What’s The Problem?

Choosing studio monitors is a tricky business. Part musical instrument, part laboratory test instrument, studio monitors must do a lot of conflicting things well. Because monitors are so variable and dependent on external influences, deciding which is best for you in your studio is no simple task.

For starters, studio monitors must (a) play back with spectral and dynamic accuracy and consistency and also (b) help us predict how our work will sound to our clients’ fans. They’ve got to do this in spite of the fact that, by themselves, they are only part of the sonic equation – a loudspeaker’s performance is largely dependent on the room it’s in and where it’s placed in the room. The position of the listener also counts.

Further, a loudspeaker’s technical performance is a complex interaction of frequency, time and dispersion. A simple measurement of frequency response does not reasonably represent either the performance or the sound quality of a loudspeaker. For instance, Harman International (makers of JBL, Infinity and Revell loudspeakers) now generates five averaged frequency response curves derived from averages of no less than 70 anechoic frequency response measurements, in order to characterize the behavior of a speaker and its approximate interaction with the room. You should also know that the room interaction has differing high and low frequency components. Life ain’t easy!

Finally, the match between individual speakers is extremely important for both stereo and surround arrays. In stereo, good phantom images are dependent on good speaker match in terms of frequency and phase response, as well as amplitude. For surround arrays, the match of the center speaker and surround speakers is extremely important for music production work. For video and film work, there is some latitude for the center speaker, and there are numerous approaches to the configurations of the surround speakers. My personal view is that the same rules for speaker consistency that we use in stereo probably will be appropriate for surround work.

So, here’s the problem. You go to the store, read the spec sheets. But you are still going to be pretty much clueless about how the various speakers will perform for YOU in YOUR room. Claims of “crystal clear accuracy,” “stunning realism,” and “room-shaking bass” are pretty much useless and you can set them aside. Sweet nothings murmured by reviewers like me, alluding to stuff like “warmth,” “fatness” and “transparency,” have to be taken with the proverbial grain of salt. There simply is no way you can tell, from the literature, how speakers are going to sound to you, for your recording work, in your space. The best we can do is hint about the things you might find, if you’re lucky.

So, what’s a body to do?