Monitors - Is More Expensive Always More Neutral?

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?

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

On Thursday, September 20, 2018 at 2:06:28 PM UTC-5, 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?
>
> As an aside, I assume more neutral doesn't equate to more
> pleasing, as honesty isn't necessarily flattering.

I'd say no. More expensive can mean higher maximum output levels rather than greater neutrality, and that's a legitimate goal in certain applications.

Peace,
Paul Stamler

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."

On 21/09/2018 7:22 am, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> James Price > wrote:
>> 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.

Yep, and once you go down that track, what sounds more 'flattering" on
some music will sound less so on others anyway. Far better to have as
much neutrality as possible within the constraints of whatever
parameters are deemed necessary for your own situation.

On Thursday, September 20, 2018 at 1:06:28 PM UTC-6, 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?
>
> As an aside, I assume more neutral doesn't equate to more
> pleasing, as honesty isn't necessarily flattering.

Price is not the determining factor.
How the speaker sounds is what matters.
I have a pair of JBL L300 Summits They are absolutely lovely speakers and I really like them on my home system.
I tried to use them for studio monitors and they didn't work at all. It didn't matter what garbage I played on them, it always seemed to sound good.
I currently use a set of JBL 4430's which are really a decent studio monitor though I find that they lack really low bass.
What I like about the 4430 is that I can determine immediately how the vocals sit in the mix. I seem to hear the music in layers from front to back and those speakers really define that.
The other speakers that I used that sounded very similar to the 4430's were a set of Fostex 8" coaxials that had very much the same characteristics. Unfortunately I had to retire them to my living room system when the tweeter assemblies became unavailable.
There was a tremendous difference in price between the two sets but both were what i would consider neutral rather than flattering.

Richard Kuschel > wrote:
>The other speakers that I used that sounded very similar to the 4430's were=
> a set of Fostex 8" coaxials that had very much the same characteristics. U=
>nfortunately I had to retire them to my living room system when the tweeter=
> assemblies became unavailable.=20

If they are RM780s or use the same drivers, then there is a pull available on
ebay right now.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

This is why you need larger monitors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bno-qsnbUA
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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

There is no telling. I don't get out much, so season accordingly. But
the only thing I ever heard tha impressed me as disappearing behind the
sound they made were the original Blue Sky 2.1 setups.

--
Les Cargill

PStamler wrote:
> On Thursday, September 20, 2018 at 2:06:28 PM UTC-5, 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?
>>
>> As an aside, I assume more neutral doesn't equate to more pleasing,
>> as honesty isn't necessarily flattering.
>
> I'd say no. More expensive can mean higher maximum output levels
> rather than greater neutrality, and that's a legitimate goal in
> certain applications.
>
> Peace, Paul Stamler
>

I'd take Eminence as the present-day archetypical driver company,
and from what I have seen, the higher power they are, the less sensitive
they are. Seems like an adaptation to Class D power.

I don't know what more expensive means in terms of monitors.

--
Les Cargill

On 9/20/2018 3:06 PM, 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?
>
> As an aside, I assume more neutral doesn't equate to more
> pleasing, as honesty isn't necessarily flattering.
>
The purpose of studio monitors has historically been to make problems in
the recording process audible, so they didn't have flat frequency
responses. Some used concentric speakers to minimize such things as
frequency interference between drivers. And, no, I wouldn't call most of
them pleasant for casual listening.

--
best regards,

Neil