Don McR
Well-Known Member
I was recently involved in a thread on the Sansui forum that delved into studio monitors and one suggestion was to consider the ubiquitous NS-10 for this purpose. For those that don't know this is the most common studio monitor in use today, even though it has been discontinued for a couple of years now. I have always hated the sound of these speakers (screechy squawk boxes), especially in comparison to the magnificent NS-1000. Everyone I have ever talked to in the pro sound industry also hates these speakers so that their status as the industry standard monitor has always been a bit of a mystery. A partial explanation can be found in the post I made some time ago here:
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?p=94680#post94680
However, even that rationale never fully explained how professionals could work with a tool that was so widely recognized as being deficient. Then I came across this great article on studio monitors:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/studio_monitors.htm
Contained in that article is this wonderful excerpt:
A good monitor does not artificially exaggerate frequencies. You do not want a speaker that sounds like a "disco smile". That's where the bass and the treble are boosted and the mids are cut. They call it a "smile" because that's how it looks on a graphic equalizer. Lots of people really like that sound. If you like that sound, mix up a nice smile for your monitors. Then it might actually translate on other systems. But if your speakers make that automatically, your mix will be shown lacking in bass and high transients. Using that principle was the secret behind the Yamaha NS-10s, the most horrible sounding speaker ever made. On an NS10 there was no bass, no high end, just screeching awful sounding peaky mids. People who referenced on them had to boost the bass massively and cut the mids. The resultant mix? Yep, the disco smile. It made hit after hit and people thought they were magic. If you could make the shrill box sound passable, it would sound great everywhere else.
Mystery solved. They're pre-designed to end up with an exagerated radio mix. In addition, now I know why these little shit boxes command as much as $1,000 on Ebay – superstition. People believe that studio magic will rub off on them if they use the same monitors that the “hits” were made on.
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?p=94680#post94680
However, even that rationale never fully explained how professionals could work with a tool that was so widely recognized as being deficient. Then I came across this great article on studio monitors:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/studio_monitors.htm
Contained in that article is this wonderful excerpt:
A good monitor does not artificially exaggerate frequencies. You do not want a speaker that sounds like a "disco smile". That's where the bass and the treble are boosted and the mids are cut. They call it a "smile" because that's how it looks on a graphic equalizer. Lots of people really like that sound. If you like that sound, mix up a nice smile for your monitors. Then it might actually translate on other systems. But if your speakers make that automatically, your mix will be shown lacking in bass and high transients. Using that principle was the secret behind the Yamaha NS-10s, the most horrible sounding speaker ever made. On an NS10 there was no bass, no high end, just screeching awful sounding peaky mids. People who referenced on them had to boost the bass massively and cut the mids. The resultant mix? Yep, the disco smile. It made hit after hit and people thought they were magic. If you could make the shrill box sound passable, it would sound great everywhere else.
Mystery solved. They're pre-designed to end up with an exagerated radio mix. In addition, now I know why these little shit boxes command as much as $1,000 on Ebay – superstition. People believe that studio magic will rub off on them if they use the same monitors that the “hits” were made on.
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