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Pros vs. Vandys

I recently tried a pair of relatively inexpensive powered studio monitors--Mackie HR824s--and my early-production Vandersteen 2ce Sigs (which I know you also use) are now in storage. The Mackies ($1300 for the pair, with amplication) do a better job with the basics--dispersion, smooth frequency response, etc.--than the Vandys. Recordings with lots of ambiance--which never sounded right in my system via the Vanys--work much better with the Mackies.

A speaker can't discriminate between low-level information that makes a recording sound good and low-level information that makes a recording sound bad. If your speakers are obscuring the latter, they are also obscuring the former--like spatial cues, instrument timbre, etc.

It is true that some speakers can give the impression of detail by accentuating certain frequencies. Speakers like that, however, make lousy studio monitors because they would cause those frequencies to be supressed in the mix, resulting in a dull, polite recording, the good stuff supressed along with the bad. It is also true that traditionally some engineers have used really bad studio monitors in order to get a "real-world" perspective on the recording ("what's it going to sound like on a boom box?). But good-quality studio monitors these days are designed to give an accurate picture of what's on the tape/cd/hard disk, good and bad.

I don't think either world--pro or hi fi--can claim innate superiority. Both worlds offer excellent products and inferior ones. There's probably less BS on the pro side, however.

Cheers,
Jim

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