Expensive monitors? Save your money Old Dude

[lesmac]

This is ....interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgEjI5PZa78

[Kolstad]

Seems to me these tests are set up in a way, where those who claims to hear a difference needs to convince those who cant hear the difference, that they can hear what the others cant. I doubt anyone will ever succeed in convincing someone that they can have experiences others cant, so there is a psychological bias built into this way of reasoning.

Of course you can use this to justify that you dont need as much gear, space ect. But at the end of the day, if you think you can hear a difference, and that inspires you to make better sounding production, it doesnt really matter if it is true or false in any objective sense.

Im not taking sides in who can hear what, Im just questioning these tests, because the point of it is not really clear and there are so many variables not accurately accounted for.

Every recording is already a sample in Wav format, and I find it really hard to believe that less representation of information in a recording is desireable, if the goal is to produce the best quality possible. It is certainly not the approach recent sample libraries have taken.

[Len911]

I'm not sure I agree with his reasoning or conclusions. Mp3's purpose is to trim the data, hopefully in a way that listener's don't notice, but it's not going to work all the time in all cases. Mixing is mostly about balancing the amplitude amongst the different parts. It's not necessarily necessary to eq everything, and if everything is high and low passed it doesn't matter anyway. You can get away with not hearing a lot, because you aren't mixing sine waves from scratch, so pretty much every instrument is going to sound like their respective instruments. Monitors contribute nothing to the sound, they can only cause people to take measures that would impact the sound either in a positive or negative way, that's why they are reference, and it's more about knowing the shortcomings or characteristics of your monitors.

I realize it wasn't a scientific test, but perfect pitch and the ability to hear at the extreme spectrum of the hearing range? It's arguable that there is even a thing as perfect pitch, and could she tell if it was high passed and at what frequency, or harmonic?? The tester didn't listen all the way through each example. Did she even get to a cymbal crash, which may have been a better example of the difference between the mp3's and wav?

It's not that I totally disagree with a lot of what he said. A lot of it has to do with relativity, that's why I can still enjoy a Billie Holiday
song recorded in the '30's streaming on youtube.

[andygabrys]

Well believing or disbelieving any of those videos (the high end monitors and the perfect pitch in adults) requires you to align your way of thinking with his and “drink the kool aid” or not.

I think everything he said makes a lot of sense, and aptly describes how a lot of things are.

The only really important things to take away:

You can make a great record even on crappy gear if you know what to listen for and can reference,

And,

Having perfect pitch isn’t as important in the grand scheme as developing great relative pitch (which absolutely can be developed) as we don’t make music in a microtonal system in the West.

[cosmicdolphin]

Plenty of great records mixed on NS-10s and Auratones....the big speakers are just there to impress the clients

[Len911]

Plenty of great records mixed on NS-10s and Auratones....the big speakers are just there to impress the clients

I have NS-10s, but I thought they were status symbols, I've never mixed any great records on them!

[mojobone]

All it really means is that there's no money above 15kHz. Should you buy better monitors? Not if your goal is to hear what goes on at 18kHz, because you simply can't, if you're over forty. The really critical frequencies are in the midrange, which is why many smart mixers use Auratones. I believe there's far too much emphasis placed on frequency response as opposed to time-domain response, which is one of the secrets behind the lauded Yamaha NS10s. Mike Senior has explicitly and quite correctly laid out the reasons we shouldn't be using ported monitor speakers at all, but how many non-ported dedicated active monitors are available under $1500/pr? In short, you probably can't even afford a monitor that doesn't exhibit some amount of port-ringing.

However if you have eleven and a half grand lying about, you might consider investing in these: https://tapeop.com/reviews/gear/120/kii ... -monitors/