Don't only go by price and certainly not those with enhanced bass.
Finally, the question: what can I do about that? How can I get a better idea of how other people will be hearing something that I produced? Should I buy one of those super ultra mega bass headphones and accept that as the standard? Does everybody listen to music that way? I doubt it. Come on. What do you suggest in this situation?
I think the magic words are "that translate well".
- not to sound good
Legendary Yamaha NS10 monitors were said to not sound so good, but when getting it as good as it gets, it sounded really good and balanced on other devices.
A lot of wisdom from cnt, just adding that.
I had a lot of frustration mixing with some general purpose phones, and then in hifi speakers, in the car, mobile phone in ear stuff.
- I had to redo final mix so many times I really needed a solution.
- just boring and time consuming redo it for every song
I searched internet for tips for phones that translate well.
- I tested one that was adviced but it sounded crap
- when getting the second pair as adviced sounding crap the coin dropped
- phones were 250 ohm and phones out on interface did not do that well
- so learned about headphone preamps
In my case Sennheiser HD650 with a headphone preamp Pro-Ject Headbox S were the keeper.
- $300 + $100 total cost at the time, 10 years ago
It''s not just about getting enough volume, it's also about driver of phones can drive full frequency range.
- you may feel volume is enough
- but frequency response not linear anymore as heard
My monitors are not a big brand available everywhere, so don't mention those.
- but the choice was based on a review of those
- one guy said that he really heard how different recording quality there were on various records he had on his shelf.
- the coin dropped, this is what it's about, hearing differences
Many hifi gear for listening in general are fixing up by boosting bass, many like that.
Monitor can to some degree be evaluated with waterfall graphs.
Check out this document about NS10 monitors
https://dt7v1i9vyp3mf.cloudfront.net/as ... /ns10m.pdf
Many interesting comparison graphs over monitors of various brands.
So when signal stop the speaker cone should stop too as soon as possible.
- you see comparison with NS10 which is very shallow
- waterfall graph is not so deep, but almost flat
- those that are deep, it takes a long time for cone to stop at that frequency
- this means when a certain signal disappear, no matter which frequency, cone stops too
- so nothing added to music signal which is complex
This is example of what I read called
- consistent in frequency domain as well as time domain
- this is nerd stuff I don't fully understand but can be summed up shortly
- when you make a certain adjustment of eq you hear that change exactly as it is
Cheap stuff not meant for mixing will blur that up to sound as pleasent as possible making up for inconsistencies in speakers.
- and as cnt pointed out, resonances in your room can trick you the same way
- so room treatment might be needed for monitors if you have trouble on another device getting good balance of your mix.
Looking for mixing monitors check that there are options to adjust those on monitors themselves.
- if close to a wall, often general adjustment from 300 Hz and below
- boost or drop some bass, mid or treble etc
- it helps and separate mixing monitors from hifi speakers
Even plugging ports, if having any, makes a difference to frequency response.
- pic below on my monitors
- plugging port can make frequency response different
- in my case a bass port that can be plugged as needed
- my monitor is plugged more close to wall since a wall boost bass a bit
- this actually works
Some stuff I picked up....
Statistics: Posted by lfm — Tue Oct 29, 2024 4:48 am