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

[fas42]

Sometimes the universe allows you to have a really good laugh: not always, but just now and again you have a jolly decent belly shaker ...

In hindsight I should have known; it was obvious really, but I hadn't bothered to connect the dots ...

Tim, and others, have always been down on my poor Philips HT setup: how could such a wimpy contraption do any good at producing a decent level of noise, sound, whatever. Well, at the moment I'm getting some ideas on yet another project, hence the relevance to this forum, one that might actually get somewhere, because the audience in this case should be interested. Very, very interested ...

This concept was ignited by the live vs. reproduced thread, in which I threw up the idea of a decent studio monitor being able to get mighty, mighty close to "real" sound levels and quality. The idea I spawned was to tart up a good performing pro sound box, to go the extra mile. Tim sort of agreed, in some senses, but he favoured the Mackie brand over the Dynaudio. Of course, he threw in the usual lack of faith for which he is famous ...

So, I started checking some of the Mackie units, to see what they're about. And there it was in the spec's: the amplifier units therein, the "active" part, are blood brothers to what my Philips uses, they come rolling off the same assembly line, by the same manufacturer.

Huhh? Well, pro monitors have to be made as excellent value for units, otherwise the makers could never shift enough of them. So the parts within have to be exactly right to do the job, no more and no less. To do the job right, with no added prissiness. Which means that Mackie and most likely 95% of the units of the other pro makers use power ICs to do the job of amplifying. And what are they? An opamp, no more and no less, costing 2 or 3 bucks in quantities, that happens to be able to pump out decent power levels if strapped onto a big enough heatsink.

So where's the humour? Well, I've been playing with these babies for years now, I know a hell of a lot about how to get decent sound out of them, and the Philips uses just another version of the same. So, we line up a pair of Mackie monitors: 4 reasonable power opamps directing feeding drivers that can take their power; and the Philips, 2 comparable opamps feeding almost full range drivers, and a better quality power opamp driving a decent driver in subwoofer cabinet -- also able to take the power.

So, Tim may still have a chance of starting to "get" it, if he thinks just a little bit harder. :b:b

The story will continue ...

Frank

 

[fas42]

Today I should be having some fun ...

Yesterday I popped into a couple of pro music stores, to get a starting idea what these active monitors sound like, what they'll do. First experience was not good, made by a speaker company with an excellent reputation -- how many ways can you say gutless wonder? As soon as it was asked to produce a bit of volume it completely fell to pieces, the bass cone was wobbling its backside off, I shut it down quickly for mercy's sake ...

Next unit, selling for the same price as the first unit, and same size -- obviously built vastly better -- was a complete reversal. This had tons of grunt, I took it up to the red line, the input overload led was flashing constantly but the sound was clean as a whistle: even at maximum volume the soundstage was perfectly intact, something to shame speakers costing 40 times the price, and more ...

Anyone guess the brands?

So, looking good! Today, I'll go to a bigger store, one that has samples of the best names in the business, and see what emerges. I'm particularly interested in running them into the red line and beyond, I need something that handles a big stick being applied ...

Frank

 

[amirm]

I was listening to my NHT monitors yesterday and had the same thought: what makes them good? One of the reasons is that they don't try to do much. Mine I think has a 5 inch woofer. This is important as this means that it does not get directional before the tweeter picks up the load. So the dispersion (off-axis) response remains really good. Therefore, reflections don't degrade the sound nearly as much as a consumer bookshelf speaker that probably has an 8 inch driver for marketing reasons (to have more bass). Bi-amping is another asset as you mention. Distortion therefore doesn't set in quickly as what distorts in the woofer doesn't bleed into tweeter (in units with active crossover). Active crossover also allows much better optimization and a low cost implementation than passive ones. Finally, pro products are sold at much lower margin than high-end products -- at least in US. Much of the pro gear is spec'ed by the customer so the supplier provides much less hand holding. So margins are taken out by the manufacturer for that reason.

I also have a pair of Genelecs at home.

 

[fas42]

I agree with all those reasons you mention, Amir. But yesterday turned out to be a very interesting day, for all the wrong reasons ...

I have a very well recorded live performance of some solid blues rock on CD as my reference, I know what this is capable of sounding like. But what I heard in the showrooms was a throwback to the type of sound with which I'm very familiar in my sojourns over the years: decibels with deadness. The sound was the typical dreary, dull, flat, washed out "pro" sound which has always given that industry a bad name with audiophiles. I had an excellent collection of a half dozen brands starting with Dynaudio, Genelec, and going downwards to play with, and there was a uniform mediocrity to the sound. I took all the brands well into the red, and they generally held fairly well together, but even at elevated SPLs it was always boring to listen to. Compared to the sterling performance the prior day, this was a major disappointment. When I popped out out to ask the saleman if I could now listen to the expensive stuff, I have a feeling he was a bit insulted -- this was the expensive stuff!

Now I could now insult the objectivists by saying that the hookup severely degraded the ability of the monitors to show of their best: a pro CD player, through a specially built preamp, and switching box to link to each monitor, with masses of electronics in the shop spewing their garbage down the power line and into the air. But they claim this is irrelevant, so my conclusion would have to be that all the expensive monitors are not up to it. The day before, there was very little electronics running, a very small shop, CD in one of those funny DJ scratch consoles and preamp a fairly nondescript effort. But the sound was way in front what I heard yesterday ...

I had my wife with me on both occasions, and we could only roll our eyes at the lame excuses by the sales people: accoustics vary between room, the usual dribble. It was useful to have someone do a nice solo turn on a saxophone just before we had the listen, this was a music shop after all. Followed by coming across a full blown piano store, with some meaty grands, allowing one to hammer out a few choice bass and treble notes -- nothing like having some true reference points.

So, next stop is to try a few variations of the "good" brand, to see if it was just a fluke getting the good result ...

Frank

 

[Gregadd]

I was listening to my NHT monitors yesterday and had the same thought: what makes them good? One of the reasons is that they don't try to do much. Mine I think has a 5 inch woofer. This is important as this means that it does not get directional before the tweeter picks up the load. So the dispersion (off-axis) response remains really good. Therefore, reflections don't degrade the sound nearly as much as a consumer bookshelf speaker that probably has an 8 inch driver for marketing reasons (to have more bass). Bi-amping is another asset as you mention. Distortion therefore doesn't set in quickly as what distorts in the woofer doesn't bleed into tweeter (in units with active crossover). Active crossover also allows much better optimization and a low cost implementation than passive ones. Finally, pro products are sold at much lower margin than high-end products -- at least in US. Much of the pro gear is spec'ed by the customer so the supplier provides much less hand holding. So margins are taken out by the manufacturer for that reason.

I also have a pair of Genelecs at home.

AMIRM. Please don't encourage Tim.

 

[amirm]

AMIRM. Please don't encourage Tim.

No worries. As much as I like them as "super computer monitors," they don't replace full size speakers for me for general music listening.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

No worries. As much as I like them as "super computer monitors," they don't replace full size speakers for me for general music listening.

And they never will. That's not what they're for. But in a small room, with a sub, they might be better than most "full size" speakers. Two pair and a couple of subs in a big room?

Tim

 

[fas42]

Tim's right, the trick is to get all of the octaves of the music that are important right first, and then worry about the last two, that "foundation" thing. If the latter are "right", and the other is wrong, then the music will be of no consequence.

The writing is pretty clear now: even though I haven't heard some key monitors yet how I will go about this is shaping up nicely. The brand that will be used is the one that people love to hate, those in the game will know which it is, they do excellent stuff, brought down by the fact it's assembled in a country where the culture often struggles with the concept of quality. I'll get around this by thoroughly burning the units in, and giving them a detailed going over -- real man's tweaking!

What's particularly useful is that they, of course, use these power ICs to do the work of amping, and as mentioned before I know what the issues are here. They have done a good job already, the sound produced was head and shoulders above the other brands, so far. But, no point in forcing them to do the heavy bass work, so I'll use a couple of other units in the range to do the heavy low end work -- the cone area and amp power will be sufficient to move the air cleanly to a decent level. Sort of, a 2 + 2 arrangement. There are all sorts of benefits, not least of which is that the tonality, so to speak, will be a perfect match. If required, I could then go 2 +, 2 + 2, etc, if some people wanted a real lot of bass meat.

An extension down the track will be to add DSP, which also means they become digital input: then people who want to emulate other monitors, or add pro sound sludge to the tonality can do so ...

Frank

 

[fas42]

Frank, you really do have faith in your ears dude, of course we are talking your preference. Like a lot of others here.

Tom

Tom, it's all about having things to compare with. I listened to a chap playing the saxophone, yes, the real thing, for some minutes in the music shop before giving a whole suite of well regarded studio monitors a chance just a few minutes later. Followed by wondering around a showroom full of grand pianos and having a listen to the different tones of the instruments. I don't think my acoustic memory lapsed while listening to those speakers, and my "expectations", so beloved by Tim, were that these monitors should at least do a reasonable job -- but they did pretty miserably.

So it's really quite simple: either the system has at least some resemblance to the sound of musical instruments or it doesn't. My wife was also in on the action -- her ears are well down in treble sensitivity compared to mine, but we were in complete accord as to respective merits of what we heard ...

Frank

 

[fas42]

But Frank, you simply proved what a good many of us already know, two channel, or single channel speakers are not ever going to sound "real" compared to the real event.......well, some of us feel that way... and granted, some speakers do a better job than others.

Except, using a recording I was quite familiar with, the loss of quality on those monitors was almost astonishing to me. Another set of monitors, in a different environment, a very different story. And, of course, compared to what I have heard that recording sound like at home. I'm going to be gracious, and say that the degradation was probably caused by the terrible electrical environment that was in the store, I'm sure no recording engineer would have put up with that quality on his home turf ...

]Let me tell you, I know a phd, vibration expert, who now moved from here out to lost wages, and the speakers he designed, and I got to listen to many times, were absolutely astounding to me. To others in our audio club, the sounded dull, flat, etc. Those things are beasue they had speakers with frequency aberrations, suck outs, room issues, distorting amps and all kinds of stuff. I spent a lot oquality time with him and listeniin in his basement listetning room, with all kinds of room treatments and stuff. His system was tri-amped, active crossovers, and using just "basic" electronics. I used to listen through headphones and then lift them up then hear his speakers and go back and forth that way, and was very impressed. But, his speakers had all kinds of mechanica tricks which I know but can not divulge, as he is starting a speaker company out in las vegas. He shared with me his secrets. And they turned out to be elegant and common sense to this old boy.

Now you're talking, Tom, that's the sound I'm after, and getting at home at the moment: going between headphones and speakers and not being "disappointed", and you probably found that he could go exceedingly loud without any discomfort at all. As you say, to a lot of people good sound does come across as being dull, because it doesn't have that hifi edginess. What I call, to invent a word, "distortion" :b:b. Part of his "secret", I would suggest, was the tri-amped active crossover setup, what Linkwitz uses.

I think I would enjoy a good chat with your acquaintance, there might be quite a lot in common ...

Frank

 

[fas42]

It's about time to have another solid wander around the the ambitious audio shops, to see what's currently held up as "good sound": doing this monitor exercise has emphasised that many people prefer a dulled or flattened sound, drained of energy. Meaning of course it will very difficult for them to achieve "live" sound, since one of the key ingredients for the liveliness is discarded at the first hurdle.

It also means that quite a number of audiophiles would consider what I listen to as being very trebly, but that's the point I keep making: real sound has lots of high frequency content as part of its intrinsic makeup, but if it's reproduced poorly it's extemely unpleasant to listen to. So dump it, or deaden it to make it more palatable, but as far as I'm concerned then it's game over for having it worthwhile to listen to ...

Saying that, I'll be doing another round of checking out studio monitors tomorrow; hopefully an ambitious Mackie model will put up a good show, a low end unit, driven poorly, was a non-starter the other day.

I've seen a circuit diagram of a possible unit: it's full of obvious compromises and weaknesses, purely in the overall design let alone the implementation, so has great scope for major tweaking and improvements -- I'm sure all the brands have a similar design philosophy, so using the value for money one will be the way to go ...

Frank

 

[fas42]

A bit tired at the moment, it was a solid run chasing up monitors most of the day, I need to refresh before elaborating in detail. But overall the results were what I was expecting before I started this whole exercise, which is midway between very impressive and highly disappointing.

But one fun bit to throw out straightaway, is that I managed to kill a Mackie HR824! Well, not really, but ... . As usual, I was running it into the red zone, but the left unit seemed to not be fussed, not showing any overload red. Changed CD, became aware sound was unbalanced, no left speaker! Sales chappie did the usual cable limbo: back, forth, behind, under shelves and supports, and it finally resolved that the left unit had gone bye byes! Salesman was disappointed, the pair had been running well for 6 months -- possibly the protection circuitry itself had gone faulty, and the heavy driving triggered a more major fault. I was somewhat surprised when he said they were snowed under with warranty issues on monitors -- simply a result of pro gear leading well less than comfortable lives, perhaps ...

Frank

 

[fas42]

A good night's sleep helps a lot! It was a solid workout yesterday, but very worthwhile doing -- I've found that if you blitz an area where you need some key understanding, the sheer rapidity of trying one thing versus another very quickly brings things to light, patterns of behaviour and differences gell very strongly, perhaps not so much at the time, but frequently in hindsight.

First of all, I would appraise that the monitors in fact were doing a very nice job in of themselves; but suffered from the complexity and the dirtying of the signal by all the circuitry that was chaining the audio from the CD to the drivers. The simpler the route from the audio track to the speaker drivers, the better the sound, this pattern was consistent. In particular, switching boxes were a killer, each place that used one of these had the worst sound by far. A good example: I heard a Mackie MR8 in 3 different places, and the sound ranged from almost putrid to pretty damn good: where I had a chance to listen to MR8 and HR824 side by side the overall flatness of the sound made choosing between them a curate's egg: my wife preferred the MR8s here in fact, but it was possible, just(!), to hear that the HR824 were doing better in the treble.

So what was wrong with the sound, where it was wrong? Well, any audiophile who chances upon "pro" sound knows what it's like, there's an overall flatness and dreariness to the quality; it sounds "small". Small? Yes, it completely lacks the "bloom", as a meaningful word to use, of decent audio. What it does have going for it is the ability to go loud: that dull and uninteresting sound which is there at low volume does not change as you up the dBs, right up to maximum volume, the quality of the sound does not alter, it just gets louder -- most monitors went to their full power without overly showing any overt strain. The subjective impression is of watching a musclebound midget showing off, very impressive in one sense but totally not so in another.

So, the best sound heard was achieved with the simplest hookup, and the smallest box. This was still well below what I get at home of course, but the nature of the configuration of the monitor and superior quality in key areas meant that it was doing some things better as is. And it can only improve, by a big factor, after solid sorting out. Next step will be to get a pair and condition them thoroughly, to eliminate the duds, before pulling them apart ...

Frank

 

[NorthStar]

Frank, you are pretty awesome man! :b

Best of best,
Bob

 

[fas42]

Thanks, Bob ...

I'll take this opportunity to mention something else: in 2 of the stores the older guys there wanted to know what the material was that I was using, they were highly appreciative of having decent music to listen, rather than the "usual junk" the kids bring in ... :b:b

To kick off I used live Peter Green, Splinter; if getting somewhere then Peter Hurford on full pipe organ, and once gave a live Hendrix track a spin -- the last was being rather cruel ...

Frank

 

[fas42]

Some more meanderings: many have probably thought, hello, Frank's jumped tracks again -- where's the 2.4kW amp? Well, one thing my time on this forum has shown me, amongst much other, is that audiophile folks are pretty stubborn, even cocky shall I be so bold so say -- as soon as you mention a slightly different concept the deafening roar of contradiction is quite something to behold, you have to work 10 times as hard to get something across as you should need to -- a sort of "glass ceiling" in the audio world. So what's the point of busting a gut, this amp will have to be so spectacularly good, 10 times that of a Krell, before anyone will grudgingly admit it's OK -- I've got better things to do in life.

So much better to address a market far more receptive, the pro crowd -- the quality of sound they put up with is pretty atrocious a lot of the time, so not too hard to rise well above the herd. And the turnover in gear shames the hifi world -- a much better place to play.

So what have we got? The studio monitors can do loud well, but they also do dreary well. Why the latter is analogous to the photocopy syndrome. Do a single copy, looks almost perfect ... but then do a copy of that copy, and a copy of that copy, and continue ad nasueum. By the 30th generation it will look pretty hideous; the pro gear circuitry is chock full of this type of pathway, say 30 opamps one after the other, in series, before the sound hits the speaker driver: no wonder it sounds totally disposable. So the aim is to do something about that ...

The other thing is volume: as said in a previous post, they can all hit the bump stops cleanly or close enough to it. The pro crowd "cheats" as well as anyone in audio, they always quote max SPL for a pair, thus automatically adding 6dB to the figure for a single. Anyway, using that rule the standard monitors go from 113 to 125 at full accelerator, and the latter is what I really want to get to, to handle that notorious drumkit. But that means serious money to buy the raw monitor, so I'll start small: the law of diminishing returns figures just as much in pro monitors as anywhere else, certainly in the area of volume. If truth be known, the "best" monitor I listened to was subjectively no louder than the cheapest when it hit the red line, the "tininess" of the sound made sure of that ...

Frank

 

[fas42]

At the moment I'm trying to determine which decent quality active monitors can output the maximum SPLs: so far the leader is Dynaudio M3XEs, capable of 133dB peak per pair at 1 metre. But mighty pricey! And not really actives in the normal sense, separate amps coming with the package. Anyone do better than this?

Frank

 

[NorthStar]

At the moment I'm trying to determine which decent quality active monitors can output the maximum SPLs: so far the leader is Dynaudio M3XEs, capable of 133dB peak per pair at 1 metre. But mighty pricey! And not really actives in the normal sense, separate amps coming with the package. Anyone do better than this?

Frank

Wow, that is just amazing Frank!

 

[fas42]

I'm repeating myself here, but this is an aside to the comment about replay at the "correct volume", mentioned in the other active thread. What monitors don't have is such a handicap: if they sound mediocre, they remain the same if you drop the volume to whisper level, and then push to maximum. Likewise, the better units, with a less taxing environment, retained their good qualities irrespective of the slider setting.

Again, studio environments are places where you don't get "veils lifting", but adding: layer upon layer of electronic gunk smears the sound so that it ends up feeling like you're listening through a curtain of Vaseline ...

Frank

 

[NorthStar]

"Curtain of Vaseline"? ...Is that an accepted audio term Frank? :b