A curious 'fact' from my last electrician....

Very unlikely I would say. Very revealing speakers that show all the detail of the source, cheap to produce?, no development costs to recoup?

I think he is right. It's a question of different priorities in different situations. Domestic hi-fi equipment needs to produce a pleasant and listenable sound - that is the priority. With studio gear, the priority is to produce a sound whereby the recording/mixing engineers can easily identify faults or shortcomings. The sound does not need to be pleasant or listenable, people will not be sitting for hours to listen to music for pleasure, they are doing a job. The equipment is merely a tool for producing a finished product, not one to enjoy music on. That is why there are very seperate, distinct markets for professional studio gear and domestic hi-fi. They are very different animals.

Peter

If he means that consumers over-pay for marketing gimmicks, he may well be right.

Studio operators that buy speakers are still consumers. I can recall something along the lines of Naim 250 being used in some studio situations.

Surely you'd want to hear EVERYTHING when mixing an album?

Seem very probable to me.

I believe that the NAP250 was originally designed as a studio amp for the BBC, and that there still is a "professional" version. The very fact that this is different to the domestic version surely indicates something? In general though there are very few "crossover" products, and studio gear remains distinctly differentb to domestic gear. It may be cheaper sometimes as it is typically finished to lower cosmetic standards than domestic gear. As to the attitude of recording industry professionals (and musicians for that matter)from what I've read and experienced personally many of them have little interest in quality music reproduction at home. They often use very basic mass-market systems and many of them view hi-fi enthusiasts as freaks.

Peter

IIRC the professional 250.2 has more outputs, eg. balanced / XLR. I think the internals are the same.

Many domestic speakers have a studio heritage (such as ATC, PMC, Harbeth et al.) and many studio speakers are voiced for their application. I'm not sure that involves making them more able to transduce 'faults' but more to suit their application. For example, near-field monitors designed to sit on a mixing console will probably sound a bit odd in a living room (I can think of some exceptions though!)
Studio speakers also have to handle tough treatment, so will have tough finishes and rubber corners and actives will have balanced inputs. Not much call for the burred walnut finishes in that market.
I'm not sure that makes them 'cheaper'. Have a browse of some of the pro-audio sites like HHB and Canford and you'll see the prices are just as eye-watering as domestic options.

Nero
Sounds like a qualified opinion, close to the mark to me.

I am sure that a good chunk of the music we have in our collections were mixed on cheapish Yamaha NS-10's, but I do not think many of use would like to have a pair at home.

I have the same speakers that Bob Katz uses in his mastering studio, but I doubt he was using a Nait 3 with them ! ( and wether or not I actually want to listen to some of the albums he has mastered is another matter all together fantastic sounding as they are ).

If you are not using the same speakers at home ( not to mention amps, dacs etc etc ) that were used on the recording, then you are hearing a different presentation of it, not how it really sounds, simple. I think that is just common sense.

So the electrician who told you what he did does have a point, but there is a lot more to it than that.

I would not go as far to say he is feeding you a load of ..

as Nero said, there are silly expensive studio monitors, and there are cheap ones also and at the end of the day, both terrible and fantastic albums have been made on both.

( anyone have any master tapes of any Bob Katz mastered albums I can play on my Otari reel to reel ? that's Ok, no big deal....

I remember back in the days when I was recording in a band the studios had tiny speakers on the desk. These were for checking what the mix would sound like on the average domestic kitchen radio. I don't know about the main monitors, but they were nothing like home hi-fi speakers.
I think he's right to a degree, but it may be an over-generalisation. Surely hi-fi speakers will have different capabilities depending on the price bracket. Of course cheaper speakers will be rolled off where they can't cope.

quote:

He then told me that the speakers people use in recording studios are speakers purposely geared to hearing all the faults in the music. The ones we buy at home have been altered to smooth all this out. He also told me that the speakers 'they' use are far cheaper.

In the days when JBL where the leaders in studio monitors (the 1970's, if you wonder), many of their studio and home speakers where the same, they just had different names and, sometimes, slightly different looks. Like:

4311 - L100
4301 - L19
4331 - L200
4333 - L300

From the price lists of those days one can deduct that the studio versions where actually slightly cheaper!

In the 1980's the pro people started to use those dreadful Yamaha NS10's that still seem to be welded to every mixing desk in existence. And, yes, they where cheap.

JohanR

Great range of feedback, thank you guys!!

I also wonder because doesn't Abbey Road use B&W802D speakers in the mixing studio???

As it happens, I'm not giving the job to him anyway, so his 'buttering up' was in vain.

I am excited about the spur though and will update the forum with my perceptions this Friday.

Regards,

Jon

quote:

Originally posted by munch:
Peter Gabriels,
Studio uses B&W also.
Look on his website.
Its a fantastic building,And a great studio.
Stu

More here: http://www.recordproduction.com/realworld.htm

Consciousness,

When I last visited Abbey Road were using the B&W 801, ATC are also heavily used for studio monitoring duty - check their website for a list of studios and artists that use them.

Jonathan