I am setting up a control room which will require built-in studio
monitors for tracking and mixdown. What are some of the better than
home-studio quality, and less costly than top-of-the line models I
should look into? The room is approximately 10' High X 16' Wide X 23'
Deep. Priorities a

.. Sound Quality
.. No need for Subwoofer
.. Brand name recognition for clients
.. Cost / Value

The amp will probably be a Bryston 4B, unless the monitors require
more power (I hope not!).

Thanks in Advance

Mike wrote
I am setting up a control room which will require built-in studio
monitors for tracking and mixdown. What are some of the better than
home-studio quality, and less costly than top-of-the line models I
should look into? The room is approximately 10' High X 16' Wide X 23'
Deep. Priorities a

. Sound Quality
. No need for Subwoofer
. Brand name recognition for clients
. Cost / Value

The amp will probably be a Bryston 4B, unless the monitors require
more power (I hope not!).


Tannoy Reveals (active) under $1000.00 new, what about the room you'll be
mixing in?

Talk to the room's designer, or hire one if you haven't yet. Soffit mounted
speakers should be chosen as a component in the room's design.


Joe Egan
EMP
Colchester, VT
www.eganmedia.com

On 2004-06-29, Raymond wrote:
Mike wrote
I am setting up a control room which will require built-in studio
monitors for tracking and mixdown. What are some of the better than
home-studio quality, and less costly than top-of-the line models I
should look into? The room is approximately 10' High X 16' Wide X 23'
Deep. Priorities a

. Sound Quality
. No need for Subwoofer
. Brand name recognition for clients
. Cost / Value

The amp will probably be a Bryston 4B, unless the monitors require
more power (I hope not!).

Tannoy Reveals (active) under $1000.00 new, what about the room you'll be
mixing in?

Do the Reveals satisfy the "no need for subwoofer" requirement ?

--
André Majorel URL:http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/
Respect for government [...] and its symbols is fundamentally fascist.
-- William Sommerwerck, on the subject of ****ing on a national flag.

Andre Majorel wrote:
On 2004-06-29, Raymond wrote:
Mike wrote
I am setting up a control room which will require built-in studio
monitors for tracking and mixdown. What are some of the better than
home-studio quality, and less costly than top-of-the line models I
should look into? The room is approximately 10' High X 16' Wide X 23'
Deep. Priorities a

. Sound Quality
. No need for Subwoofer
. Brand name recognition for clients
. Cost / Value

The amp will probably be a Bryston 4B, unless the monitors require
more power (I hope not!).

Tannoy Reveals (active) under $1000.00 new, what about the room you'll be
mixing in?

Do the Reveals satisfy the "no need for subwoofer" requirement ?

Depends what you are mixing. You won't get 20 Hz out of them if that is
important to you, but they go down low enough that you can get some sense
of what the bottom end is doing.

I'd tend to want more extension, but you won't get more extension without
spending more money.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Andre Majorel wrote:
On 2004-06-29, Raymond wrote:
Mike wrote
I am setting up a control room which will require built-in studio
monitors for tracking and mixdown. What are some of the better than
home-studio quality, and less costly than top-of-the line models I
should look into? The room is approximately 10' High X 16' Wide X 23'
Deep. Priorities a

. Sound Quality
. No need for Subwoofer
. Brand name recognition for clients
. Cost / Value

The amp will probably be a Bryston 4B, unless the monitors require
more power (I hope not!).

Tannoy Reveals (active) under $1000.00 new, what about the room you'll be
mixing in?

Do the Reveals satisfy the "no need for subwoofer" requirement ?

I did use them without a sub for a shot bit and they worked very well, but if
your doing stuff that needs a lot of sub response you "will" want to use a sub.
The Tannoy 110B and 112B subs are perfect with the Reveals, I have two 110B's
with my Reveals and they work quite good together. The new models are called
something else all together (I don't know the model #'s) but I would think that
they can do a good job.

Thanks for the information! Now, reading some older post about
soffit-mounted speakers, I'm re-thinking my design. The room does not
exist yet! I'm still getting quotes from architects and builders. Am
I correct in my reading that the general consensus is that
soffit-mounting is too hard to get right to do in the first place?
The book I'm reading (Jeff Cooper's "Building a Recording Studio")
says that soffit-mounts are the way to go.

Mike Lascuola wrote:
Thanks for the information! Now, reading some older post about
soffit-mounted speakers, I'm re-thinking my design. The room does not
exist yet! I'm still getting quotes from architects and builders. Am
I correct in my reading that the general consensus is that
soffit-mounting is too hard to get right to do in the first place?
The book I'm reading (Jeff Cooper's "Building a Recording Studio")
says that soffit-mounts are the way to go.

Soffit mounting works ONLY if the wall is well-designed and the speakers
are designed for soffit-mounting. There are a whole different set of
room effects involved when you soffit-mount, and it makes it much harder
to set things up properly because you have also lost the ability to control
low end by spacing from the wall to compensate for other low end issues in
the room.

I have heard a few good soffit-mounted systems, but not very many. They
are out there and they exist, and they are a good way of dealing with
the issues of direct reflections from huge glass windows in front of the
console. But they introduce another set of issues.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On Fri, 2 Jul 2004 00:24:11 -0400, Mike Lascuola wrote
(in article ) :

Thanks for the information! Now, reading some older post about
soffit-mounted speakers, I'm re-thinking my design. The room does not
exist yet! I'm still getting quotes from architects and builders. Am
I correct in my reading that the general consensus is that
soffit-mounting is too hard to get right to do in the first place?
The book I'm reading (Jeff Cooper's "Building a Recording Studio")
says that soffit-mounts are the way to go.

Don't believe everything you read. Was that book written before good
nearfields were available?

Regards,

Ty Ford



-- Ty Ford's equipment reviews, audio samples, rates and other audiocentric
stuff are at http://home.comcast.net/~tyreeford

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
I have heard a few good soffit-mounted systems, but not very many.

In my opinion the main problem with soffit-mounted speakers has been using
1/3 octave eq. with them.

--
Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN
Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control
Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined!
615.385.8051 http://www.hyperback.com

Bob Olhsson wrote:
"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
I have heard a few good soffit-mounted systems, but not very many.

In my opinion the main problem with soffit-mounted speakers has been using
1/3 octave eq. with them.

That's a pretty serious issue. A lot of people have used speakers that were
not designed for soffit mounting, and decided that they could just use radical
EQ to compensate for the different low-end response required. The result
is a pretty screwed-up bottom end. Speakers intended for in-room placement
just don't work properly in soffits.
--scott

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

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Speakers intended for in-room placement
just don't work properly in soffits.
--scott


What's a soffit?


Bob
--

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."

A. Einstein

(Scott Dorsey) wrote in message ...
Bob Olhsson wrote:

In my opinion the main problem with soffit-mounted speakers has been using
1/3 octave eq. with them.

That's a pretty serious issue. A lot of people have used speakers that were
not designed for soffit mounting, and decided that they could just use radical
EQ to compensate for the different low-end response required. The result
is a pretty screwed-up bottom end. Speakers intended for in-room placement
just don't work properly in soffits.
--scott

I think that Bob is onto something with this. Put up big speakers in
bad sounding rooms- EQ to"flatten", make speakers sound worse- do this
often enough that people decide soffits sound bad, and are only good
for hyping clients- Now people buy bigs only to hype, not to mix on,
guaranteeing that bigs will be, well, hyped. Is it any surprise,
then, that a lot of these systems won't be great for mixing? It is a
self perpetuating thing.

Over the past few months, I've been doing a lot of research as I
prepare to build a new room. In my reading and talking to
acousticians and designers, I have found that the overwhelming
majority strongly believe in soffit mounting. If done well, there
are several acoustic benefits, and no real acoustic drawbacks to flush
mounting. Philip Newell, in Recording Studio Design, emphasizes the
importance of flush mounting- and states that as a control room gets
smaller, the importance of flush mounting increases. Here is a page
on the Genelec site which briefly runs down the basic issues
http://tinyurl.com/2xjqx

As far as speakers needing to be designed for flush mounting- you're
right that a lot of speakers will not sound right if taken off the
shelf and put up in the wall. But if you enquire, it turns out that a
lot of the manufacturers are willing and able to make the appropriate
adjustments to their speakers for a nominal charge. You just need to
ask. Or you can spend a bit of money and go this route
http://www.barefootsound.com/sc2.htm

Anyway, this is kind of a fascinating topic. It is odd that there is
this huge gap between the guys who design rooms and the guys who use
those rooms.

R

In article , Bob Cain
wrote:

Speakers intended for in-room placement
just don't work properly in soffits.
--scott


What's a soffit?


Bob


I big ole hole in the wall custom made for the speaker that will
inhabit it. There are a whole lot of issues involved in doing it right.





David Correia
Celebration Sound
Warren, Rhode Island


www.CelebrationSound.com

Bob Cain wrote:

What's a soffit?
Although technically, a soffit is the underside of a structure (such
as a staircase), in this context it refers to flush-mounted speakers.
Genelec talks about it in their FAQ here
http://www.genelec.com/support/faq/faq20.php


Ty Ford wrote:
Was that book written before good
nearfields were available?

The original version of the book is pretty old (late 70's), but there
have been some updates (apparently not in the control room chapter!).


It looks like the simpler path will be to listen to some better
nearfield monitors somewhere.

Man, I sure do like the way Martin-Logan electrostatics sound,
though...

Mike Lascuola wrote:

It looks like the simpler path will be to listen to some better
nearfield monitors somewhere.

There are some out there, but that brings up a whole other different set
of acoustical problems. People seem to have this notion that nearfield
monitoring means they can ignore the room acoustics, and it's not true.

Man, I sure do like the way Martin-Logan electrostatics sound,
though...

They won't soffit-mount worth a damn. But they can actually be made to
work in a long and deep control room, with the window to the studio on
the side of the room rather than the end.
--scott


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

Am
I correct in my reading that the general consensus is that
soffit-mounting is too hard to get right to do in the first place?

When you place a speaker in a soffit, the wall becomes the speaker's baffle.
By placing a speaker in a soffit, you'll radically change how the speaker
sounds, relative to leaving it out in the open. Some speakers are designed to
be mounted this way, some are not, and some can be made to work either free
standng or in a wall. Talk to a room designer.


Joe Egan
EMP
Colchester, VT
www.eganmedia.com

In my reading and talking to
acousticians and designers, I have found that the overwhelming
majority strongly believe in soffit mounting.

I would do some talking to actual working engineers as well.

If done well, there
are several acoustic benefits, and no real acoustic drawbacks to flush
mounting.

Well there certainly are drawbacks, it's just that the acousticians who are
trying to get your business aren't stating that opinion.

Scott Fraser