Studio monitors for uncoloured HiFi

Wizard

How well do studio monitors work as hifi speakers?

If one is looking for an uncoloured, purist reproduction of sound this implies:
- high quality source (DDD CD or .wav input)
- linear amplifier without tone controls
- flat response speakers

If I understand correctly, monitors attempt a faithful, flat response as per the last bullet.

In practice, how well does it work?
Studio monitors as hifi speakers?

AlanRatcliffe

It depends on your tastes.

HiFi speakers are usually quite flattering, while monitors are uncoloured and flat, very detailed. Some find they tend to revealing harshness where a HiFi speaker will gloss over the rougher edges.

Having said that, I prefer the sound. I'm so used to it that anything else sounds wrong. ?

Mixerboy

If one is looking for an uncoloured, purist reproduction of sound one needs to sort ones room out first and foremost.

Big-G

Monitors will offer the purer more detailed sound as mentioned above, but where they often fail in a hifi environment is in the bass department. Generally because of the difference in how we set up studio monitors in a studio environment, and how we would set up speakers in a hifi environment, this leaves the bass response a little lacking. The easiest way to compensate is to of course add a sub woofer, but this in itself can be a lot harder to balance as you have to then take into consideration crossovers, and of course get the sub to the optimal level where it neither over emphasise's the bass, nor under rates it, though it is better to lean on the latter side, and bass response can often be a subjective thing tailored to taste.

As also mentioned above though, in reality, in order to really benefit from using a flat response speaker, the environment in which you will be listening should be treated acoustically to be inert, or at least restrained.

Regards
G!

Wizard

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: HiFi speakers are usually quite flattering, while monitors are uncoloured and flat, very detailed. Some find they tend to revealing harshness where a HiFi speaker will gloss over the rougher edges.

Sounds good.
I'm looking for uncoloured & detailed

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: Having said that, I prefer the sound. I'm so used to it that anything else sounds wrong. ?

From which I infer you use studio monitors for music listening?

If one is looking for an uncoloured, purist reproduction of sound one needs to sort ones room out first and foremost.

Absolutely.
But presumably studio monitors would reflect the same imperfections as what hifi speakers would?

Monitors will offer the purer more detailed sound as mentioned above, but where they often fail in a hifi environment is in the bass department

I've heard this before; but don't really understand.
If a monitor is accurately reflecting the bass on the original source; how can it be lacking in bass?
Does this imply that hifi speakers usually enhance the bass & we've become accustomed to this boost?

The amusing insight is that "High Fidelity" isn't ?

Big-G

Wizard wrote:
If one is looking for an uncoloured, purist reproduction of sound one needs to sort ones room out first and foremost.
Absolutely.
But presumably studio monitors would reflect the same imperfections as what hifi speakers would?

Not necessarily. Because you are getting a different balance of frequencies, you will have a higher tendency to have certain midrange frequencies reflected at a perceived enhanced level due to the flat response of the speakers. Where as with hifi speakers due to their enhanced bass and enhanced treble, you will tend to get more of those frequencies being reflected which will be perceived differently by your ear.

Wizard wrote:
Monitors will offer the purer more detailed sound as mentioned above, but where they often fail in a hifi environment is in the bass department
I've heard this before; but don't really understand.
If a monitor is accurately reflecting the bass on the original source; how can it be lacking in bass?
Does this imply that hifi speakers usually enhance the bass & we've become accustomed to this boost?

The amusing insight is that "High Fidelity" isn't ?

In a sense you have hit the nail on the head here.... Hifi speakers have been designed to enhance bass and treble, and we as a group of consumers have just become used to this, and accept it as the norm.... however, at the same time as this is true, as I tried to describe above, the listeners position makes a big impact on the way we hear the frequencies. The monitors give a true bass response (for the best part), but only when you are listening in the 'zone' for which they are designed. For instance, if you use a nearfield monitor, these are great in a situation where you are sitting close to the monitors, within its intended zone. So if you listen to your 'hifi' in a normal studio monitoring setup, then they will sound fine. However, as is the case with most Hifi, we tend to be sitting a good few metres away from the speakers, so in this case the monitors will sound lacking in the bass department. If you used larger monitors then this will be less of an issue.

Hope that made a bit more sense?
Regards
G!

Wizard

Big G wrote: Hope that made a bit more sense?

Perfect sense.
Monitors assume you're in the sweet spot "monitoring" position and are optimised to do that well.
Hifi needs to produce an acceptable sound to everyone in the room.

This is all sounding quite good for me and monitors.
I'm keen on a setup where I can sit in a sweet spot and listen to well recorded music properly.
And yes - I've heard and internalised the sage advice about getting the room to behave itself.

In reality our "hifi" gets used very seldom anyway; as most family entertainment is now achieved done via TV or iPad or iPod or iWhatever.
So am recommissioning the "hifi" zone to a proper listening space.

A real privilege to have such wisdom on this forum a few keystrokes away.

psyx

Well... The ideal setup for me for hi-fi speakers is my old DJ setup... Samson mdr mixer, 1500W Stk amp and 4 15inch speaker with tweeters... Overkill, but its actually very good at low to moderate levels. Its probably not as detailed as studio monitors would be, but it actually works pretty well. Even my cars BnO sound system doesn't really work as well for me.

method1

Some mix engineers use "hifi" speakers as studio monitors - so at a certain level of quality they become fairly interchangeable.

ftcl

method1 wrote: Some mix engineers use "hifi" speakers as studio monitors - so at a certain level of quality they become fairly interchangeable.

Case in point:

I personally prefer my "hi-fi" speakers to my monitors. It's how it sounds to you that's most important.

method1

ftcl wrote:
I personally prefer my "hi-fi" speakers to my monitors. It's how it sounds to you that's most important.

Preference is subjective but of course when mixing the most important criteria is how well the mix translates in other environments. As for just listening, enjoyment would be a bonus ?

Mixerboy

ftcl wrote:
method1 wrote: Some mix engineers use "hifi" speakers as studio monitors - so at a certain level of quality they become fairly interchangeable.
Case in point:

I personally prefer my "hi-fi" speakers to my monitors. It's how it sounds to you that's most important.

That Abbey Road picture looks a bit "suspect", having full bandwidth speakers set up so close with a big console right in front blocking them doesn't seem like a very good mixing/mastering set up, not to mention the story about how, when Abbey Road was about to close it's doors due to being practically bankrupt B&W bailed them out and shortly after Abbey Roads had a few rooms with their nice big speakers in them, kind of like some top sports star all of a sudden "endorsing" some new sports drink that Coke has brought out $$$

Here's a more accurate looking set up from Stirling Sound:

AlanRatcliffe

method1 wrote: Some mix engineers use "hifi" speakers as studio monitors - so at a certain level of quality they become fairly interchangeable.

Sure, as reference speakers to check a mix on for how it will translate to a high end HiFi speaker ...kind of a high end grotty monitor. But I'm not sure they'll be ideal to mix on. That said, you can learn to mix on just about anything good once you get used to it's particular response.

Gearhead

method1 wrote: of course when mixing the most important criteria is how well the mix translates in other environments

This ^

Which means that for monitoring both amp and speakers must reveal any flaw in the mix, whereas hifi speakers may reveal one or two flaws while 'covering up' the others.

Case in point is the difference between my 300B valve hifi amp and the Marantz PM17 of my parents, both of which I know very well. Roughly half of the CDs in the collection were put aside when they bought the Marantz, because it revealed nastiness in the recordings. It is however great to hear these rejects through the valve amp. I would not use any 300B amp for mixing purposes since it is able to turn gnashing of teeth into an enjoyable sound while giving you a good impression of the acoustics of the room where the teeth were recorded.

Similarly, a friend of mine has Visaton speakers with a metal dome tweeter that sounds brittle when used with his Denon amp but with his Jolida EL84 amp can give anyone goosebumps. The same Jolida is not great for my taste when it comes to silk dome tweeter speakers. The moral of my story? Monitors and amps are as much science (flat response) as they are art (there's few that guarantee portability of the mix).

Bob-Dubery

Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
method1 wrote: Some mix engineers use "hifi" speakers as studio monitors - so at a certain level of quality they become fairly interchangeable.
Sure, as reference speakers to check a mix on for how it will translate to a high end HiFi speaker ...kind of a high end grotty monitor. But I'm not sure they'll be ideal to mix on. That said, you can learn to mix on just about anything good once you get used to it's particular response.

I recall that some years ago one of Rick Wakeman's albums was mixed using what was then the best-selling hi-fi speaker in England (or so the advert told us) so that it would sound optimally good to the largest possible number of people.

Or, in reality, the largest possible number of people in England. A pity about the rest of the world. So maybe it was just advertising.

method1

Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
method1 wrote: Some mix engineers use "hifi" speakers as studio monitors - so at a certain level of quality they become fairly interchangeable.
Sure, as reference speakers to check a mix on for how it will translate to a high end HiFi speaker ...kind of a high end grotty monitor. But I'm not sure they'll be ideal to mix on. That said, you can learn to mix on just about anything good once you get used to it's particular response.

Yes there is some of that, but some engineers use "hifi" speakers as mains.

B&W Nautilis 800 series even get used in one of the mastering rooms at the above mentioned Sterling Sound, as well as Abbey Road, Skywalker Sound etc.

Norman86

Focal Grande Utopia EM III's also get used exclusively in some studios.

Big-G

To be fair though, I don't think the B&W 802's of Focal's count as 'hifi' speakers. They are definitely in that zone kind of between studio monitors, and hifi called 'Audiophile'. Generally these audiophile speakers tend to be a lot closer to a flat response, so tend to be more revealing, but also offer just a smidgen of tops and bottoms to fill out the range in a typical 'listening' position.

Regards
G!

method1

Holy semantics, batman!

How about the in/famous Yamaha ns-10, designed by Yamaha to be a bookshelf speaker? ?

Big-G

At R150,000 a pair for the 802's, you're damn right with 'Holy simantics'! ?

As for the NS10's, there are always exceptions. ?

G!