Hopefully I'll Understand This !!

Hi,
I've put a couple of threads about monitors on the forum, now I just need to understand totally
before I commit to about $700 worth of Yamaha HS 80M's
The main reason, if I've got this correct, that I get two different sounds (usually a little more bassy through my phones)
is because my little Edirol MA-7A monitors do not give me a true sound, therefore to get a true sound, I need a good
set of monitors, to give me a sound, that will sound similar out of both my monitors and my phones, right !!!
Hope this makes sense !!!
 
Thanks
John
  

You won't get the same sound out of both.
Monitors will help save your hearing a little better then using just Headphones.
 
With Monitors, you must have the room setup perfect or you will get all kinds of bad bass response for certian frequencies.  This takes a lot of floor space to achieve and most people (like myself) don't have that kind of room (thats why you need to send out to have mastering done at a pro studio).
 
My monitors came with a certificate of calibration having a flat frequency response from 20 to 20k but that still does not correct for the room being off.
 
Also, the average person doesn't listen to music with monitors so you will not get what most people hear anyhow.  Another way would be to listen to the mix on different sources.
 
Yes - get monitors to save your hearing but unless you have the room set up right you won't get the proper mix.  If you choose headphones (I don't recomend for listening all the time but I do use) you will need high end headphones that cost at least $300+ with he mix set up for headphone monitoring.
 
Hope this helps.

HS80M baby! FTW! R

It is correct to say that there's no such thing as "true sound". However, the better your monitors, the fewer surprises you will get on different systems and the better your mixes will "travel". Indeed, this is the entire point of investing in monitors. The notion that monitors are to "save your hearing" is not one I've come across before and can't make any sense of (no offence meant, but I think it's probably unhelpful / confusing / incorrect). 

The point of reference for your own music doesn't come from comparing itself through either monitors or headphones. It comes from comparing music you think sounds good and well recorded, to your own music, through either monitors or headphones. They will never sound the same, but they do both have a use. A/B with well recorded material to see how well your listening devices hold up.

The Yamahas are great.

I have heard Ricos, and the blew me away.

Keep in mind, in regards to room true sound, a tuned treated room is very importatnt too, but I guarantee the yamahas are going to change your world either way.

Lance

I love my HS80s, I really do. 

John T is right.

The room can play a big role when any standard loud speakers are used. Assuming they are high fidelity speakers. However the whole point of near field monitors is that the room has a limited impact on the sound if set up properly.

Room treatment is useful when a real problem is found but one shouldn't be treating a room with out an analysis of the room first. One could very easily cause more problems with improper treatment. Also its not a simple thing to do either.
 One real problem with newer buildings is resonances from the walls and other noises from how poorly the room is built.

A good set of near fields should sound good no matter what room they are in in most cases all things being equal.

One thing that is vital is to audition them before one buys anything. Compare them and buy the ones that sound to you best. This is one area where you really have to hit the pavement. Do not go by what others say. You must listen for yourself.

You should have very familiar material when you listen but also a wide range too.  Become acquainted with speaker issues. Transient response, doubling, phase distortion, and frequency peaking. Plus ringing and damping. Listen to them at a level you intend to use in your studio.  Be aware of the room you audition in as well. Is it live or is it dead. Is it a a square or rectangular or odd shaped  High or low ceilings. What are the walls made of. All this plays a role in how you will hear the frequencies but also let you know how your studio stacks up. 

The last thing is no speaker can reproduce all frequencies purely flat so look into a good 31 band  graphic equalizer. This can be the most important item to tame an otherwise good speaker into a great one. It can also help with room acusitics. If after you find that that is unable to give you a full spectrum sound than its time to look into room treatment. 

If all is fairly good with the monitoring than your headphones should not sound so very different from your monitors.

That's an excellent point.

John


John T is right.

The room can play a big role when any standard loud speakers are used. Assuming they are high fidelity speakers. However the whole point of near field monitors is that the room has a limited impact on the sound if set up properly.
 

Hmm. Don't quite agree with this. The room always has an impact. All I was saying is that anything along the lines of "there's no point unless you treat your room and get this and add that and spiral off into financial madness based on what some guy said on a forum" seems like bad advice to me. 
 
All I'm advocating here is that this can be approached in a series of simple and cost effective steps.
 
 

Room treatment is useful when a real problem is found but one shouldn't be treating a room with out an analysis of the room first. One could very easily cause more problems with improper treatment. Also its not a simple thing to do either.
One real problem with newer buildings is resonances from the walls and other noises from how poorly the room is built.

Again, I think there's something to this in a theoretical sense, but in the real world of spare bedroom studios, every room has real problems, and they all include broadband absroption issues, which are always more problematic at the bottom end. So you can do a lot of messing around, or you can just go out and buy a few RealTraps (or build your pown equivalent) and stick them in the corners and get on with your day.

Hoping to precisely acoustically tune a domestic spare room strikes me as Quixotic at best. I reckon a lot of money and time gets wasted by the home recordist squeezing that extra 0.0000001% out of their room setups.
 

 
A good set of near fields should sound good no matter what room they are in in most cases all things being equal.

In the sense that better speakers will sound better than worse speakers, I agree. But there's no speaker in the world that sounds great in an echoey concrete garage. The room is masively important. But it's more important to be realistic about what's achievable, get it done, and get on with recording and mixing.

One thing that is vital is to audition them before one buys anything. Compare them and buy the ones that sound to you best. This is one area where you really have to hit the pavement. Do not go by what others say. You must listen for yourself.
 

Totally agree with this.

John


John T is right.

The room can play a big role when any standard loud speakers are used. Assuming they are high fidelity speakers. However the whole point of near field monitors is that the room has a limited impact on the sound if set up properly.

Room treatment is useful when a real problem is found but one shouldn't be treating a room with out an analysis of the room first. One could very easily cause more problems with improper treatment. Also its not a simple thing to do either.
One real problem with newer buildings is resonances from the walls and other noises from how poorly the room is built.

I can't agree with that statement.  With a little information, anyone can treat a room for flutter echo and early reflections with almost no chance of making the problem worse, and this will help with monitoring accuracy in the mids & highs.  The average home recordist or home studio owner is unlikely to have the budget to get a room analysed by an acoustician, but can still do an awful lot to improve room acoustics.

A good set of near fields should sound good no matter what room they are in in most cases all things being equal. 

Again, I just don't agree.  Having now built a couple of studios and heard a single set of near field monitors on several rooms, even nearfields will sound very different room to room, particularly in regard to low frequency response.

One thing that is vital is to audition them before one buys anything. Compare them and buy the ones that sound to you best. This is one area where you really have to hit the pavement. Do not go by what others say. You must listen for yourself.

You should have very familiar material when you listen but also a wide range too.  Become acquainted with speaker issues. Transient response, doubling, phase distortion, and frequency peaking. Plus ringing and damping. Listen to them at a level you intend to use in your studio.  Be aware of the room you audition in as well. Is it live or is it dead. Is it a a square or rectangular or odd shaped  High or low ceilings. What are the walls made of. All this plays a role in how you will hear the frequencies but also let you know how your studio stacks up. 

Doesn't this contradict what you said about near-field sounding good in any room?

The last thing is no speaker can reproduce all frequencies purely flat so look into a good 31 band  graphic equalizer. This can be the most important item to tame an otherwise good speaker into a great one. It can also help with room acusitics. If after you find that that is unable to give you a full spectrum sound than its time to look into room treatment.

I agree an EQ can help correct speaker non-linearity, but it can't help with room acoustics, because room acoustics are always time-domain problems.  If you EQ for your listening position and then move your chair even a few inches, you'd need to EQ again - just not practical.  

If all is fairly good with the monitoring than your headphones should not sound so very different from your monitors.

This might be true if you have your monitors in an anechoic chamber, but otherwise, no, your monitors will rarely ever sound like your headphone mix.  Monitors in a room create all kinds of complex phasing interactions that just don't exist with headphones - and we haven't even started talking about imaging.

It's kind of hard to say this without offending anyone, but in the hopes of saving jwh a bit of time and money: this isn't a great thread. There's a lot in it that's misleading or incorrect. Probably the best thing to do would be to slow down a bit and try to read up some more on the subject before spending money. And try to fit your decision somewhat to your needs and circumstances. For example, Bitflipper's point above about front vs. rear ports is far more pertinent than most of the other stuff here (including my own posts).

I've read from more than one respected author that you should be prepared to spend as much money treating your room as you do on your monitors.

Then plug ARC in afterwards, if you're that way inclined.

Per bitflipper comment on rear bass porting: this is why I went with the KRK G2 Rockit 8's (500$/pair) and I'm very pleased with them. Prior to those I used rear ported JBL4410's for over 20 years. Good luck OP on your quest.

The main reason, if I've got this correct, that I get two different sounds (usually a little more bassy through my phones) is because my little Edirol MA-7A monitors do not give me a true sound, therefore to get a true sound, I need a good set of monitors, to give me a sound, that will sound similar out of both my monitors and my phones, right !!!

 
The smaller monitors don't reproduce what's happening in the sub-bass frequencies.
Thus, the reason why your mixes sound more "bassy" on the headphones.
 
With studio monitors, you're looking for accuracy... vs. flattery (which is common in most home/hi-fi speakers).
The more accurate the studio monitors present the audio... the more accurately you can tweak the mix.
It's hard to fix problems if you can hear/identify them. 
 
As was mentioned, you also need to become very familiar with your studio monitors.
None are completely accurate... thus you need to learn (and adjust to) their tendencies.