It’s A Wine-Tasting Not A Shoot-out Part II

In many respects, we may not be a typical group of listeners and, despite the fact that we mostly earn our respective livings making recordings, we suspect we aren’t stereotypical recording engineers. Only one of us uses Yamaha NS10s and nobody owned up to using Urei 813s in daily work, for instance. Our production monitors of choice range from Radio Shack Minimus 7Ws to custom built full-range reference monitors. We work on a wide range of music, from minimalist classical recordings to hip-hop to major commercials. We acknowledged that our tastes don’t coincide and figured it didn’t matter for this listening session.

A second assumption, which got a lot of discussion by the end of the day, was that we should evaluate these near-field monitors as production tools, judging their quality by the way that (a) they yield predictable results for their users and (b) that those results travel well to end-users’ systems. Which suggests, the best criteria isn’t necessarily how “good” a monitor sounds, but how effectively it permits the engineer to create recordings that consumers will find enjoyable on their various speaker systems.

Such considerations often led to comments like, “I really like this speaker but I don’t think I could mix on it,” and “I really like the bass on these but they can fool you - they bagged me so badly once I had to remix the project on different speakers once I heard the mix over some other systems.” There was a wariness, a sense of conservative reserve, a hesitation learned from years of experience before once again going, “Oh wow, that really sounds awesome! Gotta have ‘em!” Further, we spent considerable time discussing the difference between listening while mixing and listening for fun! These are definitely not the same thing, a distinction that may be lost on many audiophiles and end-users.

So Wadja Think? Whashud I Buy?

In general, we felt that the speakers were a respectable bunch, some a little pricey. Several speakers stood out for us in terms of accuracy and clarity. Extended bass (below 80 Hz.) was a problem for all of the speakers (a function of their small size), and preferences in this regard were a touchy and personal issue. Also, particularly in regard to bass, it turned out to be fairly hard to determine accuracy on recordings we hadn’t recorded ourselves. (Several speakers were getting high marks for bass until the engineer who had made one of the recordings we were listening to said, “Nope. It didn’t really sound like that.” In another case, an engineer pointed out that what had been a flute solo when he mixed it had become an electric bass solo with flute accompaniment!)

Other conclusions:

• There seems to be a trend toward an extended and somewhat boosted top end (we call it “hype”) on many of the more recent monitor designs.
• We found little correlation between price and performance.
• We were surprised to be underwhelmed by the powered monitors – we ended up questioning the amplifier designs and protection circuitry, and wondering if maybe they need a warmup period before they really begin to work right (we ran ‘em cold).
• We were bemused by the some of the most expensive speakers – they should have sounded great, but instead had an audio quality that seemed disconnected from the music, if that makes any sense.
• The Paradigms impressed everybody with their bang-for-the-buck.
• The Dunlavys impressed some, but were extremely sensitive to vertical position to a point that many felt was irritating.
• The Apogee’s ribbon tweeter won high praise, and evoked considerable discussion of the virtues of wide lateral dispersion.

One performance quality that was quite noticeable, but would never show up under more normal listening circumstances, was power compression, the reduction in acoustic dynamic range caused by mechanical limits in the loudspeaker. We noticed, on several recordings, that the apparent dynamic range of the speakers seemed to differ by quite a bit, particularly on high-frequency transients. Sounds that seemed to leap out at the listeners on some monitors seemed quite restrained and tame on others. This merits a lot of further study.

The speakers that tweaked our interest enough to want a second listen were the ProAc Studio 100s, Aerial Model 5s, Paradigm Mini Mk. IIIs, Ed Long’s MDM-4s, the discontinued Audix HRM-3, and the Apogee Ribbon Monitors. These were not necessarily the best speakers, but rather the ones we found most interesting and wanted to get more listening time on for future reference. For instance, I wanted an extended listen to the MDM-4s because of Jim McCurdy’s comments during the first session (see below). Differences in bass response between the ProAc and Aerial monitors provoked a lot of interest and discussion. The Paradigms were not known to most of the participants beforehand, and they wanted to check them out again, given their low price. The discontinued Audix was a very seductive speaker that we had used as a reference, and we simply wanted to see if, after all the listening we’d done, our sense of it had changed (it hadn’t). The Apogee is a fascinating speaker, thanks to its unique tweeter. Complaints about the woofer and its coupling to the ribbon notwithstanding, there was general consensus that this was close to ideal high-frequency performance, with a sweet, wide, very revealing and satisfying top end and little sense of hype or overstatement. It seemed, to my ears, smoother than other tweeters, and its stereo was really very good!

When I called around after the tests I got the following comments:

I liked the HRM-3s, the MDM-4s, the Proacs and the Paradigms. Very impressed with Paradigms for the money; one of the greatest potentials for a great new product I heard was the Apogee ribbon tweeter.

Tom Bates

I preferred the Paradigm, with its smooth top end and phase coherence.

Bill Baty

If I had to mix on em, I’d choose the MDM-4s, because they weren’t as fatiguing as the others; smooth enough although lacking in range. I wouldn’t want to be seduced by a monitor, but on the other hand wouldn’t want to live with the MDM-4s. The Audix HRM-3s seemed like a good value but they were maybe a little too flattering. The ProaAc Studio 100s sounded really OK, but seemed to have limited dynamic range.

Tom Cahill

I preferred the ProAc Studio 100s, and really liked the ribbon tweeter of the Apogees, with its broad dispersion, etc. Really suitable for control rooms as a viable mixing tool.

Mark Conese

I preferred the Paradigms, I think. I would have loved to compare them directly with the ProAcs in some sort of A/B test, especially given their price!

Alec Head

I didn’t have a clear preference; the one that surprised me the most was the Paradigm - nothing else was close in terms of price/performance - also, it was very close to the best in the test. I liked the ProAcs a lot, too. I could find fault with any of them, though. The ProAcs were a little bright, bloomy (not boomy) on bottom. The midbass was forward in Paradigms. My top three were the Audix HRM-3, ProAc Studio 100s and the Paradigms. I was surprised by my lack of enthusiasm for the powered monitors. I wonder if warm-up is a problem. When I use Genelecs on location I like to let them run 4-5 hours before I use them, and they always seem to sound better on the second day. Maybe powered speakers should be a separate category. I’m not sure it’s a level playing field.

Tom Jung

The ProAc seemed the best overall compromise of strengths and weaknesses displayed by all the near-fields we listened to. Honorable mentions go to the Aerials and Paradigms. Doing an album, I’ll generally use several different reference speakers in the various stages of cutting tracks, overdubbing, mixing and mastering. The last few projects have been a mix of Audix HRM-3s, Sequerras, Genelecs, Advents and the ProAcs – basically whatever’s available! The key is to cross reference as much as you comfortably can, to avoid the unpleasant surprises that can arise when working off of one pair of monitors exclusively.

Les Kahn

The Paradigms were very interesting, also the Apogees – I loved the tweeter but the bottom was a little warm. The ProAc Studio 100s were very nice overall, perhaps the only speaker I had no particular criticism of. The Dynaudio LS5 wasn’t bad but peaky in the high mids. The Dunlavys were nice, but bass light. I thought I was going to hear some other common features, and was surprised to find my comments all seem to refer to too much high end, too light in the bass. If I could get the Apogee ribbon on the Aerials without the bass bump, I’d buy em in a second.

Jim McCurdy

I preferred the Audix HRM-3. I loved the Paradigms, but don’t know if I’d use ‘em for cutting tracks. Nothing grabbed me completely, but I enjoyed the ProAc and Apogee (I really liked the depth of its image).

Joe Marno