aaronwaudio, post: 371868 wrote: According to my college recording teacher, Wally Messner, Yamaha's marketing campaign for the NS10s was "if it sounds good on these, it will sound good on anything." I was under the impression they stuck around for the "car test" portion of mixing.

Yamaha most certainly DID NOT originate that line of reasoning. These were budget bookshelf speakers for stereo originally. Some one mentioned in an article years ago that they were using these to check their mixes and the storm began. I dont remember who, but he article is probably still available early 70's era, Sound-onSound, maybe Mix....dont remember...Anyway, when Frank Zappa said he used AR15's to check mixes on nobody went all apey about those.

Methinks it was someone @Yamaha that glommed onto this and worked this inside out to the point that these were The Thing to have. I had em, because of this....had a year on em....they suck. I like the Boston Acoustic bookshelfs much better....Threes I think they are...As well as a pair of Celestion Model 3's. I even had JBL Model Ones for a couple of years and mixes on these really made GREAT headphone/earbud mixes. The errant electrical storm killed these and I have never replaced them. Killed a couple Crown amps too. Didnt get past the GFI's on the racks.

Dan has some interesting points. I'm still Old Skool about 'learning' the monitoring system no matter what kind of speakers are in it. The DETAIL is what you want for tracking. You WANT to hear the creaking chair, squeaking drum pedal, stick kliks, innerharmonic modulation on a guitar amp on certain notes, loose bass speaker, a high fret on the bass on every low A played, The cat scatching the post outside the room, etc etc....

When you put up mics that you can record any farts with, you need to hear this stuff in order to control or eliminate it entirely.

This wont be the case with budget monitors no matter what the brand or the specs.

So choose monitors that are good for your usage. If you only mix then get what you're comfortable with and that you can hear enough detail to make adjustments to the sound of the tracks. If you're tracking, you need something more. Detail and detail at all kinds of volume is desirable.

It's critical to listen to your mixes on a variety of speakers. I'll pipe a feed out to my Home Theater as well as bounce them off a small pair of logitech computer speakers. Additionally I quite frequently will listen in mono on a Avantone mix cube, in addition to my nearfields.

Ripeart and I are on the same wavelength here. You can never rely on a single pair of anybody's speakers, regardless of cost. A good analogy to this is, back in the day, we not only mixed our rock 'n roll, we mixed for AM and a different mix for FM and a different mix for the album. And don't forget the dance mixes for the disco's which were different from all of the above. Even my Remote Truck has a secondary control room with a completely different set of monitors than the main control room (It's set up for surround where the main control room isn't). The only thing that will change with my RV conversion from the Mercedes-Benz 1117 will be the loss of the second control room. But it will have its own secondary, separate listening area with numerous different monitors. And I don't use a single brand of headphones either.

Lookout Nashville, I'm coming. That is, to Nashville.
Mx. Remy Ann David

moresound, post: 362594 wrote: Start saving big, for not only will you need monitors, you'll need (more than likely) to acoustically treat your room and it wouldn't matter what monitors you end up with till that is done.

+1 for proper acoustics. Otherwise you may as well buy a $50 pair at Best Buy or Ernie's Stereo shop. Also I would add.... SHOOT the room!

NS-10's were put into studio's for free by Yamaha and everyone said hey if westlake has a pair I need them. If you feel the need to hear a crappy sound you might as well by some cheap computer speakers and get the same results.

Floored2112, post: 373751 wrote: NS-10's were put into studio's for free by Yamaha and everyone said hey if westlake has a pair I need them. If you feel the need to hear a crappy sound you might as well by some cheap computer speakers and get the same results.

Exactly...

+1 on "Floored2112"

SOTA at one time. But so were Auratones and Urei time-aligned monitors. The new Neumann line is amazing. Check them out. just got a pair of the KH 120 A's WOW.

[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.Neumann-…"]Georg Neumann GmbH - Professional Monitoring[/]="http://www.Neumann-…"]Georg Neumann GmbH - Professional Monitoring[/]

They're just a rehash of Klien&Hummel Or was that ReinkusHiens? Sure they should be good for $1500 per pair. There's a lot out there for that price that all sounds good. So they're really not made by Neumann just repackaged by them, specified by them. Meyer HD 1's & Genlec's are all lovely monitors in that same basic price range. And rightly so that they should sound good. What you really need is crappy monitors so that you can't hear how bad your equipment sounds. I make sure my mixes sound perfectly crappy on any kind of monitors. As it should be. I'm not saying I wouldn't like these. I probably would. I'll take a listen to them in October at AES. I still like my crappy old JBL 4310/11/12, 4411, cheap KRK's as they all still tell me everything I need to know. Besides if the speakers are "two" good they can fool you into thinking your recordings are better than they are. And who doesn't use their playback system in their car as an alternate reference any who? So it really just comes down to your engineering technique not your speakers. Give me a good front end and I know that everything will come out well, if you know how to engineer.

I forgive everyone with good taste
Mx. Remy Ann David

RemyRAD, post: 373859 wrote: They're just a rehash of Klien&Hummel Or was that ReinkusHiens? Sure they should be good for $1500 per pair. There's a lot out there for that price that all sounds good. So they're really not made by Neumann just repackaged by them, specified by them. Meyer HD 1's & Genlec's are all lovely monitors in that same basic price range. And rightly so that they should sound good. Give me a good front end and I know that everything will come out well, if you know how to engineer.

I forgive everyone with good taste
Mx. Remy Ann David

I currently have 5 pairs of reference monitors and probably one of the best front ends I know, a Trident "A" series mixing desk with a number of choices in outboard pre's. My JBL choice is the 1967 version of the L-100-S that i have maintained through JBL since new. I trust them beyond all the other pairs for what i consider my "engineering". All else is only used as comparisons, alternative listening rooms and for the "not-so-loud" tracking.

Others include Adam A-7's, 1 pair of Geithain RL 903's, and my 5.1 system of Blue Sky SAT-5 with a SUB-8 active sub. And yes one pair of 1974 Auritones and a pair of NS-10M's.

And i agree, front-end engineering is the key firstly and how you listen in my opinion is right there as well. That's why they're called "reference" monitors. An engineer HAS to have a basis for knowing where his engineering lies. If not, its a shot in the dark. I also was an avid user of a number of Reinkus-Hiens system on the road in the 80's. Speakers change, technology changes, engineers go there own way, but the analog ear remains the same and as individual as we all are. The trick in engineering is to fool other ears into believing yours are better and this is the way it should sound on any speaker system. I have convinced many a producer that what they were hearing in my control room or their car stereo was exactly what everyone else was hearing and it was achieved the same way as all the other "A" list mixing engineers out there. Why? Because it was true and conviction by the engineer in a recording environment is as important as knowing which mic to choose, what compressor works best for this bass part, etc., etc..

So choose whatever monitoring system you wish. NS-10's, KRK's Tannoy's, JBL, or any one of hundreds of manufacturers of quality products. I happened to trust Neumann as i have with their mics for over 30 years. As I have with AKG, Sennheiser and many others. Their engineers do have a bit of savvy when it comes to gathering and reproducing analog sound. The "re-packaging" is exactly why i purchased them. Because the specs are Neumann, not someone else. These will replace a set of tannoy gold series i have used for a while to work on sound designing film. Which I really loved. The Neumann's are the best replacement for the tannoy's i found for "my" engineering.

It all seems to me to be a point of personal engineering and individual ears. Not because this one engineer says these monitors are the best, but rather because that engineer trusts what he/she hears best through a particular monitor system. Maybe its NS-10's after all. Then again, maybe its not. It all relative to analog hearing devices.

I forgive everyone with bad taste.

RemyRAD, post: 373859 wrote: Sure they should be good for $1500 per pair. There's a lot out there for that price that all sounds good. So they're really not made by Neumann just repackaged by them, specified by them. Meyer HD 1's & Genlec's are all lovely monitors in that same basic price range.

Um... no. Meyer HD-1's are most definitely not "in that same basic price range" as $1500/pair. Unless you have a really generous definition of the word "basic"!

And here I thought they were All That'... I have KRK Rokit 8's... And I have compared one of my mixes on these Yamahas and it was as if all the life just dissappeared. Like, no thumping punchy kick, palm mutes of the guitar were gone and the rich harmonics just vanished... The Rokit 8's might not be that awesome either... But they sound more alive than these Yamaha's...

Ashfall Production Studios, sent from my iPhone 4.

Did you use any other monitors as a reference? I mean, to be fair, NS10's are not famed for thumping punchy kick or palm mutes. Quite the reverse.

Everybody has their own preferences. Bob Clearmountain loved VCA based SSL 4000 E consoles and once told me, he couldn't deal with the API sound. Although he didn't mind working on Neves. I mean I could never stand the sound of ALTEC 604E's but I had to work on them for years. And all of the Media Sound, NYC control rooms all had those as the primary monitors. But I fell in love with JBL 4310's when I first heard those in 1968 at age 12, also connected to Crown amplifiers. I can't even consider those Yamaha's even as a reference for myself. I can't stand them. But those KRK brand of speakers, speaks to me much like my JBL's. If someone offered me a free pair of Meyer HD 1's for free, I certainly wouldn't turn those down. But I'm not going to pay that kind of price for a pair of speakers I might possibly or someone else might possibly blowout. Probably it's also the reason why I don't spend the money on fine single malt Scotches, since the cheap stuff still accomplishes the same job. Sure, I like the better stuff, who doesn't? Don't answer that.

I like George Clooney & Cluny Scotch.
Mx. Remy Ann David

@aj133... No it was only the KRK Rokit 8s vs NS10's... But I did it because theyre in the same price range... Never fancied the NS10s after the first listen...

Ashfall Production Studios, sent from my iPhone 4.

You deffinately need more than one set of monitors. I have a pair of HS50's with a sub. I also have a pair of cheap powered desktop computer speakers and even a pair of tiny sony speakers. I also have a HiFi system upstairs. Then of course my truck out in the driveway. If I'm going to make just one mix, I have to compromise and find a mix that sounds good upstairs and well as downstairs (in the studio). I use my tiny sonys to make sure I can hear the low end of the mix because they do a really good job of emulating the speakers on laptops. I use my desktop for the same thing. Im a fan of multiple mixes, one for 3 ways and one for cheap speakers that only reproduce midrange, and another for whatever. When I mix my friends music I make sure it sounds good in my truck, in the little sonys and my yamaha nearfields. Because I know they will listen to mix when they drive home, pop into their laptop when they get home and send it to their friends who will listen to it on their laptop. Rarely do I worry about what the mix will sound like on a HiFi system because the people who will be listening to the mix have already listened to it enough times on crappy systems that they have trained their ears to that sound. .. . the fact of the matter is you need to identify your audience before you make a mix. Then mix for that audience... . if you want them to like it.

You see the NS10's because yes... at one time they were a fad. But now the people that have been using those monitors have trained their ears to those monitors. Its just like anything else, you use it enough and you begin to understand how it will translate into the real world. You cant expect a tennis player who plays on grass everyday to step onto a clay court and perform the same way. . . make sense?