Really flat monitors

Supposedly, or perhaps realistically, there is no such thing as flat speakers. 

I would suggest a reading of Mike Seniors Book Mixing Secrets for the small studio.   It has. I think 2 or 3 of the opening chapters which deal with this very topic and why it's nearly impossible to find flat speakers and especially in the ones that are in the "affordable" price range and used in 99% of all home studios. 

If you have "ported" speakers (and who doesn't?) they are not flat. The book has pictures of some 3D graphic models to show the frequency responses of several of the more popular "affordable" speaker frequency curves. Not pretty if you're expecting a flat response. 

If I remember the chapters correctly, just about everything under $1000 fits into this category. 

The advice I give to people seeking studio monitors is to visit the stores and compare the models side by side with the same musical material through them. They will ALL sound slightly different. they will all have some sort of sound coloration. My advice is to pick the ones that sound the best to you, take them home, try them out, and if you still like the sound at home, learn the strengths and weaknesses and the coloration and bias so that you can mix relatively well. 

The book is a good investment BTW. 

What you need is at least some degree of room treatment. Period.

The better you do that, the better ANY speaker will sound.

The biggest investment in terms of room treatment is not $$$, but time. You can do a lot of serious DYO, if you get into it deep enough (and there's brilliant literature out there). Mind you, it might take quite a while as this is an iterative process (unless you emply a seasoned/expensive acoustian in the first place) and you need a spare room (as the bedroom might no longer be a bedroom afterwards).

Only afterwards you should think about spending $$$ on flat speakers. In a poor room the best speakers will sound like crap.

ARC is good and does help, but it's the cream on top of everything else. It's not the be all, end all solution to circumvent room treatment. With ARC you should either use always or not at all. You need to learn how your envirnment sounds (listen to commercial mixes!!!) and then mix in it and get better with every knob you turn. Switching a plug on/off may just be more confusing than not using it at all. I do own a copy of ARC; I used it a lot in the old room; it did help, but after proper room treatment I could do without it.

This just a short summary of the recommendations that I got when I raised the same question years ago ...

As already stated, there is no such thing as a "flat" monitor.  If you find a set with a flat response chart, there are a couple conditions to that.  First, they've used some amount of averaging, there will be very narrow peaks and dips that are way outside of +-3dB if you chart detailed enough.  Second, that measurement is done without room interaction.

Also as mentioned, your room will have way more influence than the speakers themselves.  You'll be better off spending money on difusers, bass traps and other acoustic treatments.  Bass traps are the most useful, because the long wavelengths of bass and standing waves in your room are by far the biggest problems.

EQ is not a good method for correcting these things.  Many of the issues are time based, such as early reflections or woofer / tweeter phase and delay issues.  There is no EQ in the world that will compensate for that.  Standing waves in low frequencies are also simply way too large of a variance to compensate with EQ, and to top it off the EQ would only be valid at the exact position you've placed your measurement mic.

Also, wishing for a full 20-20kHz of flat response is really over the top.  Producing output down to 20 requires some huge amounts of air movement.  A full range monitor will never get there, unless you're into $10,000 soffit systems and are willing to put that much or more into your room acoustics.  If you're looking at full range monitors, you'll do OK with at least an 8" woofer and you'll realistically get down to 40 or 50Hz in your room.  If you need that last octave, you'll have to go with a subwoofer or use a spectrum analyzer.

Ultimately it comes down to learning your monitors by listening to well produced material that you know very well how it should sound.  Move your mixes to as many systems as possible, headphones, home theaters, cars, crappy boom boxes, iPod docks... everything you can try.  Listen to your mixes over and over again, and when you hear something, change it and start over.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Guitarhacker


If you have "ported" speakers (and who doesn't?) they are not flat. The book has pictures of some 3D graphic models to show the frequency responses of several of the more popular "affordable" speaker frequency curves. Not pretty if you're expecting a flat response. 

I think you may have misunderstood the point of that chapter, Herb. A ported speaker can be as flat as a closed box speaker but the extra low-end extension comes at the cost of time-domain accuracy. 

The question is, however, how big a portion of mix decisions made by the average home producer would be affected by innacurate low-end timing? I'm guessing that, considering you're getting a flat freq response down to, say 50 Hz instead of 70 Hz, a little low-end flamming is a fair price to pay!



Sven

@SvenArne "The question is, however, how big a portion of mix decisions made by the average home producer would be affected by innacurate low-end timing? I'm guessing that, considering you're getting a flat freq response down to, say 50 Hz instead of 70 Hz, a little low-end flamming is a fair price to pay! Sven " I tend to agree. There is a point (quite low for me) where the law of diminishing returns means that I have to be realistic about just how big time I really am! (HAHAHA)

@freeflybertl "The biggest investment in terms of room treatment is not $$$, but time. " From a past poor life I really get this. I have used foam and blankets many times. :D

Yes I find most of the new breed of monitors are bass heavy, It's because of the music most home studios are producing now a days. 

I know they no longer make the Yamaha NSM 10 but I believe there is a new model that has replaced them and the huge community of NSM 10 owners are more or less agreed that they are close enough to the original to be worth it. Sorry I won't quote the model number , don't have time to look it up should be easy to find. 

An adding to this all important discussion. The speaker stands themselves change things quite a lot. I know we have been through this before  but putting my speakers on concrete stands was amazing. A lot of coloured bottom end just goes away and it all turns into well balanced transparent and clear bottom end that goes lower. 

Most stuff in my studio stopped vibrating and the sound just seems to come direct to you from the drivers themselves. It is quite good like that. You should put some 40 Hz test tones in your room (loud, don't be afraid!) and feel what else is vibrating. This is the stuff that generates extra sound (on top of sound bouncing off surfaces) and it all adds usually in a bad way to your frequency response. Once you stop it all your sound changes quite a bit.

As a result of the bottom end changing I got a mid range push and extra top end. All of this for free by just putting the speakers on stands and off your equipment table all together. It sounded like I went out and bought a new and different pair of monitors.

Listening to high quality reference material in your final set up is vital. It helps you align your mixes to those that have been done in near perfect conditions. It is easy and cheap to do. Make sure you are switching over to reference material at any point during a mix and mastering especially. It sort of pushes the importance of the room acoustics away a bit. You don't need ARC to use this approach either. It is training your ears to know what really great mixed and mastered material sounds like in your environment. That is really all you need to know.

I'm sorry but I don't buy into the room being as important as all seem to make out. Of course it is important but, I have used my NMS 10 in dozens of rooms, The majority of them way less than ideal. Only my purpose built studio was what would have been called tuned. 
But that is always the amazing thing about them, The mixes are always accurate. 
I think it might be because I have learned to listen to them and know what I'm going to get and that they are more or less as flat as your going to get. You need to sit within 3' -4' to achieve this. 
I think the room factor is very important for far field monitors but not as critical for near fields. And most important is you need to know your tools and what they do. 
If your fighting getting a mix that does not translate to other systems, you need to look into a different set of NEAR FIELD monitors firstly. Your room secondly. Your ears thirdly :) ( just my opinion that's all)  

wogg

Cactus Music


...You need to sit within 3' -4' to achieve this. 
I think the room factor is very important for far field monitors but not as critical for near fields. And most important is you need to know your tools and what they do. 
If your fighting getting a mix that does not translate to other systems, you need to look into a different set of NEAR FIELD monitors firstly. Your room secondly. Your ears thirdly :) ( just my opinion that's all)  

That is the whole point of near fields, to minimize the room's role in the sound.  That works well for midrange and high frequencies, particularly if you set them up correctly.  The main thing near fields cannot address is low frequency response in a room, the wavelengths are just too long and the room cannot be avoided.  NS10's have crap low frequency extension so that probably wasn't a problem for you

Well said, wogg. 


Nearfields increase the ratio of direct to reflected sound by placing the direct source closer to your ears and by offering a narrower spread. But that won't help in the slightest below around 500Hz, where resonances dominate. 

The spectral differences between a high-quality speaker and a mediocre speaker may only be 2 or 3 decibels' variance. The spectral anomalies caused by room resonances can easily be 10 to 30 decibels or more. You tell me which is more significant.

WOW! I might just go back to the cans and then tweaking on various home/car/camper systems. There seems to be so much "feeling" about what is good and what is bad and rooms vs speakers etc, I really do wonder if the use of cans that accentuate everything(compared to room listening), and just getting used to how the mix sounds "in the real world" is just a lot simpler and more accurate than bothering with NF monitors. That was how I worked before, and I was Ok with it. However I was concerned that cans give too dramatic a mix. But given the amount and depths of feeling, the fact that the NS 10's are a legend for all of their really awful behaviour in the bass region, and all the personal opinion about monitors, to which I add the controversy about room dynamics

mackie mk1 824's that I have , came with calibration charts for each speaker.. dunno if others who own em remember that... they are like certain electronics where there is an acceptable tolerance + / - 


because they were expensive , I don't use them for every day stuff or early production. I use 2 other sets , which were cheaper and I'd rather they got damaged tbh.

bitflipper


Sorry, there's no easy way out. Cans avoid one set of problems but bring a host of other problems.

THIS.^^^


you will always be chasing your tail with this, until you get some decent monitors.
and that's only the start.....

Fog


mackie mk1 824's that I have , came with calibration charts for each speaker.. dunno if others who own em remember that... they are like certain electronics where there is an acceptable tolerance + / - 


because they were expensive , I don't use them for every day stuff or early production. I use 2 other sets , which were cheaper and I'd rather they got damaged tbh.

i don't get the point here? why are you afraid of damaging the speakers? they are pretty strong animals and with a monitor controller at your desk to turn them down when unplugging gear there should be no danger ...
 
i would use them all them time to get the best sound and most reliable reproduction of incoming signals / recorded material from the first second I start micing up / push record ...
 
 

I'm in the old habit of turning my levels off during shut down, I monitor through my 01v so I mute the master.  I don't touch the power amp as it is underneath my desk and I turn it on and off with the power bar,  the volume ( attenuation)  is set at 3 o clock.  It's and old Yamaha p2100 and must have a soft start relay as I never hear it kick in.