Your computer

[Agua]

You could replace half of that stuff with a pair of M-audio studiophiles and it would fix your 225-300hz range for 150$

*shudders* M-Audio and Digidesign will be long by the wayside in the next 5-7 years or so...at least I hope they will if they don't change their entire mode of operation. They have the attitude of "Oh, did you know we're industry standard...we don't need to continue to innovate...we're in every studio." Bah, good riddance.

The better solution would be to properly treat my listening space, which is why I'm starting to train with an acoustician who builds all his own traps and diffusers. The M-audio stuff has a tendency to be really brittle in the high end, which causes your mixes to be very dark if you don't know how to work around that. And truth be told, besides the PMC stuff that I have heard, all speakers have their quirks--they are the weakest link in any sound system. Genelec's push in the 3kHz-7kHz range, Adams tend to have scooped mids, Tannoy's can have a funky 350Hz-600Hz...it all comes down to what you are used to mixing on and knowing how your speakers translate to other speakers. And we won't even get into how your listening space really fucks with things even further. Hence, listening on multiple playback systems. Some of the few remaining big studios actually have mono alarm clock/radios hardwired into their consoles for A-Bing mixes. A good mix will be a good mix on any system it plays on. Although, by far the most prolific monitors cabinets are the Yamaha NS-10s. If you can make a mix sound good on those, you're golden.

Mixing on headphones (even pro quality) is always problematic, but they are excellent for editing, tweaking your reverb, and adding subtle effects that most speakers won't even translate properly.

5.1 headphones are really interesting, but I think they have a long way to go to meet the standards that are being set by folks who practically pioneered everything about recording that we know:

http://www2.grammy.com/PDFs/Recordin...rs/5_1_Rec.pdf

I've met people who can make a killer mix on a crappy m-audio interface with sub par speakers and people who couldn't mix on a perfect set of speakers in a perfect room. It's all in how thorough you are.

[OmegaZero_Alpha]

5.1 headphones are really interesting, but I think they have a long way to go to meet the standards that are being set by folks who practically pioneered everything about recording that we know:

http://www2.grammy.com/PDFs/Recordin...rs/5_1_Rec.pdf

5-channel headphones are dumb because you can already render things in 3d that sound almost perfect on 2-channels

But I got them for like 4.99 on ebay and thought they were worth a try ( back before I knew shit about sound. (by the way, DON'T. They hiss, they buzz, there is a high-pitched "winding up-winding down" noise when it plays a sharper sound from silence making me believe that there is audio lag"

[Agua]

Yeah, stereo is kinda hard to beat, especially since people started using M-S encoding to "widen" the stereo field. And yeah, for five bucks you haven't lost out on anything. Thanks for the heads up, though.

Now if you talk to Alan Parsons (engineer for Dark Side of the Moon), he'll tell you that 5.1 is stupid, and that Quadraphonic is king...

[OmegaZero_Alpha]

Yeah, stereo is kinda hard to beat, especially since people started using M-S encoding to "widen" the stereo field. And yeah, for five bucks you haven't lost out on anything. Thanks for the heads up, though.

Now if you talk to Alan Parsons (engineer for Dark Side of the Moon), he'll tell you that 5.1 is stupid, and that Quadraphonic is king...

well if you are speaking technically any thing .1 is stupid because it is a better experience to buy verbose full-ranged speakers that can project the subwoofer's frequency from any channel.

As far as 5v4 channel, I don't get how (with proper equipment) adding a channel can lessen the experience.

[Agua]

I think Parsons' main contention is that the center channel is what ruins it. It draws focus away from the immersion factor and basically says that by having a properly set up and mix in Quad, the phantom center image is there anyway, feels natural and therefore unnecessary to have a single speaker producing the center image. He harped on it when he visited our school. I'm not sure I agree with him 100%, and I'm sure he'd argue the point much better than my memory of said discussion.

[OmegaZero_Alpha]

I think Parsons' main contention is that the center channel is what ruins it. It draws focus away from the immersion factor and basically says that by having a properly set up and mix in Quad, the phantom center image is there anyway, feels natural and therefore unnecessary to have a single speaker producing the center image. He harped on it when he visited our school. I'm not sure I agree with him 100%, and I'm sure he'd argue the point much better than my memory of said discussion.

I want fifteen channel speakers.

Sound from literally any perceivable direction

[Hawkens85]

The whole purpose of a subwoofer is to broadcast frequencies that a normal speaker doesn't have the ability to. When a speaker's horn tries to push more sound of a wider frequency, it'll spaz out. Ever heard someone's crappy car system try to push a low bass sound, and every time the bass kicks, the speakers get a little quiet? Same concept. If you try to push all sound frequencies through one speaker, you're just overloading it and things start to sound muddy. They aren't a waste of money!

[OmegaZero_Alpha]

The whole purpose of a subwoofer is to broadcast frequencies that a normal speaker doesn't have the ability to. When a speaker's horn tries to push more sound of a wider frequency, it'll spaz out. Ever heard someone's crappy car system try to push a low bass sound, and every time the bass kicks, the speakers get a little quiet? Same concept. If you try to push all sound frequencies through one speaker, you're just overloading it and things start to sound muddy. They aren't a waste of money!

Good speakers play those frequencies fine. We are discussing refrence speakers here not back-ended logitech 7.1 F4t4l1ty EDITION

[Agua]

Some of those passive PMC speakers have great quality down to 20Hz, and the active speakers go down to 40Hz. My AR3s get down to at least 25Hz--just tested it with a sine wave tone. No need for a sub if your speakers are designed properly.

[Half-Duplex]

Time to flex my nuts


Full-Duplex (main box)
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate Edition 64-bit
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q9550 @ 2.83 GHz
RAM: 16.0 GB (PC-6400)
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
Disk Config: 1 x 300gb + 1 x 500gb (both at 7200 RPM)
Screen: Acer 24" widescreen + HP 15"

Half-Duplex (media box)
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate Edition 64-bit
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q9550 @ 2.83 GHz
RAM: 4.0GB (PC-5300)
Graphics: On board
Disk Config: 2 x 1TB 7200 RPM
Screen: None

The media server streams through TVersity onto my PS3. I have a 55" HD tv. Its old, but it still puts out 1080i. /flex

Yes I know...1337.