The Monitor Thread™

[SunkLo]

Ear fatigue is completely temporary. Sound pressure (level) is the same thing as volume. Don't crank your headphones. It's bad for your ears and bad for your mixing objectivity. Keep your volume at a fixed level and if you feel the need to turn it up, turn it down first, get used to that volume, then turn it back up to the original level. It'll sound "louder" without blowing your ears. Or just take a break, which also helps combat the aforementioned ear fatigue.

[nowaysj]

That is the problem with those dt's though, they do push hard, that's why you get that bass.

[forbidden]

That is the problem with those dt-990's though, they do push hard, that's why you get that bass.

[hubb]

Ear fatigue is completely temporary. Sound pressure (level) is the same thing as volume. Don't crank your headphones. It's bad for your ears and bad for your mixing objectivity. Keep your volume at a fixed level and if you feel the need to turn it up, turn it down first, get used to that volume, then turn it back up to the original level. It'll sound "louder" without blowing your ears. Or just take a break, which also helps combat the aforementioned ear fatigue.

I appreciate you saying that. But then it must be a wrong term I'm using here. Have had the condition a few years now with quite a few appointments at different doctors and institutes. With loudness issues, I'm told. they can judge a curve on part of the inner ear stem/ cone and see if it has warped in any way, which mine haven't.

Didn't mean to derail dudes, carry on.

[darkmatter]

Am not sure any fabric is going to do a completely sufficient job of catching all glass. And that concerns me very significantly.

See post from mobius.media around half way down.

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/bass-tra ... eview.html

Sofas, beds, carpets, furniture etc. will naturally act as traps/reflectors to some extent - so unless your studio is a separate room and you're very serious about mixing down and mastering at home I don't always think treatment is as necessary as is sometimes implied.

Agree that the comment about throwing away headphones doesn't make sense. Comparing against as wide a range of transducers as possible is always best. Headphones are fine for sketching ideas and brilliant for highlighting stereo depth weirdnesses, but personally I'd always want some decent speakers alongside as a reference.

Hubb - sorry to hear about the hearing issues, but I'm not sure exactly what you mean as I think of volume and SPL as the same thing.

The maximum exposure time for unprotected ears per day is 8 hours at 85 dB SPL, A-weighted, slow response For every 3 dB increase in volume, the maximum exposure time is cut in half.

95 dB - 4 hours

100 dB - 2 hours

110 dB - 30 min

120 dB- 7.5 min

Many hearing professionals believe that these permissible levels are still too high for hearing safety. NIOSH, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recommends 85 dB for eight hours a day.

Most people monitor at a volume above 85dB and I believe with headphones there's more of a propensity to crank it.

[bouncingfish]

Heard about 3 people now say the the eris 5's sound very similar to the rokit 5's, not in a good way.
Leaning towards the new Tannoy reveal 502, or maybe adam f5's. Equators are too expensive here.
How many of you did actually hear the eris? Is it similar to rokit 5?

EDIT: Btw, I went to one of the few stores here that have monitors that you could listen to. I listened to KRK Rokits, Equator D5 (can't afford), and Adam F7 (cant afford BUT the store guy said that they sounded like the F5s, which I can afford, only they went lower and were louder. There were some technical difference but he said I wouldn't hear a big difference at my level).
KRKs sounded terrible compared to both the others, didn't expect to notice it so drastically (untrained ears) but man, they sounded like they were in a box or something, compared to the others.

I really liked the F7's but I can't afford them like I said, and tbh I don't think the F5's can be that good but just quieter. Doesn't feel logical, F7s are way more expensive, would people pay that just for bass extension and volume? Anyone?
Equators sounded a bit more 'clinical', not as crunchy high end, to my ears.

Store guy said that even though the adams sounded different/had a different 'character', they were pretty much as flat as the equators level wise.

Thats it. Really want to hear the tannoys and presonus eris side by side with these, but the other ones that you could listen to were way out of my budget.

So, are the F7s as good as the F5s? They can't be right? And how do all these stack up, has anyone listened to more than one of them (Tannoy Reveal 501A or 502, Adam F5, Presonus Eris, Equator D5)?

Help is appreciated.
Also looking for some cheap flat headphones, SHURE SRH440 perhaps, or AKG K240?

[f1rstsense]

Yo, so i got my eris e5s today...

unfortunately i haven't ever heard the rockits, but ive worked with mackie mr5 mkiis and these are way better (in stereo image and highs mostly)....
luv em so far!!

[SunkLo]

Store guy said that even though the adams sounded different/had a different 'character', they were pretty much as flat as the equators level wise.

This is a prime example of why you should disregard everything told to you buy a guy in a store. Usually they're just talking out their ass to sell gear. A monitor can't sound different and have its own character while still being flat. A linear system like a speaker can be described in its entirety by its frequency response. If it sounds different or changes things in any way, that's a discrepancy in frequency response.

[forbidden]

Store guy said that even though the adams sounded different/had a different 'character', they were pretty much as flat as the equators level wise.

This is a prime example of why you should disregard everything told to you buy a guy in a store. Usually they're just talking out their ass to sell gear. A monitor can't sound different and have its own character while still being flat. A linear system like a speaker can be described in its entirety by its frequency response. If it sounds different or changes things in any way, that's a discrepancy in frequency response.

agreed. guys at guitar center know fuck all about the craft.

[hubb]

darkmatter

cheers for the link anyway

[bouncingfish]

Store guy said that even though the adams sounded different/had a different 'character', they were pretty much as flat as the equators level wise.

This is a prime example of why you should disregard everything told to you buy a guy in a store. Usually they're just talking out their ass to sell gear. A monitor can't sound different and have its own character while still being flat. A linear system like a speaker can be described in its entirety by its frequency response. If it sounds different or changes things in any way, that's a discrepancy in frequency response.

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I THOUGHT!
But the guy went on about tweeters changing the sound without messing with flatness, I bought it (his talk, not the monitors lol).
I'll never trust anyone ever again
Seriously, either the D5s had too little highs or the adams had too much in that case, because it was so insanely different. Not talking audiophile level here, even I noticed it.

SO, anyway. What should I do? Tannoy Reveals maybe? Should work right?
Presonus Eris aren't that much like rokits right? They should be ok? Gearslutz hated on them alot but who says they are right.

[nowaysj]

Honestly, I'd turn down the highs in your monitors anyway, if they will have that ability. Just darken it a little. A lot of beginners need a little help pushing the highs. Dark monitors can help with that.

[darkmatter]

bouncingfish - you should listen to the F5s. Not that I've heard them (I have the old Adam A7s), but knowing the science they will have a better midrange (due to the smaller cone) than the F7s at the expense of losing some low end 'meat' and lower maximum SPL. The amps are smaller, so might actually have a lower noise floor at low volumes. Might be perfect for your room for nearfield listening.

Store guy said that even though the adams sounded different/had a different 'character', they were pretty much as flat as the equators level wise.

This is a prime example of why you should disregard everything told to you buy a guy in a store. Usually they're just talking out their ass to sell gear.

Agreed in most cases.

A monitor can't sound different and have its own character while still being flat. A linear system like a speaker can be described in its entirety by its frequency response. If it sounds different or changes things in any way, that's a discrepancy in frequency response.

Completely untrue. Speaker character has as much to do with second and third harmonic distortion, intermodulation distortion, cone break-up modes, time domain response, the integration of the speakers around the crossover point with respect to off axis cancellations, the dispersion etc. etc.

People pay far too much attention to on-axis frequency response being 'flat', whereas in reality the other qualities can have far more effect on the quality a real listener in a real listening position perceives in a non-anechoic chamber (i.e. any normal room).

[nowaysj]

And bigups for the myspace link. OG, TrueHead.

[darkmatter]

Haha forgot that was there, and that myspace even existed! Haven't logged in here for years, good to see it's still very active

[SunkLo]

There are non-linearities present, especially when you consider the amp as part of the speaker. Most of those effects will affect frequency response though. Time domain response translates directly to frequency response, and tons of distortion would surely slaughter the speaker's flatness. No monitor is perfectly linear, but the closer you get to neutral, the less room there is for "character". Although I realize we're not talking about super high end speakers here.

[nowaysj]

Haha forgot that was there, and that myspace even existed! Haven't logged in here for years, good to see it's still very active

Uh, well not really that active. Don't let SunkLo and I fool you. It is going though. What caused you to pop back?

[SunkLo]

We're like the boners propping the blanket up.

[darkmatter]

There are non-linearities present, especially when you consider the amp as part of the speaker. Most of those effects will affect frequency response though. Time domain response translates directly to frequency response, and tons of distortion would surely slaughter the speaker's flatness. No monitor is perfectly linear, but the closer you get to neutral, the less room there is for "character". Although I realize we're not talking about super high end speakers here.

Not gonna argue as you clearly know what you're talking about, but what I wanted to point out is that in general I feel too much attention is given to on-axis frequency response specs.

In theory the time domain response would be reflected in the frequency response, but only with a long FFT window. A short FFT window when sweeping the response of the speaker will not show the time domain response - arguably fair in a lot of cases as manufacturers want to test the speaker not the room response and they don't all own anechoic chambers. Also most manufacturers (unfortunately) don't publish waterfall plots.

A speaker could be +-1db throughout the spec'd range on axis, but show horrible cancellations off-axis (i.e. at the listening position, cos no one listens on-axis).

The speaker could put out 90dB at 50Hz and 90dB at 100Hz - i.e. 'flat' in terms of the frequency response spec - but 10% of the sound at 50Hz could be distortion - which when put like that isn't so great. A lot of manufacturers publish THD specs for their amps - but very rarely publish 2nd + 3rd harmonic distortion graphs. And there doesn't seem to be any standardised test for IMD.

Popped back because I got the itch to make some tunes while travelling in South America LOL @ propping up the blanket! Someone's gotta do it

[SunkLo]

Yeah man I agree with you on a lot of points. I think waterfalls are the most intuitive way to visualize the response of a monitor. In a linear system they're redundant though, since the time response (as in impulse or step response) can be transformed directly to frequency response. They're intrinsically linked, the same raw data represented in different domains. Assuming the system obeys the rules of linearity and non-time invariance, the frequency response shouldn't change over time, so a waterfall graph would just show an even decay at all frequencies.

Unfortunately when you add on non-linearities like a cabinet with resonances, an amp, and unstable physical properties of the speaker that act differently at different frequencies and levels, the linearity of the system goes to shit. In that case a waterfall graph is quite useful to show how stable the frequency response actually is. However I think a lot of companies are just taking impulses of their speakers and transforming them into the frequency domain to get their graphs. Maybe not even in a suitable room, you could take a raw impulse of the room and deconvolve it from the impulse of the speaker in the room to get the theoretical pure speaker impulse. In a scenario like that it's impossible to get an accurate waterfall. Maybe I'm just being cynical but even with proper testing capabilities, most companies still only publish as much info as they have to.