Monitors for Orchestral scoring and Avid Suite

[JTM3]

Hello Control Room,

Afraid I'm an old newbie here!

I'm looking for suggestions on monitors that are best suited for orchestral music. I will also be using these monitors in an Avid suite. My budget tops out around $1500. My primary responsibility is to offline work and also create a presentable mix to a Pro-Tools house for sweetning. I want to deliver the best mix I can so you mastering and sweetning experts have an easier job of perfecting what I am trying to acheive without pulling your hair out.

My previous edit suite was in New Orleans. Well Katrina decided to put 9 feet of water in my house and wiped out my Avid, BVM monitor, Sony Betacam deck, SCSI drives and a month old pair of Event SP8's which I really liked.

So now after having listened to differing brand of monitors from Event, Dynaudio, JBL and Blue Sky I'm now totally flustered on what to choose. I really like the Dynaudio 5a's which have gorgeous sound stage presentation but I feel like the Genelec's I would get sound fatigued from them. It's just a gut feeling I had while listening. I've had suggestions from NS-10's to Adam to Meyer Audio. I'm to the point now of sticking with my little Harmon Kardon Sound Sticks and sub for $150. Maybe I should go back with the SP8's. I wished I hadn't starting shopping around frankly.

I am presently looking into a Auralex sound kit to treat the small room I'm in.
The room is roughly 10x10x8 bare walls and a wood floor. Oh how I miss my old suite.

What I really don't get is how can monitor speakers intended to be colorless and true have so many different variations in presentation? Each manufacturer has there own opinion on whats true! ;-o Thats what has me so flustered. Which speaker is accurate? Help the unwashed understand!

Joe McDonnell III
Woodland Hills, Ca
ltr54@sbcglobal.net

[DAS]

What I really don't get is how can monitor speakers intended to be colorless and true have so many different variations in presentation? Each manufacturer has there own opinion on whats true! ;-o Thats what has me so flustered. Which speaker is accurate? Help the unwashed understand!


ltr54@sbcglobal.net

Sorry to hear about your studio.

The problem you refer to above has a lot to do with the fact that our audio capturing and reproducing technology is still MILES away from being even close to "accurate." Thus, we find ourselves trying to achieve a "sense" of what it was like to "be there" during the performance. This is where subjectivity enters in. 10 people sitting in a concert hall will each hear it differently in their mind's ear. Since transducer technology (as good as it is) can't come close to reality designers have to work with a goal of trying to give us what we want - to somehow capture the essence of what was there. In this context the whole idea of "colorless" and "transparent" is hooey.

We have to go with what works for us. We go with what makes us mix and make decisions that ultimately translate effectively to the systems of our listeners in such a way as to give them subjectively what they want. From my years of experience this has almost as much to do with mastering the use of a given set of monitor speakers as it does choosing them in the first place.

This presents quite a dilemma because there is no "right" answer (clearly, since there are obviously hundreds of popular "reference" monitors out there). My advice would be to listen as much as you can, seek opinions of others in terms of what works for them. Be careful to make the distinction between what you and others "like" the sound of versus what is effective for doing good work. Buy a pair (spend as much as you reasonably can) and live with them.

A slightly better route is if you can find a way to get people to loan you a few to try in your studio for a period. Maybe you can narrow it down to two or three pair, then buy all three and live with them for a bit and return the others.