imbalance really does hurt the ear. good speakers make everything sound good

Good stereo speakers make everything sound good, good monitors are accurate and unforgiving and make most things sound kind of crap.

  On 5/22/2021 at 5:22 PM, TubularCorporation said:

Good stereo speakers make everything sound good, good monitors are accurate and unforgiving and make most things sound kind of crap.

they just reveal all the details.  if you get to know the speakers you work on it doesn't matter what they are. if you know how the mix will translate that's the point.. it is imo much more pleasurable to mix on a nice set of studio monitors than $100 trashed speakers... but if you get to know those $100 speakers they're as good as anything. 

still.. listening to music i like in the studio on studio monitors is a really nice experience.. hearing all that detail... things that just disappear on the car stereo or in ear buds etc.. it's usually  as the mix engineer/producer intended it to be heard. 

Yamaha hs7 or hs8 are good speakers for the money. Alternatively think about jbl 3 series. 

  On 5/22/2021 at 5:36 PM, ignatius said:

they just reveal all the details.  if you get to know the speakers you work on it doesn't matter what they are. if you know how the mix will translate that's the point.. it is imo much more pleasurable to mix on a nice set of studio monitors than $100 trashed speakers... but if you get to know those $100 speakers they're as good as anything. 

still.. listening to music i like in the studio on studio monitors is a really nice experience.. hearing all that detail... things that just disappear on the car stereo or in ear buds etc.. it's usually  as the mix engineer/producer intended it to be heard. 

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Mixing on good monitors is definitely better (as long as you don't obsess too much about the detail they reveal) but for me the qualities that make them good monitors make them unpleasant for general listening. For listening I usually like something that's a bit on the slow side, smooths the transients a little.  Soft, paper woofers.  Other than needing a recap, the 1970-ish AR2ax speakers I've been using since 2012 are still my favorite, and I've tried a lot of speakers over the years (I worked at a record shop for a long time so I had access to tons of them, old and new, cheap and high end). I used to mix on them before I could afford really decent monitors and they were better than the mid-level ported things I had before (first some variety of Fostex PMO, then after the amp on one of those burned out I used a pair of Event 20/20 for years - neither was that good in a less than ideal room, the ports hyped the low end up to much) but they weren't that good for it and everything I did in that period has too much high end and not enough below 60Hz or so; I actually got better results with the set of computer monitors that I had in the portastudio days, which were about like those $12 Ali Express speakers but with a sub).  But for listening, the high end rolloff and extended but not boomy (and SLOW) bass response on the ARs is great for me. I want accurate transients when I'm mixing but for just listening to music they're like chewing on tinfoil.

I guess my point is that what makes primary studio monitors good is (relatively) objective, but what makes speakers for regular listening good is almost entirely subjective.

I love my Yamaha hs5s. I check bass on a nice audiophile esque stereo system, and in my car. Details in headphones. But for monitors the hs series is so flat. M-audio colors the sound and makes you think the midrange is too hot. Krk is good, but almost too good. Too much good color, or something.

                                                                      I've been using two KRK RPG 2  8" monitors and KRK 10s 10" sub since 2009

  On 5/22/2021 at 7:59 PM, diatoms said:

                                                                      I've been using two KRK RPG 2  8" monitors and KRK 10s 10" sub since 2009

ah this is a good tip- these are in my price range and seem like they are in a tier with hs8s. thanks!

I got an used pair of Presonus Eris E5 for the living room setup and I really like how they sound just for regular listening stuff. Not sure how they work as monitors for mixing but SoS has good reviews.

JBL are pretty good.

I always recommend saving for a better pair than going for something subpar. As I've read on GS, "buy expensive, cry once ; buy cheap, cry twice"
I'd go for the Supercubes 5 by DMAX, which are absolutely stunnging (I've heard them, one of my students got a pair) : https://gearspace.com/board/product-alerts-older-than-2-months/1332400-dmax-audio-introduces-super-cubes-5-active-near-field-monitors.html
They're worth every penny, they're just picky on placement (like all monitors actually). I'd grab myself a pair if I had to grab to build a new studio.
Great monitors reduce doubts and guessing, aren't pleasing but are useful at guiding you toward a great sounding result. I've said it countless times, my monitors are 

You're not wrong, and you of course know way, way more about this than I do, but if you're at the level where you're asking WATMM for advice on affordable monitors for your hobby,  something cheap will probably be fine for the foreseeable future.

I have a pair of JBL 3's. They're not great, but if my music sucks that is not because the monitors are causing doubt and guessing.

By the way, what's this thread's opinion - is it worth to buy cheaper monitors with some room correction software like Sonarworks Reference or go with more expensive monitors and "learn the room"?

  On 5/23/2021 at 10:56 PM, thawkins said:

By the way, what's this thread's opinion - is it worth to buy cheaper monitors with some room correction software like Sonarworks Reference or go with more expensive monitors and "learn the room"?

You will always have to “learn the room”, no matter what, so better buy the best speakers that you can imo It’s much easier to treat the room later on and only then maybe to add a corrective solutions, but the good ones cost thousands; Sonarworks is a gimmick that changes the freq response but doesn’t help irl and it doesn’t do shit to phase response, actually it only makes it worse 

I don't get what you mean by phase response?
I feel like it's a lot easier to do the thing with a measurement microphone and eliminate any big resonant frequencies there might be. Because I'm realistic and I am never going to have a dedicated room that I can put bass traps and foam padding all over the place to have a studio space.

Minimal acoustic treatment + great monitors + careful placement (height / distance / angle) + moderate listening volume + understanding of the whole monitoring environnement = super useful monitoring already.

In my current studio (aka our living room), I just have 4 panels (DIY, rockwool, 120*60*10, on stands), DIY stands + IsoPucks to avoid resonance between the monitors and my desk. And it’s already super reliable.

Oh and I work at super low monitoring level 99% of time : it was a constraint at first, but now that I’m used to it I stick to it. Loud monitoring level is like walking in the streets and being surrounded by the tallest skyscrapers, while quiet monitoring is akin to looking at all the same skyscrapers from an helicopter : you can tell which is taller and overshadow the others, what’s the nicest rooftop of the block, where’s the nearest park... it’s much more insightful.

I’d rather have a laptop + great monitoring than loads of synths + subpar monitors or headphones only. 

  On 5/24/2021 at 12:27 PM, Nil said:

where’s the nearest park

you might have taken that analogy a little too far here  

might as well mention the window cleaners, the traffic jam and cows eating grass in a field  

  On 5/24/2021 at 10:39 AM, thawkins said:

I don't get what you mean by phase response?
I feel like it's a lot easier to do the thing with a measurement microphone and eliminate any big resonant frequencies there might be. Because I'm realistic and I am never going to have a dedicated room that I can put bass traps and foam padding all over the place to have a studio space.

Changing the frequency response inevitably changes the phase response of the sound, which is time distortion of the EQed frequencies = some freqs hitting speakers earlier some later than the rest of the freq spectrum (it can change the timbre too) = distortion of spacial placement of the sound = distorted picture of the music

It can only be corrected with correction systems that measures and corrects the phase response of the EDed sound and the phase response of the room and such systems cost a lot of money! So better stay away from cheap solutions and just do what Nil said.
Ruler-flat-response rooms need to be built from the ground up with special materials in special shapes, and you’d need 100.000 monies for that alone. Any other normal room will have 15-20 db dips and peaks in the sub 1000 hz range that can be correct with tons of absorbers and diffusers but never to be ruler-flat! Impossible! But dips&peaks of 5-10 db are realistically good enough if you learn the room. Yes, correction softwares can make it better from there but then again it faks with the sound too much and better just live with the peaks. imo

edit: Sonarworks has linear response option! But still to effectively correct the overall phase response it would needed to correct the phase response of the room too, which it doesn’t 

  On 5/24/2021 at 2:36 PM, xox said:

Changing the frequency response inevitably changes the phase response of the sound, which is time distortion of the EQed frequencies = some freqs hitting speakers earlier some later than the rest of the freq spectrum (it can change the timbre too) = distortion of spacial placement of the sound = distorted picture of the music

It can only be corrected with correction systems that measures and corrects the phase response of the EDed sound and the phase response of the room and such systems cost a lot of money! So better stay away from cheap solutions and just do what Nil said.
Ruler-flat-response rooms need to be built from the ground up with special materials in special shapes, and you’d need 100.000 monies for that alone. Any other normal room will have 15-20 db dips and peaks in the sub 1000 hz range that can be correct with tons of absorbers and diffusers but never to be ruler-flat! Impossible! But dips&peaks of 5-10 db are realistically good enough if you learn the room. Yes, correction softwares can make it better from there but then again it faks with the sound too much and better just live with the peaks. imo

edit: Sonarworks has linear response option! But still to effectively correct the overall phase response it would needed to correct the phase response of the room too, which it doesn’t 

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If you are talking about phase response, do you mean basically what happens if you do any EQ - i.e. some harmonics are added to the sound? Something like this

I am not sure if the thing I use does anything like that, but on the other hand the SoS review does not mention anything about phase https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/ik-multimedia-arc-25

I was really happy with my previous room and the EQ correction seemed to work well, but this one I am not so sure about yet. Of course now I decided to make a IR out of the plugin and not use it directly. Maybe this introduces some weirdness too.

I still think it's probably the best tradeoff because any kind of physical room treatment is out of the question. However maybe I should just fire up Room EQ Wizard and see what I can do by messing with the global EQ on my audio interface and the room correction options on the monitors themselves. Although the EQ on the interface might also mess with the phase...

  On 5/25/2021 at 10:55 AM, thawkins said:

If you are talking about phase response, do you mean basically what happens if you do any EQ - i.e. some harmonics are added to the sound? Something like this

I am not sure if the thing I use does anything like that, but on the other hand the SoS review does not mention anything about phase https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/ik-multimedia-arc-25

I was really happy with my previous room and the EQ correction seemed to work well, but this one I am not so sure about yet. Of course now I decided to make a IR out of the plugin and not use it directly. Maybe this introduces some weirdness too.

I still think it's probably the best tradeoff because any kind of physical room treatment is out of the question. However maybe I should just fire up Room EQ Wizard and see what I can do by messing with the global EQ on my audio interface and the room correction options on the monitors themselves. Although the EQ on the interface might also mess with the phase...

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1. Yes, generally speaking, thats the phase shift you get with eqing

2. the phase from eqing is a minuscule problem to room problems which can be solved to some degree in a normal room and it makes sense to use corrective softwares only AFTER you tried to solve the problem with physics and Sonarworks (and similar) do nothing to correcting room’s phase problems (bc every room has it too, from its shape and furniture), unless we are talking about something like trinnov systems (5-6k euros)

3. if you say no physical treatment is possible id just buy the best speaker i could afford, learn those speakers first and later maybe add a sw correction but not fully working, better 30-50% of the suggested changes 

4. also, changing the freq response of the room with any sw, which complete and expensive or not, it makes sense for smaller dips and peaks, bc big corrections bring another problems, like huge distortions of amp and speakers which can alter the performance of the speakers totally and those speakers are no longer working as they should. Correcting dips of 20 db could maybe be possible (still not recommended) on big ATC speakers costing 15-17k euros bc of the highest quality drivers and amps they use but on a cheap ones it’s just totally counterproductive to stress them out with such boosts. Freq response problems is just one problem, there are standing waves, room mods, and time related problems, and all of those affect the sound even more in an untreated room and it’s hard to solve those probs in a physically treated room with good dimensions and it’s impossible to solve in a normal room that’s not treated 

imo

What I think should be priorities.

1) Buy the best monitors you can afford and use them all the time for both critical and casual listening, as well as producing.  The accuracy vs listenability pay off can be much less of a compromise these days.  I use Hedd type 20s, they're revealing, accurate, don't fatigue and I love listening to music on them.  They're relatively expensive so they should be able to do that, but I felt the same way about my old focal cms monitors which you should be able to pick up for way less than £500 second hand.  Lots of other options.

2) Position them correctly.  The basics of listening triangle, tweeter at ear height, isolation pads apply, but still experiment within those parameters.  When I first installed my Hedds a slight height adjustment of 4" made a big difference, and got rid of their honkiness.

3) Treat the room as practically possible, but don't sweat it.

4) Use reference tracks.

5) Listen back to your tracks on alternative sources a few days after mixing, and in context with other music.

6) Give your ears a total rest now and again.  Ambient sound only for a day.  Take a walk in the countryside etc.  

Everything else (corrective software, d/a conversion, signal chain etc) is law of diminishing returns.  Up to you if you pursue them but won't make a difference to the extent they're the deciding factor whether your mixing is good or bad. 

(Once I have my second vaccine I'm getting my ears checked and cleaned out professionally if needed.  This may fit somewhere on the list).    

Just saw this photo of some advanced monitor placement and had to share.  We can all learn from this.

This thread is big brain time and I don't mean that in a snide way. 80% of it is over my head but I can tell it's rich knowledge by some pros. It's a great reference.

 I've read the entire thread and my shootout to you guys is Yamaha HS8 vs APS Klasik 2020. The HS8 pair is $749.98, APS is $1099.99. Those prices are in such a striking distance that if any of you are so convinced that the Klasik is gonna really make me feel the $350 difference, I'll do it.

I will travel for work now and will be in many random spots so elaborate treatments will not be possible. I need these fellers to meet me where I'm at. I need them to serve my production and pleasure listening needs. Bass response is a priority. Currently on Fostex PM0.4n and they are completely dead below like 1,000 Hz it seems.

Thanks all.

For headphones, I continue to swear by Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro 80ohm coupled with the Sonarworks Reference EQ normalization software to make the frequency response flat. I.e. it turns your headphones into a more "reference" mode where you hear things more accurately. Since the Beyerdynamics have a pretty beefy low end, this is ideal for me - I can hear everything nicely and the Sonarworks filter makes the low end less boomy.

I appreciate the heads up--Beyerdynamic has nearly universal acclaim in the EKT world. I like my AKGs for the most part currently. I just need some bass *somewhere* and I've decided monitors get the attention for now. I know where to go next for the cans!

Sorry, I wanted to write more in my previous post but forgot to.

I think I wrote about cans because it's a way way more cheaper investment than monitors. Personally I have had HS8's in the past and I really liked them (especially listening to music on them), but I am not so sure whether they are so good for accurate monitoring.

So I would go with the APS if you are torn between the two.

For a 3rd option, now I am using Neumann KH120A which are also surprisingly nice and I have no feeling like I need more low end. Those are more in the price category of the APS so should be similar.