Sidebars

The Participants

Tom Bates

Independent engineer, 28 years of recording in classical and pop realms in NYC and London, including most major orchestras and classical artists. Has won multiple Grammys. Preferred his own Audix HRM-3s, ProAc Studio 100s, Paradigms. Uses Audix HRM-3s. Has no favorite speakers for fun listening.

Bill Baty

Analog circuit design engineer, owner of Critical Audio, which designs mic preamps and mixers for classical recording. Refers to himself as “a typical pro audio industry refugee.” Preferred the Paradigms. Doesn’t do production. Listens to Polk Model 10s for fun. Been doing audio for 20 years.

Tom Cahill

Supervising audio engineer at East Side and Post Perfect in New York City. Preferred the MDM-4s. Has been listening to AR-3As for fun for 25 years. Been in the biz for 26 years.

Mark Conese

Owner of Ambient Recording. Specializes in studio design, construction and installation, as well as rebuilding and modifying classic audio gear. Enjoyed the ProAcs, and really liked the dispersion of the Apogees. Uses the Sequerra NFM Pro Monitors and says they translate extremely well to other speakers. Has been a studio owner for 8 years. Has no favorite speakers for fun listening.

Alec Head

Jazz recording engineer, came up through Mediasound in the 70’s, has credits with Chick Corea, John Scofield, Crusaders, Lenny White, Talking Heads, John Lennon, etc. Preferred the Paradigms. Uses NS10s and ProAcs, plus occasionally Meyer HD1s and Genelec 1030As. Doesn’t have a favorite fun speaker for home use. Uses NS10s at home instead! (Gadzooks!) Started doing this in 1972, ah, 23 years ago.

Tom Jung

President of DMP Records. Engineer, producer, perfectionist. Didn’t have a strong preference, leaned toward the Paradigms, ProAcs and Audix HRM-3s. Uses Genelec 1030As on location, Weslake BBSM-6s in mixdown (has used them for years, through four generations). For fun, likes big Dunlavy speakers. Also likes Jim Thiel’s speakers, although those are too sweet and flattering for production. Says you need a speaker that “points you in the right direction, makes you work hard.” Been doing this for 32 years.

Les Kahn

Live and recording engineering. Produced 1993 Grammy Winner Spanish Angel (Paul Winter). Credits also include Essential Hendrix re-releases, Ornette Coleman, Arlo Guthrie. Uses whatever’s lying around in production (see text). For fun, he listens to Infinity WTLC transmission line speakers with Walsh conical tweeters. Been doing this for 22 years.

Jim McCurdy

Commercial engineer for major ad houses, corporate accounts (Pepsi, AMEX and the like – you’ve all heard his work and are hearing it currently during network primetime!) Older credits like Roberta Flack’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love.” Done mostly jazz, like Nancy Wilson, Art Blakey, Eddie Gomez, Frank Foster, etc. Preferred MDM-4s, found Paradigms very interesting, liked Apogee tweeter, ProAc Studio 100. Uses MDM-4s in production. For fun listens to Sony MDR S30 Headphones (says good speakers in a good listening room would cost too much!). Been doing this for 30 years.

Joe Marno

Co-owner of JoJo Records, specializing in R&B, gospel and club music. Major player in gospel music, credits include much platinum. Preferred Audix HRM-3s and loved Paradigms, liked ProAcs and Apogees. Uses Minimus 7Ws and B&W DM100 in production. Likes to use B&Ws for R&B and Gospel, but says club music is abusive to woofers and parts are a problem! Minimus 7Ws are easy to replace, and easy to build a mix on that comes out real everywhere else! Says everybody has a speaker that tells them how their work relates to everyone else on the planet. Doesn’t listen for fun – listens to AM radio instead! Says if he did, he’d enjoy Polks and B&W DM100s. Been doing this for 21 years.

Dave Moulton

Teacher, composer, acoustical consultant, recording engineer (specializing these days in classical and weird stuff). Author of Golden Ears Audio Ear Training. Does production work on custom wide-dispersion monitors. Listens to the same custom monitors for fun, as well as Etymotic Headphones through a Headroom Processor. Been doing this for, ah, lessee, 26 years.

Adam Stolarsky

Assistant engineer for Les Kahn. Not able to interview.

The Monitors

Aerial Model 5

Alesis Monitor 1 $395

Apogee Ribbon Monitor $999

Audix 1A $589

Audix HRM-3 discontinued ($799)

Dunlavy SC-1 $1,000

Dynaudio C2 $2850

Dynaudio LS5/12A $1930

Dynaudio M1 $2599

Genelec 1030A $1999

KRK K-ROK $?

Ed Long MDM-4 $?

Paradigm Mini Mk. III $319

ProAc Monitor

Quested Q108 $6025

Sequerra Custom Small Near-Field Model # MET 7.7, $400

Sequerra Custom Large Near-field Model # NFM Pro, $1250

Weslake BBSM-4 $1900

About Science and Preferences

It’s worth briefly noting here that these tests were neither objective nor reliable, from a scientific standpoint. To begin with, the fact that we all knew which speakers we were listening to by itself makes any judgments of relative quality suspect. Second, our casual handling of levels during the tests further upset any objectivity of the tests. Third, the fact that we all discussed all of the speakers and had sort of a group-think going on during the course of our listening, make the tests invalid for meaningful speaker rating. This is why I haven’t made any serious grouping of preferences and been so vague about our findings. Those “findings” about the relative qualities of the various speakers are simply not valid enough for you to use as a basis for making a purchase decision.

For us listeners, it was an accelerated, informal and short anecdotal study period, loaded with flaws as well as fun. Yes we could hear differences, sometimes big ones. Yes, we had preferences. And we will use these preferences for our own purchasing decisions. However, as I pointed out in an article on buying a console (Recording, February, 1994), you shouldn’t be using our neuroses as the basis for your buying decisions.

In order for us to do something rigorous enough for you readers (and the manufacturers) to be able to take as some kind of objective truth, we would have had to:

(a) make the tests blind, so that no listener knew the identity of any of the speakers under test;

(b) standardize listening levels and speaker/listener positions, and vary them enough times so that we got a reliable indication of quality independent of position and level;

(c) use standardized testing and listening protocols, and keep participants from comparing notes or observing each other during tests.

To do this for eighteen speaker pairs with eleven experienced, professional listeners may simply be impossible to pull off, due to the related testing expenses, which would be huge, and the time required (I doubt any of us could afford to take the time needed - at least a couple of days each, maybe a week!). And it sure wouldn’t be nearly as fun as a wine-tasting!

So maybe this is really the only reasonable way, imperfect as it is, to do this sort of evaluation with this many speakers and listeners. After all, there is no perfect data!

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