I recently did a project for a professional client (i.e. someone I really want to do my best work for), and he sat in on the final mix for tweaking and approval.  The mix sounded good on my mains, my auratones, and my car.  The client has a Bose home stereo, with a single subwoofer. He says that the solo instrument (sax) sounds like it is too out front.  It's the only thing besides bass and kick that is panned center.  Does anyone know if Bose commonly builds "stereo enhancement" type stuff into their home stereos?  I'm worried about L-R cancellation, and I think Bose has done some weird stuff in order to create an enhanced stereo field (something like SRS, maybe?). 

Anyone know of anything?  Or even other systems that might mess with a mix?

Home hi-fi speakers are designed to "flatter" or sound good... rather than being 100% accurate.


Take the same mix, but drop the level of the sax say 3dB.
Get the client's input on that change.

All home stereo systems effect the sound to a point. Also, just because its not panned centered doesn't mean it cant sound upfront. Getting an instrument track to sit upfront has to do with the kinds of  EQ, reverbs, delays and other panning effects that you may have used on that instrument track.

If the client wants that specific track to not sound upfront, just take a look at that track and maybe make it seem further away with a specific reverb, delay effect, EQ and adjust the level of that instrument to make it sit just right in the mix.

CJ

I have some Bose stuff at home, including for the TV.  I have tried listening to some of my mixes on them and they can really throw the frequencies around - to the point that you can get depressed about the mix.  Bass is certainly pushed, particularly as the sub-woofers are adjustable, and mid-range can be interesting.  They also tend to get placed in corners so you have all that colourisation going on as well.  Flat they are not - I wouldn't trust them in isolation when testing mixes.

I have a pair of Bose speakers and I've given up trying to get mixes to sound good on them. They have a tendency to low-mid mud and boomy bass, and I actually find that upper mids sound too far back on them. Whenever I play a mix through them and get depressed, I just throw on some Steely Dan and smile as I realize even that doesn't sound too hot on them. 

sharke


I have a pair of Bose speakers and I've given up trying to get mixes to sound good on them. They have a tendency to low-mid mud and boomy bass, and I actually find that upper mids sound too far back on them. Whenever I play a mix through them and get depressed, I just throw on some Steely Dan and smile as I realize even that doesn't sound too hot on them. 

Hey sharke, whenever I want to find out what a mix should sound like or compare  on any give speakers I put on Steely Dan... For the life of me I can't get my mixes to sound like that.

Mosvalve

sharke


I have a pair of Bose speakers and I've given up trying to get mixes to sound good on them. They have a tendency to low-mid mud and boomy bass, and I actually find that upper mids sound too far back on them. Whenever I play a mix through them and get depressed, I just throw on some Steely Dan and smile as I realize even that doesn't sound too hot on them. 

Hey sharke, whenever I want to find out what a mix should sound like or compare  on any give speakers I put on Steely Dan... For the life of me I can't get my mixes to sound like that.

Yeah it's self-torture really. I'm constantly comparing my bass to the bass on The Royal Scam album, particularly Green Earrings. Their snare sound was also consistently fantastic. 

They always had instruments perfectly balanced as well. As far as I know, Donald Fagan was largely responsible for that. He didn't know much about the technological side of mixing but could always hear when something needed to be brought up or down a couple of dB. 


Interesting factoid - he now uses GarageBand for putting together demos of his new tunes for the musicians!

I can attest that Bose is really flat and uninteresting to my ears, but when it comes to say, the 901 Series, which used to be their masterpieces (maybe still are) they utilize reflections like you wouldn't believe! Plus, instead of really designing the speakers to be perfect, they use other technologies to enhance the frequency responses of the drivers/speakers so that they can get away with fundamentally flawed designs (like smaller speakers, for example). This isn't intended to be a slam on Bose. They have a market they shoot for and they do VERY well at filling it. But as discovered in most situations, the Bose systems tend to sound a bit different than other systems and for good reason. 

I own a pair of Polk SRS-SDA 2.3TLs and love them for what they do. They're not perfect, but they do widen the soundstage more like headphones will, and the bass frequencies will go very low without a sub (like 25Hz!) if placed in the right room with bracing. However, the mids are sometimes a bit warm. So, I do have to get integrity-checks on other systems. 

I think there isn't really one speaker for everyone, and I suggest definitely let your client have you over and let you hear his setup. It could be ill-placement, to some degree, or you'll get some insight to what it is he's missing or hearing wrong. 

Best of luck!

Put a touch of 'verb on the sax.  It might just do the trick.  Ozone also has some good tools for positioning.

I think that if you can't get your mix to sound decent on any system then your not doing something right. It's just a matter of finding the right balance.

Recently, Bapu made mention of lowering the volume of playback so you can barely hear the mix. You should be able to hear all of it. Maybe not the real lows and real highs as your ears hear things different at lower DBs as it does higher DBs. Then check it at a high volume then at all different volumes. You would be surprised at what you hear.