[Scott Dorsey]

James Price wrote:
I think there's a presumption by many that the more expensive
a monitor is, the more honest and neutral it is. In your opinion,
is that true?

No, but studio monitors are ALSO designed to be loud without distortion,
and they are designed to be difficult to damage when someone repatches
something incorrectly.

Some more expensive monitors are designed to run loud at the expense of
performance at lower levels. If people work that way, they are a good
choice, if they don't, they aren't.

Some more expensive monitors are designed with very tight dispersion to
get an "up-front" sound in a small control room and to deal better with
poorly treated control rooms. This invariably comes with sonic artifacts,
but in some rooms they can be a huge win. On the other hand, in a better
control room, they are a poor choice.

It's too wide a generalization, but you CAN generalize within some product
lines. For example, the Genelec 8000 series monitors are all pretty much
voiced similarly. You go up in the line and you spend more money and you
get the same basic characteristics but better sound.

On the other hand, the older Genelec 1000-series monitors all sounded
totally different and had very different dispersion and tonal character.
You could spend more money and get a monitor that was worse for your
application.

As an aside, I assume more neutral doesn't equate to more
pleasing, as honesty isn't necessarily flattering.

Definitely not, but I don't want to be pleased by bad sound. If something
sounds wrong, I want to notice it as soon as possible, before the customer
does.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."