Studio monitor audition went poorly, suggestions?

[swt61]

Going balls deep is always good advice!

[Audio Jester]

ROFL! That is kind of my M.O., I was trying to be more restrained this time around.

.... It is very tempting though.

[grawk]

if you're coming here looking to not take the "optimum" path, you're probably in the wrong place.

[aardvark baguette]

fun discovery made yesterday: if you sit on the floor you get nice tactile response with the ATCs.  

[dreamwhisper]

In regards to something like the Adam A5x, stay away from front bass ports if you're in a small room with parallel walls, that will just muddy your sound considerably.
Even if you sound treat the wall and ceiling with carpet it just won't do enough. We had a mini-station with a system like this at my college.

For recreation listening, the BlueSky MediaDesk isn't terrible. But it sounds best in a small room and at lower listening leves.
I made a review for it on head-fi. Anyway we made the mistake of using it in our then fledgling studio for a project and it is just terrible for that haha.
Since then, and other experiences with cheaper set-ups, 8' midrange woofer and 10" subwoofer are my lower limit for serious mixing.

When it comes to recreational listening I'm a little bias though.  I like clarity in the highs, because that's where I get my cues for the creation of soundstaging and space, basically within the reverb of the higher frequencies. To me, that combined with a somewhat euphonic subwoofer is my recreational favorite.
It's why, aside from Stax, I'm also an Audio-Technica fanboy. Sorry haha.

Anyway, one thing to consider: the beauty of a 2.1 powered system is the ability to add a DAC of your choice without worrying about an amp changing the signal. I really liked how the Sonic Frontiers Mfd-2 could completely change the style of the neutral Mackie HR-824, and make it tube-euphonic and really sing rather well.
It had shortcomings, you could hear some slight muddiness to the tubes in the low end, but you really just have to forgive small things like that when it comes to making your music sound alive, holographic.
One of the most exciting discoveries I've come across in audio so far other than stax.

I have yet to hear this local guy's 60k setup with Magneplanar speakers, so I will no doubt eat my words. But those according to him those are really directional as well and only 2 people can really listen at the optimal point at once.
Anyways, a tube DAC seems to cheat the directionality of powered monitors, and I'm not sure why that is.
You can forget about it and dance around, then come back to the speaker if you want to hear like a super clear passage of euphonic saxophone or whatever you're listening to.
Inevitably you have to try turn off the euphony tho when you're watching action movies, because there's only so much you can revel in midrange prescence at the expense of bass clarity, even if that is what carries non-electronic music 90% of the time.

TL;DR: Try get monitors with variable crossover, in case you add a subwoofer later. If you can audition both Mackie's and Genelec's together you could see if the Genelec is worth the price to you. Try not go bankrupt like my magneplanar friend :S
Avoid front bass ports on monitors if you have any parallel walls or a small room. It's just bad.
Any of the Genelec 8' woofer nearfields will work ime. I haven't seen anything less than an 8" midrange woofer reproduce the lower midrange properly.

Oh and most mid-range (1k) studio DAC's should sound decent with monitors, unlike the Stax 02, which quite frankly shits on most DAC's.

Edited May 14, 2014 by dreamwhisper

[Dusty Chalk]

In regards to something like the Adam A5x, stay away from front bass ports if you're in a small room with parallel walls, that will just muddy your sound considerably.

Even if you sound treat the wall and ceiling with carpet it just won't do enough. We had a mini-station with a system like this at my college.

...

TL;DR: ...Avoid front bass ports on monitors if you have any parallel walls or a small room. It's just bad.

 

What?  How do bass ports on the front have anything to do with standing waves in your room?  You'll have standing waves based on the room, not on the speakers.  Bass frequencies will "accumulate", no matter where they come from, if the problem room is prone to standing waves.  Doesn't matter if the ports are on the front or on the back or if you don't have any at all.

[dreamwhisper]

Just talking from experience.
Plenty of high end studios have built-in wall systems with front ports, but only when the walls aren't parallel.
My studio has non-parrallel walls and a floating floor, and I still wouldn't touch that on any nearfields.
I clarify later in the post I'm talking about nearfields, not wall-mounted ones in custom-renovated studios.

But yeah I've had the most problems with bass in terms of distrupting details in a mix. And yes any non-parallel walls are an issue. Bass is just the nastiest.
The back ports aren't literally in your face, where you can't have a bass trap, and it's bouncing around the room.
I guess since bass is felt almost as much as heard, that's why it's the most important to control.

Edited May 12, 2014 by dreamwhisper

[Dusty Chalk]

My point stands, it has nothing to do with the front ports. Did you find the problems went away when you switched to monitors with the same frequency response but rear ports or no ports (sealed or passive radiator)? I doubt it.

The Quad 12L have front ports, but I've never had a problem with them, because they have no bass.

Sent from mah phone-blet via Tapatalk

[dreamwhisper]

Well, at some point I need to hear details in the mix so no I need to be able to cut the sub woofer out of the chain.
I thought by using the term standing waves you were referring to the custom built or custom treated studio room.

Yeah for recreational listening I'm sure it's fine. It's all good. Whatever sounds good.

But if in the future you're going to invest in a sub, try get one that is pointing down, not out to the side. I've noticed a big improvement in reducing standing waves, though I haven't had the chance to audition that many subs.

[Dusty Chalk]

But if in the future you're going to invest in a sub, try get one that is pointing down, not out to the side. I've noticed a big improvement in reducing standing waves, though I haven't had the chance to audition that many subs.

  I don't think you understand the physics of standing waves, man.  They have to reflect -- at least once -- before it's a standing wave, so it's initial trajectory should have nothing to do with it.

[Dreadhead]

Dusty I think he may be right though he does not seem to understand why. I believe that down facing subs are more omnidirectional so while the energy is reflected and creates the standing wave there is less energy to feed it and it is less noticeable. With side firing more energy is going towards the wall and is in phase so the resonance builds far more quickly.

In my day to day the waves are water waves but the theory is the same.

[dreamwhisper]

Ears rest on a horizontal plane largely, side to side.
Objects in a room are vertical.

Thanks Dreadhead. Yeah I really can't explain what I hear. Does it have to do with sound getting caught behind objects and aligning in phase, as you say?
I know nothing about how these kinds of dynamics work.
Well, I'm aware that bass traps work best placed in corners, so maybe that isn't far from what's going on.

I'm curious how exactly you measure the directionality of your ears. Is there a way you can measure the direction a wave is traveling or just it's SPL at a given frequency.

Edited May 13, 2014 by dreamwhisper

[Dusty Chalk]

Dusty I think he may be right though he does not seem to understand why. I believe that down facing subs are more omnidirectional so while the energy is reflected and creates the standing wave there is less energy to feed it and it is less noticeable. With side firing more energy is going towards the wall and is in phase so the resonance builds far more quickly.

In my day to day the waves are water waves but the theory is the same.

For the same exact position, I could see your point, but wouldn't it also be a function of where you place the sub?  And wouldn't you therefore place them in different places?  I will of course defer until I know more, it just doesn't sit with me, intuitively.

 

dw, in answer to your very legitimate question -- directionality is basically a function of the distance between your ears, as the brain calculates it based on both amplitude and phase, and is not something you can actually measure with one mic, for example.  And it doesn't just magically drop off when it hits a frequency, it just very quickly drops off once it starts getting around that frequency, since sine waves don't usually occur in nature, and the brain will use everything it has to try to calculate the direction of a sound.  It will also combine sight with an internal physical modelling engine to compensate for the physics of the room/cathedral/open space/cave/cardboard box/anechoic chamber/what-have-you.  If it has enough information in any one area, it'll use that (for example, you don't need that last one at all -- you can close your eyes and still be able to tell where a sound is coming from if it's very clear where it's coming from sonically). 

 

Look up standing waves.  The physics of it are pretty typical physics (non-real-world, everything over simplified and over-generalized), whereas what dh is talking about is the real world application of physics, so kind of the next level beyond standard understanding of standing waves.

 

No, sounds do not get caught behind objects, it's a by-product of the math.  Sounds are localized variations in air pressure that move as waves in the audible frequency spectrum.  They do not get stuck, they either transmit, transfer/absorb, or (eventually) dissipate.  If they get stuck/stop moving, then they're not in the audible frequency spectrum.

Chris, feel free to correct anything if I misspoke.

[Matt_Carter]

When I was in the process of converting to studio monitors I was amazed by how horrible they all sounded at audition. Like with you, the only one that sounded decent to me were the Neumann's. It wasn't until I got a pair home that I realized how special they really were. 

Setting them up for near field listening, finding the sweet spot between the two, and the sweet spot in the room; I am immersed in the most amazing stage and imaging I've ever heard. Not only do they have great imaging and stage but they are extremely neutral... but only in this sweet spot. They're extremely picky with positioning, even if they're too far away you loose everything.. even neutrality. 

A guitar store might not have the ideal conditions to gauge their potential.

What's wrong with taking those Neumann KH120 home and listen to them the way they were meant to be heard and return them if you cant get them to work for you?  

 

To me nearfield's are the happy medium between your traditional speakers and headphones. With nearfields you can get up close and personal to hear all the things headphones offer with out making your ears bleed. I think they're great. 

[Audio Jester]

... A guitar store might not have the ideal conditions to gauge their potential.

What's wrong with taking those Neumann KH120 home and listen to them the way they were meant to be heard and return them if you cant get them to work for you?...

That's a valid point. FTR it was a store focused on studio mixing and live music production, not a guitar store. I had assumed that a store with such a decent room setup for testing was going to reveal what these speakers can achieve, but I think you are right about it not being the best environment as my experience was quite different from the many reviews I had read. I didn't want to waste any more of their time so that is why I decided to leave without a home demo. Maybe it seems odd but when I buy gear I need to have an immediate connection with the sound. I feel that as I would be using these in a less than perfect room the chance of the sound becoming dramatically better is unlikely. I hope to do some more listening sessions soon, a place near me has a huge range of Quads and a few other bookshelfs.

[Dusty Chalk]

My main work computer speakers were a pair of Quad 12L actives.  I had them on either side of the monitor, slightly toed in, and up on 3 reams of paper as speaker stands.  That aimed the tweeters right at my ears.  Ridiculously good setup.  Oh, I have a sub now, maybe I should try to recreate that again, instead of the Dynaudios.  Hrm...(debates internally with self)...

 

I'm telling you this because...don't be shy about putting yourself in the sweet spot when you go in to audition.  One of the good things about nearfield listening is that the room interacts less with things like first reflections, but edge effects are more pronounced.