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In Reply to: What is the different between studio monitor and Hi-Fi speaker? posted by lucky man on June 15, 2004 at 04:18:01:
I build lots of hi fi speakers, and "monitors" and I run a studio - so I have a fair idea on this question. I'll give my pov.My short reaction is that the moniker "monitor" means little comming from most companies. Reputable companies make studio monitors professionals like because they are revealing, and result in good sounding mixes. So much of what you hear is reflected (30-80%) that "flat" has more to do with room than speaker. That's why near fields are so popular for monitoring - less "room". Robustness and stability and predictability are nice to have - but these objectives are not hard to engineer in with quality drivers and crossover components. There's really little art required, and the science of a two way monitor with a dome tweeter is pretty cut and dried. Controlling the amplification and use of active crossovers provides an enormous advantage to the designer which is why many of the good monitors are biamped active.
Its easy to engineer "flat" in an anechoic chamber with a mic in a fixed position. You just tweek until done. A monitor designer thus has a big advantage because they know where the listener is and can put the sound in that spot. That same advantage carries over to room issues - if you don't put sound everywhere there are less reflections to worry about. Dispersion is a two edged sword.
So, relative to creating a "flat" sound, and room problems, monitors are less difficult to design than "hi fi" speakers - or, at least,the results are more predictable because the conditions are generally more predictable.
Most issues revolve around dynamic range and phase coherance. In this regard the hi fi guy wants the same thing as the engineer - perfect dynamic range reproduction and absolute phase alignment/coherance (don't shoot me, I know there's debate about the difference). These qualities have different consiquences in monitors vs hi fi. In a studio one can, and often does (by accident) make enormous transients. A snare hit, uncompressed, by itself, recorded 24 bit, and dumped into a speaker through a big amp turned up will do things that no finished record will ever do to a speaker. You do that sorta thing all day in a studio. Alas, your speaker, designed to produce transients accurately, will do its best, and jump right out of the voice coil. So you need some surge protection, and lots of robustness, and replacable parts, and so on. A hi fi speaker will never be asked to do this except if an idiot is at the controls in which case the warranty is void, so you can in theory take more risk with dynamic range. Generally that means you can use cheaper parts and get the same result.
Anyway, as far as I can tell the hi fi people use the same parts the monitor people use - dollar for dollar. Hi fi speakers can be a little brighter or bassier than a monitor, because a monitor, if not flat, will cause the production of a dull sounding mix. I could easily mix a record that had a smile eq built in just by putting a frown on the monitor eq. Every peak and dip in a monitor shows up as the opposite in the final mix when played on your home stereo. So, flat is important in a monitor.
Listening fatigue is a little more important with monitors - but most of them use dome tweeters just like most hi fi systems, so I don't see a real difference. Most enginners I know deal with listening fatigue by a) turing it down, b) taking a break once in a while. I use ribbon tweeters in my monitos and I get no fatigue.
Finally, people should know that MANY TYPES of monitors are used in the recording process. Many studios use tracking monitors during the tracking process. These don't have to be totally flat - but they do need to take big dynamic range, and have lots of dispersion so that musicians can hear what they just played standing around in the control room. Then we have mixing montors, which need to be revealing and flat. Then, in the mastering process, (which, in today's world, means final compression and eq) many sets of hi fi speakers are used, and many sets of low fi speakers are used and its all eq'd to a compromise that sounds best on most speakers.
So - there you go. If somethng is called a monitor it probably means it aspires to be flat in an anechoic chamber, it takes some dynamic range, and it has low dispersion. Hi fi speakers aspire to sound great in a room - which has some similarities and some differences as far as design is concerned. As for phase coherance, one famous designer (Klipsch?) pointed out that you will never get perfect phase alignment because your ears are in different places. Its the holy grail and may not be worth pursuing in the first place, and anyone who says they have it probably enjoys listening to 1000 hz tone bursts. tvm.
Finally,
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- I think you've got some of it.... - tmcconnell 20:08:23 06/22/04 (1)
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