Should You Forget Monitor Speakers & Just Use Hi-Fi Speakers?

[justin3am]

I agree the car thing it's slightly counterintuitive, but somehow my car highlights things that sound fine on any other "reasonable" playback device...

But if you have bass problems, the things that you can't really just correct with software, it often shows up in a car. Yes, car systems are bass heavy, and for people that make bass heavy music, that system will reveal the too much or too little bass that you didn't hear in your studio.

Also, I think that you might be over-interpreting a casual statement...

Oh, I would definitely say it's useful to reference a mix in a car (or a car like environment). Mixing is all about perspective and with any new perspective you can learn something. My comments were merely observations, not critique. I tend to think about thinking a lot and I try to consider the whys and hows. When I listen in different playback environments I want to understand the physics and the psychology that leads to the way I hear things and hearing other people's view points helps to reinforce or refute those observations. Sometimes making a controversial comment leads to a more robust discussion of these things but ultimately the purpose is not to discourage one approach over another but more for me to consider why I do things the way I do.

Tragically, my motivation is often laziness.

[Jkist]

I really think that really knowing whatever you use is the most important thing. Use them for recreational listening constantly and use reference tracks when producing, A/B against yoru stuff. I think that the constant deluge of "needing" flat response "real" monitors is as much sales tactics and purchase justification, as it is "advice".

I agree. I think people obsess way too much over their monitors sometimes. A lot of really great producers I know used super cheap, basic monitors, ones that I had scoffed at when purchasing my own system years ago. I was super surprised to learn that people could make such incredible mixes on something like that.

Plini for example used AudioEngine A2 speakers for most of his albums, before he struck it big. Those cost under $300. Tell me those albums don't sound huge.

Porter Robinson did pretty much all his stuff on a pair of KRK Rokit 6s. He said similar, that as long as you understand what your speakers sound like in your room, and you know how to mix accordingly, it doesn't too much matter what you use.

[osiris]

I think a car with a good system is a great choice because you can check off things like bass and panning. A car is basically a tiny room with surround sound. So, you mix and I mix through headphones and it's good to hear it in the air. My car has 11 speakers (for whatever reason) and I love to play a song and scoot into the middle of the seat. You can really hear sound separation.

[vurt]

do whatever works and makes you happy.

[VOODOO U]

do whatever works and makes you happy.

Do you have any idea what the letter R in KVR stands for? It stands for Pedantic. Ben just doesn't know how to spell.

[vurt]

do whatever works and makes you happy.

Do you have any idea what the letter R in KVR stands for?

i do.

[revvy]

do whatever works and makes you happy.

Do you have any idea what the letter R in KVR stands for?

i do.

Runcorn

[thecontrolcentre]

Runaway

[pdxindy]

I chose the opposite... I use studio monitors and forgot about hi-fi speakers

[Logickin]

Hi-Fi speaker is like adding MSG into a dish; taste good, but you no longer know the subtle taste of all other ingredients.

I only use sh*tty usb speaker these days, but with a good studio headphone. When I have completed a track, I will play the track on multiple devices, including my phone and tablet, to find a good balance of all devices.

[n9research]

The further your monitoring deviates from the ideal response, the more work the brain has to do to make sense of the signal.

Your monitoring is a tool to make your work easier. Fatigue makes that work harder.

Therefore, it isn't sufficient to just "know" your speakers, regardless of their characteristics. Why make things hard for yourself, if you're able to do something about it? Studio monitors exist for a reason - they are designed in a way that aims to provide the ideal response in a studio environment.

The "environment" is key here, and many factors involved in the response of your monitoring are affected by it - the room size, room shape, reflectivity of surfaces, the positioning of monitors, the listening position, and the distance to the listening position - all of these can be radically different between studio and domestic settings, and all speakers are designed in specific ways to complement all of those factors. This is why hi-fi speakers are often a poor choice for monitoring - their dispersion characteristics and frequency response are tailored for a domestic environment.