"Mike Rieves" wrote in message

"Powell" wrote in message
...

"Mike Rieves" wrote

Would you use home Hifi speakers as studio
monitor speakers?

Depends on the speakers and the application, no?
Ever hear of B&W 800 or 801 in studio use,
for example? Plenty of Paradigm Studio 20s,
for example, being used at the low end (low
cost), too.

Did you not catch the "Studio" in Paradigm Studio 20's?
BTW, the Paradigms are $700.00 and the B&W's are much,
much higher. Surely you aren't attempting to compare
these to an inexpensive mid-line Yamaha consumer power
amp!

I'm very pleased to notice that I'm not the one who has to defend gross
generalities like:

"Would you use home Hifi speakers as studio monitor speakers?"

taken as a rhetorical question.

To re-iterate, given my choice of home hifi speakers, yes I would (and have)
used home hifi speakers for monitor speakers, and vice-versa. It can work.

In any event, just because some folks use home hifi
speakers as studio monitors doesn't mean that they make
good stduio monitors.

Yet another gross generality that I'm pleased to not have to defend.

We had this discussion a while back
in this group, and I believe that the consensus was that
home hifi speakers belong in the living room.

Who is this all-mighty "we"?

Just to be
clear on this, many studios have home hifi speakers
setting around for listening tests, to see how a mix will
sound on home equipment, but no pro studios and very few
home studioists (other than those who can't afford real
monitor speakers) actually mix on home speakers.

Where is the statistical study that supports this claim? BTW it can't exist
because it contains instantly false hyper-generalizatinos like "no pro
studios and very few home studioists (other than those who can't afford real
monitor speakers) actually mix on home speakers."


Amplifiers selection usually isn't as critical as speaker
selection, but if you want great mixes, everything in the
chain has to be right.

There is no such thing as a unique or narrowly-defined "right" when it comes
to things like this.

"Right" is very context-sensitive. Because of this it is also a moving
target.

If not then why would you use a hime hifi amp
to power your studio monitors?

Huh? There are several hi-fi amp manufacturers
with superior (specs, performance & sound) to
the studio amps. And my count there are 61
manufacturers of Hi-Fi power amps using XLR
connections, so that can't be a limitation either.

Studio monitor equipment isn't necessarily better
sounding that other equipment, it's more accurate than
other equipment.

Wrong again. In fact there is no reliable, generally-agreed upon definition
about even what studio monitor equipment is. Furthermore "studio monitor
equipment" has historicially included pieces of work such as the Yamaha
NS-10 which is probably less accurate than a huge number of speakers that
sold primarily for home use.

As for "superior" sound, superior for
what use? Connectors don't matter, most pro SR amps have
XLR connectors.

I think that just about everybody who understands the advantages of balanced
inputs and has the budget for including them would prefer to use a power amp
with balanced inputs over one without, all other things being equal. Let me
remind you that the Alesis RA-100 which is a power amp that many love to
hate, was widely sold as "studio monitor equipment" and lacks balanced
inputs.

Use whatever you want to mix on, but
keep in mind that if you don't hear it correctly, you won't mix it
correctly.

Which begs the question - what is correct? Let me advance the theory that if
your target audience is people listening with iPods, mixing and/or mastering
on iPod-like equipment can make a lot of sense. And if you think that
necessarily involves problematical compromises in terms of sonic accuracy,
let me suspect that you've never carefully listened to a well-made .wav
(actually it will be an AIFF but most Ipod-familiar techies know what I
mean) using a pair of say Shure E-3s, E-4s or E-5s.

If you want to use an M-50 to drive your studio monitors, be my guest!
:-)

Speaks to your prejudices, I fear.


Keep in mind that most home hifi equipment is built
to sound good in a typical living room, and there is a
world of difference between a typical home living room
and a decent studio control room, even a home studio.

Is your point here that near-field speakers and mid-field speakers are
different? Guess what - lots of pro studios don't have near-field monitors
at all, or if they have them, they don't do most of their work on them.

Studio monitor equipment is designed to be accurate so
that the mixing engineer can hear every nuance and detail
in the mix, something that isn't necessarily desirable in
a home hifi system, where folks just want the music to
sound good.

Where is it written on stone that just because the reproduction is very
accurate, it can't sound good?

It isn't. In fact one of the founding tenets of home High Fidelity is that
accurate reproduction sounds best, all things considered.