On Mon, 9 Mar 2009 10:17:30 -0000, "TonyL"
wrote:

Serge Auckland wrote:

I'm puzzled, I thought the whole idea of hi-fi was to reproduce
accurately what was recorded. Why should "modestly priced monitors"
be better ? Comments please ?


The term "monitor" can mean several things:- It can be a loudspeaker
of extremely high quality on which you can make judgements about
audio quality, equalisation, compression etc. It should be as
accurate as possible, so that whatever decisions are made about
changing the sound of a recording shouldn't reflect the character of
the 'speaker. Main monitors of this sort tend to be large, whether
floor standing or soffit mounted.

OK, I'm getting the idea now from yours and others comments.

Apart from saying they are extremely high quality, rugged, acoustically
transparent etc. What do the numbers say ? In other words...what would you
read in the specs. that would show that speaker A is best as a studio
monitor whereas speaker B is better in a real-world listening situation ?


Unfortunately the bare numbers for speakers don't tell you a great
deal. Sure they will give you a rough idea of the frequency response
on axis, but that is probably ten percent of the story. It is the
off-axis response that reacts with the room generally and determines
things that have been talked about already - the size and nature of
the sweet spot, for example. It is the control of all the peripheral
details that sets the monitor apart from a run-of-the-mill speaker.

Choice of monitor depends on the size of the control room, the width
of the desk and in some cases personal choice. If the engineer knows
he has a tendency to mix too bright (yes, people will have told him),
he can choose a bright monitor, knowing that a mix to his taste on
this monitor will result in a well-balanced product. For organizations
like the BBC, where four or five engineers might use a room in a
single day, a good flat average is the thing to choose.

d