...no such thing as flat speakers

True fact. Even if you spend $100k on speakers, they will exhibit spectral anomalies as well as intermodulation distortion, ringing and heat-related changes. Just less of them.


Another true fact: it is entirely possible to make great records with mediocre speakers. It just takes room treatment, proper placement, referencing alternate speakers, and - most important - ear training.

If you spend enough time listening to a pair of speakers, assuming the room isn't deceiving you too badly, eventually your ears will come to "know" what a good record sounds like on them. All you have to do then is match that sound and you're home free.

Of course, there will be some frequencies that cheap speakers just can't reproduce, especially at the extreme low end. No problem. Start by filtering most of those frequencies out. You don't need them. Then use a visual aid to see if the lows you left in are too much or too little.

@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

SvenArne

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

No, I did understand it but it has been probably close to a year since I read it... there is a certain time domain accuracy associated with precise memory recollection too..... point taken though... thanks 

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. 

The irony is that if you buy bass-heavy monitors because you make bass-heavy music, it will have exactly the opposite effect from what you wanted, and your mixes will be bass-light! Whatever your monitors reproduce best is what your mixes will lack.

That, of course, is exactly why the OP is looking for flat monitors. As long as he's using them while sitting outdoors on a 50'-high platform, they'll continue to be flat. 

But as soon as you decide that a roof is a necessary addition to the studio, the speakers are now no longer in command. If you have walls, ceiling and a floor, you have an acoustical environment that will affect the frequency response - to a far, far greater extent than the speakers themselves.

That's why buying nice speakers without addressing acoustics is just throwing away money. Spending $500 on acoustics yields far greater bang for the buck than spending even $2000 on high-end nearfields.

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.

What you want is some speakers designed to be near-field monitors, and set them up correctly: on stands, spaced from the wall, not bouncing off large flat surfaces, your chair at the focal point. Buy as much as you can afford, BUT you can adjust by training your ears.

Jeff Evans above is exactly right: Whatever you have for speakers, play some of your favorite mixes, listen for detail, listen for balance, and learn how your best examples sound. Then play your own. Adjust your own to approach your ideal, as heard over your speakers in your mixing room. Even with sub-$10,000 equipment, you can still get a great result.

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)  

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

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.