Will the real mans's studio monitor please stand up ...

[fas42]

Bob, I've been running the studio monitors for a couple of days now, and literally just now tried a test of the integrity of their power supplies; which of course they failed. I was playing a well recorded movie theme music on solo piano CD, nicely performed, at low volume. I just now raised the volume to realistic playback levels, and initially it was fine, but very rapidly the quality of the treble decayed, it only took a minute or so to occur. The piano tone went from realistic, to dulled and ponderous, that notorious hifi quality began to intrude: this is the power supplies being overreached, not clipping or compressing or anything like that, just no longer behaving as good power supplies should ...

EDIT: In fact that solo piano CD is going to be ideal for the first round of tweaks, just listening to it again you can hear on successive, single notes from the piano whether the power supplies are holding up or not from moment to moment: first note good, the next a bit more intense, a fail -- the note doesn't ring, a dead, muffled quality is injected -- next relatively softer, fine again, and so on ...

Frank

 

[NorthStar]

Frank, I will try what you just suggested from your post #42.
But I will do it several times and spreaded over several days to make sure that my mind
doesn't play tricks or get influenced psychologically.

Then I will share my findings right here with you. :b

Cheers,
Bob

 

[fas42]

Yes, I would be very interested in what you get, Bob. Particularly revealing are strong cymbal sounds, like the "bite" of the initial attack, and decay and quality of the shimmer -- it can be rich and immersive when right, and steadily go dull and tin can like as the quality fades. Once you tune into the signature behaviour it can be remarkably easy to replicate: every time the distortion builds up, switch off and try again -- I have done this over and over again, dozens of times in one day, and the behaviour is totally consistent.

My warning is, once you're become aware of this going on, you may keep noticing it, and it could drive you crazy until you fix it up!!

Cheers,
Frank

 

[NorthStar]

But Frank, what is the 'true' fix?

1. Reset everything (On/Off/On) each time I play a new album or CD?
2. Buy all new equipment, including the loudspeakers?
3. Stay strictly analog (analog r.a.d.i.o. tuner, TT, Cassettes, R2R, ...)?
4. Buy a power bar with Automatic On/Off timer (adjustable)?
5. Or keep reading audio forums like WBF? :b

Salute,
Bob

* Last option:
- Give it up, get a new life, a new wife, a new country,
and keep playing music without listening no more? :b

 

[fas42]

But Frank, what is the 'true' fix?

Well, first of all, don't paaanic ... !! You may not have the problem at all, you're home and hosed, because the equipment just happens to have the right attributes and setup to prevent you hearing any such thing!

The new wife sounds an interesting idea ... -- uh, uh, sorry dear!! Hah, hah, just rambling on with some silly audio nonsense here ...

Playing music without listening? Is that sorta like the sound of one hand clapping, grasshopper?

But seriously, there's a whole lot that can be done ...

Frank

 

[NorthStar]

By playing music I meant "play" with your own creative hands, mouth, and imagination ...
You know, like musicians, singers, and with real musical instruments in real time: LIVE. :b

After all, there is simply nothing that can reproduce it exactly and perfectly the way it is.
Listening to Music through a sound system is a verisimilitude; just a lazy way.

 

[fas42]

By playing music I meant "play" with your own creative hands, mouth, and imagination ...
You know, like musicians, singers, and with real musical instruments in real time: LIVE. :b

After all, there is simply nothing that can reproduce it exactly and perfectly the way it is.
Listening to Music through a sound system is a verisimilitude; just a lazy way.

Yes, the real thing can be mighty good, provided the muso's are not bored, or members of your family who really require a bit more practice, or you're sitting in a so-so place to hear. I've mentioned this before on the forum a couple of times, but I got a bit of a shock when I went to a piano recital many, many years ago and immediately felt, this is not up to scratch, I'm not getting the impact and sense of the instrument that I do from recordings at home -- which, of course, are recorded for the sound to be captured as "perfectly" as possible ...

"Perfectly" is always relative of course; if I were listening where the microphone had been postitioned then the live sound by definition would have to be better, because some distortion is always introduced in the whole replay chain ...

Frank

 

[fas42]

The Yamaha has been running for about 4 days now, so it's nicely stabilised now: even from dead cold, after nearly about 2 years non-use I was pleased at how well it came up. But, the monitors are definitely in need of the fixit treatment: all the usual problem areas are there, no progress has been made in conquering the weaknesses I see over and over again, in the intrinsic design. As an example, the sound was sagging badly after running at reasonable volume all day, small, dull, all the usuals: this was partially helped by playing with the volume wiper; but the biggest refresher was the power off, power on routine, as discussed with Bob. This lifted the tonal quality of the treble quite dramatically -- there is much to be done!

As a relief from that quality of sound, I brought the HT up to high volume to get balance back to the listening -- it was good to hear full blooded music again ... !

Frank

 

[fas42]

I mentioned earlier the ease with which it is able to pick misbehaviour of the normal audio amplifier, by virtue of listening to solo piano. To demonstrate how bad this problem is, unless the amp is severely over engineered using conventional ideas, I just did a quick test on the monitor setup. The Yamaha volume control is calibrated in dBs, you can nicely step from -40 to 0, and -20 would roughly correspond to an average listening level. Depending on the recording, the monitors will start flashing red, overload, at -5dB or above. But, with a recording where the misbehaviour is easy to pick, Tijuana Brass in fact, the amp just starts distorting at the -20dB level, which means, you've lost almost 20dB real dynamics compared to what the system is theoretically capable of. So no wonder people use grossly over powerful amps to get decent sound ...

And it doesn't help having a nominally much more powerful amp, if it still does not get the design right: my old Perreaux was theoretically capable of 100's of watts, but it had exactly the same issues back those 25 years ago. Which means, that you can never run the system at natural sound levels, because the amplifier is then constantly in "stress" mode.

Frank

 

[fas42]

Just tried another, more severe test of effective dynamic range: a nice set of tracks of drum kit playing from down under, and the problem is even worse: nearly 30dB loss of useful dynamics. In other words, I have to drop the volume by that amount from overload input to the monitors to get a truly clean sound, no crushing of the drum kit tone.

To put this in context again, this monitor performed the best of the bunch of studio monitors that I surveyed initially, the most expensive I looked at then was only capable of another 6dB of peak sound level, and it was not a good performer in the context that I listened to it.

Frank

 

[fas42]

The conversation is still going on in that other thread about how many bits are needed for "good" sound; and elsewhere, digital volume controls are derided as being inferior. So, out of interest I tried my classical track attenuated by 60dB test, yet again, on the Yamaha plus monitor setup. Now, I know a single one of these speakers will peak at 107dB, and the Yamaha has around 5dB margin on its digital volume before a speaker will trip the overload light. I play the -60dB track at maximum volume for the CD player, which means that a maximum level sine wave would be producing 112dB at 1 metre, as a good estimate.

So that classical track can produce a level of about 50db -- and that's the theoretical peak signal! Being classical material, the average level is actually about 20dB below that, which means 30dB level at 1 metre. This is considered the typical background level in a normal room, and that's what it sounded like! From a couple of metres away the sound was all but inaudible, and I had to go and put my ear next to the tweeter (where have I heard that before ... ? ) to clearly hear what was going on.

And, yes, in this extreme listening test I could hear digital "noise", the dithering or absence of it very clearly, with my head stuck an inch away from the speaker driver. But on what? On very ancient DAC chips, lucky to have 90dB real resolution, and probably the first consumer digital volume control. But the music was still very clearly captured in those miserable 5 bits or so resolution that was available; it was about equivalent to listening over a typical telephone line.

So, as far as I'm concerned all this carry on about whether 80, 90, 100, 110, 120dB range is necessary is a 100% red herring: it has absolutely nothing to do with what is important for the critical listener to get good sound.

Frank

 

[fas42]

Okay, I've had enough of listening to these monitors in raw form: the sound is really starting to irritate now, so I'm going to assume that they'll last the distance as far as reliability and suchlike is concerned. Tomorrow I'll rip them apart and see what I've got, in other words closely examine the electronics and start working out where the fixits go: the enclosure for all the amplifier bits is remarkably small, considering it's AB technology, so it may be fun and games trying to add extra parts, may have to attach an additional sub-casing. Anyway, see how it goes, one step at a time ...

Frank

 

[NorthStar]

Frank, why don't you build your own monitors?

 

[fas42]

Frank, why don't you build your own monitors?

Very simple, Bob: no need to reinvent the wheel. Quite some years ago, when I hadn't made the progress I've made to this point, a chap who was organising our financial affairs heard what I had going at the time, which was just using some cheap second hand British bookshelf speakers. Turned out he was heavily involved with a band, and they were recording material on and off. He was very impressed, and asked whether I could consider making some monitors for him. So I went and did a bit of research, and realised that these things are sold at bone cheap prices -- I would not not be able to do something I was happy with, that made it worthwhile for me, in terms of what people in the industry expect to pay. Big factories spit these units out at ridiculously low costs for themselves, I can't compete.

So, financially, I'm vastly better off grabbing a relatively cheap, well made unit, and retrofitting all the mod's that actually make a decent speaker out of the beast. What I've heard so far from this unit is extremely positive, both the treble and bass drivers have all the grunt and finesse to do the work properly, the carcase itself is solid as a rock -- what's holding it back is the typical just OK quality of the electronic engineering, which I just have to sort out.

Once tarted up, this should blow a normal studio monitor into the weeds; when I did the rounds listening to the expensive brands they were a pretty dismal collection of performers overall ...

Frank

 

[NorthStar]

Fair answer as I agree totally with you. ...You can find some excellent monitors (Genelec, Yamaha, B&W, PMC, Mirage, Paradigm Reference, Behringer, Infinity, PSB, Focal, ATC, Dynaudio, Harbeth, Triangle, Totem, DALI, Aperion, and others) for reasonable prices (from roughly $250 to $1,000/pair MSRP). And some of them have top-notch drivers and crossovers. ...Plus they have excellent enclosures with a beautiful finish (higher in the price range).

 

[fas42]

Well, you would laugh your head off if you saw the electronics in this monitor: the whole lot, barring the transformer, would fit inside a single transformer shell from the Yamaha CD player. Which has 2, one for the analogue side, one for the digital. So in one sense it's quite amazing that the monitor performs as well as it does, in sound quality terms easily beating the Dynaudio and Mackie on the day.

And riddled with obvious weaknesses. So, tons of scope to lift the quality to a very, very significantly higher level -- this should be fun ...!!

BTW Bob, did you play around with the resetting of the electronics by powering off and on ... and what were the results?

Frank

 

[NorthStar]

Frank, some of the best sounding speakers have no crossover at all in them!

Simplicity is key to enlightenment of musical ecstasy.

* And no, I did not have time to experiment with the 'On/Off' technique just yet.
...If only I would tell you everything I did since and between then ....

 

[fas42]

Frank, some of the best sounding speakers have no crossover at all in them!

Simplicity is key to enlightenment of musical ecstasy.

* And no, I did not have time to experiment with the 'On/Off' technique just yet.
...If only I would tell you everything I did since and between then ....

Very true! The HT speakers are effectively run full range, helps a great deal. And the monitors use active crossovers, then have separate power amps for each driver, no passive crossovers. Otherwise, the sound would be pretty disasterous -- the power supply capacitors used would be shameful in a decent phono stage component, let alone anything else.

And, you've got me intrigued ... I can see it now, emblazened on the front cover of a gossip rag: "The Secret Life of Bob!" ...

Frank

 

[fas42]

Quite pleased with the choice of amplifier modules in these monitors: capable of much higher power output then they nominally provide in this unit, at the moment they are being fed with a miserably thin fuel line, ie. the capacity of the power supply. With a solid upgrade of the latter, and perhaps adding a bridging module will probably get me over 120dB peak sound levels -- good for the PR!

On a side note, the HT beast was suddenly sounding decidely off form yesterday. Turned out that the dressing of the cable inside one speaker had gone out of alignment, and this dragged the overall sound quality down very significantly. First fixit was done in a rush, and this made things worse; just now made a much better fist of it and so far looks promising.

The relevance of the last point, is that worrying about those aspects are key to determining the "bigness" of the sound; if you get it wrong then the sound shrivels down, and just stays at the level of normal hifi ...

Frank

 

[NorthStar]

Frank, ever thought about writing a book on 'Technical Audio Sound Improvement' (TASI)?

----- :b