A lot of music may be listened to on hifi speakers... but it's generally hard to MIX on em and get a good mix.

Let's say the speakers have a boost at 200, 400, 2kHz and 4KHz. When you try to mix on these, you will hear exaggerated 200, 400, 2kHHz and 4kHz.

Because the boost is there, you can about bet that your mixes will be too thin at those frequencies, because you are gonna cut those frequencies... cause they're too loud.

Make sense?

I agree with madmax.
It would only work to mix on 'Hi Fi' speakers if ALL hifi speakers were the same.
Since it's not a perfect world, you need to mix on a Flat system, so that all the different hifi speakers can mangle your audio in their own special way.

There used to be a saying "if you can make it sound good on a crappy pair of speakers it will sound good anywhere.
This couldn't be further from the truth. It will only sound good that that particular pair of crappy speakers and will sound extra crappy everywhere else.

Flat monitors.

Tuned room.

I tuned by room to B flat!

mix on flat monitors then reference it on your hifi system.
it will be a good test to see how it translates.

i'm all for flat... i just dont get why most people assume that hi-fi isn't... granted there's alot of seriously shitty hi-fi out there... but if you've got anything approaching audiophile quality stuff you should have no problem... the problem isn't hi-fi... it's LOW/NO -fi...

Agreed dementedchord...

To me the difference is in what people call hi fi, "hi fi" and audiophile.

I wouldn't say you could expect Polk Audio to be dependable to give you a great mix. Proac's... probably.

Kinda' like the statement... "I can't TELL you what's pornographic... but I KNOW it when I see it."

I think You need both. My monitor set up consists of three sets of speakers.
1) My main monitors (Dynaudio BM15A)
2) horrible tones 1 (Hitachi book shelve speakers)
3) really horrible tones 2 (Sony Geto-blaster speakers)

I use a cranesong avocet to switch through the monitors. Once I get a mix close, on 1 I check it on 2 and 3, and tweak a bit more. This way I try to find a balance.

I also then use the car speakers, and our other book shelve stereo speakers to double check with different acoustics and set ups.

I've come to the conclusion flat is best. I did kinda misuse the term hi-fi. All quality systems should be as flat as they can, and mixing monitors the same. So that way what goes in, should come out. Chalk it up to many years of me mixing on shitty loudspeakers. Thanks.

like a few have said, use both try and get a mix that suits both speakers. cuz not everyone that hears the music u mix has awesome speakers. so you gotta mix for them and for those that do have hi-fi.