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I find this interesting for a few reasons I feel are valuable to participants on this forum:
1) Many here will buy "monitors" (powered speakers) for our keyboard setups and will have to make decisions 2) The piano sounds from our keyboards, or computer software, is supposed to sound like a real, acoustic piano and we want this sound reproduced accurately 3) Some feel that as long as a monitor has a flat frequency response, they will sound the same,,, Mr Sterling has some interesting comments here 4) Many feel "monitors" are superior to home stereo speakers given different use cases... interesting comments from Mr Sterling about what he wants in a monitor 5) He mentions the headphones he uses....
I will post my opinions after we get some discussions going on here. As many know, I am an audiophile nerd with a high fidelity home stereo and spent some time, effort, and some cash putting together a speaker system for my Roland RD 2000 keyboard. One opinion straight out: Knowledge of sound reproduction systems is transferable between home audio and keyboards.
I watched this video about a year ago =]. To address the point of 'do they all sound the same,' the answer is, of course no. However, flattish studio monitors should sound roughly similar in terms of timbre, and they share some important similarities.
The big reason even flattish studio monitors don't sound the same isn't just frequency response, but rather directivity -- how they radiate sound into a room. Same way a piano sounds different depending on where you're listening from, a speaker will radiate sound differently in different directions. This will fundamentally affect how they interact with a room and the spatial presentation. Distortion has a small effect in most cases. Rom treatment and listening nearfield lessens the effect of directivity but unless you are in an anechoic chamber, it is still going to have a significant effect.
That said, we are also very sensitive to small changes in frequency response. One paper showed we can detect broad deviations in frequency response as little as 0.1 dB, and just a little more makes it obvious.
It's also worth noting that although different rooms will make speakers sound different, contrary to popular belief the research suggests people do tend to prefer the same speakers regardless of the room. Above 300-500Hz or so, we have a remarkable ability to hear a speaker "through" the room. Quite same way you can identify a friend's voice whether you are in a concert hall or a restaurant.
The point of a flat monitor for a piano monitor is so that the alteration of the piano's voicing is minimized. That's it. There is no other benefit.
When you shape a melody dynamically, you are using the dynamic level of what you hear to feed back into your playing so that you produce a melody or inner line with a given dynamic phrasing. If you have inaccurate feedback, you will shape the melody based on what you hear so it sounds correct through the monitors. If you are recording, and the monitors accentuate a frequency causing you to compensate with the dynamic level, the compensation will be "correct" through the monitors but incorrect in the recording.
This is a more complex issue because the recording may be played back on an inaccurate system, but the goal is always to minimize the inaccuracies introduced at each stage.
Of course with organs there is no compensation possible, and inaccurate monitors can produce uneven scales with no recourse available to the player.
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I find this interesting for a few reasons I feel are valuable to participants on this forum:
1) Many here will buy "monitors" (powered speakers) for our keyboard setups and will have to make decisions 2) The piano sounds from our keyboards, or computer software, is supposed to sound like a real, acoustic piano and we want this sound reproduced accurately 3) Some feel that as long as a monitor has a flat frequency response, they will sound the same,,, Mr Sterling has some interesting comments here 4) Many feel "monitors" are superior to home stereo speakers given different use cases... interesting comments from Mr Sterling about what he wants in a monitor 5) He mentions the headphones he uses....
I will post my opinions after we get some discussions going on here. As many know, I am an audiophile nerd with a high fidelity home stereo and spent some time, effort, and some cash putting together a speaker system for my Roland RD 2000 keyboard. One opinion straight out: Knowledge of sound reproduction systems is transferable between home audio and keyboards.
Peace Bruce in Philly
I just listened to the first 30 seconds of this video and stopped watching it...
My humble guess is that the entire video can be summarized in under a minute
The point of a flat monitor for a piano monitor is so that the alteration of the piano's voicing is minimized. That's it. There is no other benefit.
When you shape a melody dynamically, you are using the dynamic level of what you hear to feed back into your playing so that you produce a melody or inner line with a given dynamic phrasing. If you have inaccurate feedback, you will shape the melody based on what you hear so it sounds correct through the monitors. If you are recording, and the monitors accentuate a frequency causing you to compensate with the dynamic level, the compensation will be "correct" through the monitors but incorrect in the recording.
This is a more complex issue because the recording may be played back on an inaccurate system, but the goal is always to minimize the inaccuracies introduced at each stage.
Of course with organs there is no compensation possible, and inaccurate monitors can produce uneven scales with no recourse available to the player.
Monitor speaker's purpose is to reveal the sounds and voices in the mix so that you can adjust (EQ, pan) them correctly. That's the only purpose.
Back in the '60s and '70s and may be '80s we didn't have such a standard and a lot of recordings from that era just sound muffled or bad. That's why we sometimes find remastered versions of old songs these days.
And we have near-field minitors. I've not heard of far-field stuff, but I imagine there must be some. One might wonder just where to draw the line. . . .2 feet? 3? 6" speakers? 8"? I like my speakers to be heard and not seen.
The point of a flat monitor for a piano monitor is so that the alteration of the piano's voicing is minimized. That's it. There is no other benefit.
When you shape a melody dynamically, you are using the dynamic level of what you hear to feed back into your playing so that you produce a melody or inner line with a given dynamic phrasing. If you have inaccurate feedback, you will shape the melody based on what you hear so it sounds correct through the monitors. If you are recording, and the monitors accentuate a frequency causing you to compensate with the dynamic level, the compensation will be "correct" through the monitors but incorrect in the recording.
This is a more complex issue because the recording may be played back on an inaccurate system, but the goal is always to minimize the inaccuracies introduced at each stage.
Of course with organs there is no compensation possible, and inaccurate monitors can produce uneven scales with no recourse available to the player.
Monitor speaker's purpose is to reveal the sounds and voices in the mix so that you can adjust (EQ, pan) them correctly. That's the only purpose.
That's the purpose of mixing monitors. It is not the requirements for piano monitors, mastering monitors, floor monitors, or general purpose monitors.
Monitor vendors don't always position their products front and center for a particular niche, so as not to limit sales. No studio monitors are sold as piano monitors. It is left to the buyer to determine which products best meet the requirements of piano monitors, which generslky are not the best monitors for mixing.
Last edited by Sweelinck; 10/21/2101:06 PM.
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The majority of studio monitors are marketed with the claim that they will reveal in detail what is going on in a mix but not all are very good at doing so. Some are actually designed as general purpose monitors. General purpose monitors with a reasonably flat response and enough bass extension for a piano will make good piano monitors.
The cheapest studio monitors are not high quality as would be expected. Then there is a price range of mediocre mixing monitors some of which are good general purpose monitors. Some of these are very good piano monitors.
Very good mixing monitors are expensive, and often make poor piano monitors because they may sacrifice balanced sound to improve midrange detail. Very good mastering mains are very expensive (acoustic piano price ranges), but would make excellent piano monitors if you can afford them.
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I just listened to the first 30 seconds of this video and stopped watching it...
My humble guess is that the entire video can be summarized in under a minute
Agreed.
I got/get - every speaker / monitor “is different”, depending on _______, and sometimes the same speaker/monitor does not sound the same one day as it did a previous day.
This seems to mirror the obligatory “ all APs are different (feel/sound/room-space & other subjectivities) .... even the same one on different days....” ... and all DP brands & models are different ..... and headphones.
Did i leave out any of the big particulars? ... oh, yeah, we are all different albeit similar. 🙂
How about you Bruce; main take aways?
Last edited by drewr; 10/21/2107:31 PM.
- Kawai MP7 and LSR308 monitors - Roland HP-508 - DT770 Pro-80 and MDR-7506 phones
Bruce is an expert on subjective audiophilia, and has no desire to learn what the objective audiophiles has learned in the last 40 years about anechoic frequency measurements, directivity, and human sound perception in a reflective room.
"Studio monitors" are just speakers. They are no more "accurate" than other random speakers. *Some* studio monitors are designed *for* accuracy, and neutrality, like Genelecs, Neumanns, JBL, Kali and some others, just as *some* speakers are designed for the same.
Below is one of many good websites that do good measurements.
Sort of. Some studio monitors have internal DSP to equalize and voice the speakers. The amps, DSP, and drivers all work together as one system. This is a very different philosophy from fully analog speakers which have to have drivers designed and manufactured to a tight tolerance to work with the crossovers that also are precisely designed to produce a good sounding speaker. These have the amp as a separate, standalone system whether or not it is mounted in the speaker enclosure.
I would also note that particular quality points occur at very different price points when comparing the two types of speakers.
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I guess to summarize, there is a ton of mystery regarding how to playback your keyboard sounds and powered monitors are a common approach.... the most common? And a ton of misinformation... like the only thing that is important is flat frequency response or how a speaker can play in the low registers.
So, IMO, speaker/monitor selection can have a really big impact on the sound of your keyboard, how a piano sound from a vendor can sound, and consequently, the emotional attachment you will have with your playing.... and with your audience if you have one. It is worth spending time and money to get it right.
I still look for used, high-dollar monitors even though I have a great sounding rig right now. The higher-priced and quality monitors usually have frequency response contour controls on their rear to tailor the sound to your liking or situation... I like this.
As I have mentioned before in my posts, I spent time at one of the big music equipment retailers in NYC listening to well recorded music on their "wall 'o monitors" and was amazed at how different they all sounded. And, of course, the most expensive (Adam monitors) they had were the best sounding to me. Unfortunately, given the rise of the internet and fall of brick-and-mortar retailing, it is difficult if not impossible to go to a store and listen to this stuff. So... we are left with asking questions and for opinions on forums such as this... and then listen to a ton of mixed messages, some informed and some not so much. Anywho.... I thought I would present the experiences of a successful professional who simply said even his very expensive professional equipment all sounds differently from each other. Notice, he did not say all that matters is flat frequency response.
I guess to summarize, there is a ton of mystery regarding how to playback your keyboard sounds and powered monitors are a common approach.... the most common? And a ton of misinformation... like the only thing that is important is flat frequency response or how a speaker can play in the low registers.
So, IMO, speaker/monitor selection can have a really big impact on the sound of your keyboard, how a piano sound from a vendor can sound, and consequently, the emotional attachment you will have with your playing.... and with your audience if you have one. It is worth spending time and money to get it right.
I still look for used, high-dollar monitors even though I have a great sounding rig right now. The higher-priced and quality monitors usually have frequency response contour controls on their rear to tailor the sound to your liking or situation... I like this.
As I have mentioned before in my posts, I spent time at one of the big music equipment retailers in NYC listening to well recorded music on their "wall 'o monitors" and was amazed at how different they all sounded. And, of course, the most expensive (Adam monitors) they had were the best sounding to me. Unfortunately, given the rise of the internet and fall of brick-and-mortar retailing, it is difficult if not impossible to go to a store and listen to this stuff. So... we are left with asking questions and for opinions on forums such as this... and then listen to a ton of mixed messages, some informed and some not so much. Anywho.... I thought I would present the experiences of a successful professional who simply said even his very expensive professional equipment all sounds differently from each other. Notice, he did not say all that matters is flat frequency response.
Peace Bruce in Philly
You still are insisting on adding qualifiers that materially change the meaning of content I've posted. Flat frequency response matters for piano monitors. When you change that statement to flat response is the only property that matters for how a speaker sounds, it is a very different statement.
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Scientific research (double blind tests) has shown that there is poor correlation between perceived sound quality vs price of speakers.
And nobody has suggested that flat frequency response is the ultimate goal.
Here are some additional knowledge, backed by science [1]:
* Sound arriving at your listening position is the sum of direct sound from the speaker PLUS the reflected sound from your walls, ceiling, and floor.
* In a large population study, flat frequency response at the listening position results in sound that is "too bright", and not preferred.
* The most preferred frequency response at the listening position is a smooth downward slope from low to high frequencies.
* The speakers that generate the preferred frequency response had flat frequency response in anechoic conditions, and smooth directivity.
* Smooth directivity is hard to achieve, because high frequencies "beam" and not "disperse". Well designed wave guides can "disperse" high frequencies.
* Companies like Genelec, Neumann, JBL, Kali and a few others make monitors that follow the above science.
* These characteristics can be presented in a standard format, CEA 2034 [2].
I won't claim that everything below is scientifically accurate, but it is what I've experienced or learned by trial and error having actually used a variety of speakers for digital keyboard monitors-- active and passive studio monitors, home stereo speakers, PAs, and keyboard amps. This is not based on scientific measurement, but also is not from just listening to my favorite music over monitors at a noisy big box store.
I have an acoustically treated studio space including bass traps, but it is not an anechoic chamber. I did the acoustic treatment primarily so that I could use a subwoofer for a digital organ without bass buildup from room resonance and standing waves. It was not to support audio engineering work, although the enhanced clarity of monitors in the space is noticeable.
The requirements for a speaker to render the stereo illusion effect for a mix of instruments, placing each instrument into a perceived 3D soundstage, and the requirements to render a single instrument well are not identical sets of requirements, though they have substantial overlap.
Evaluating speakers for suitability as piano monitors by listening to a recording of mixed music is an inferior method relative to hooking them up to your piano and playing scales and other music. It is the mirror image of trying to choose general purpose speakers for a home stereo by hooking them up to a digital piano and assuming they will sound good for all purposes if they work well as piano monitors.
Studio monitors have additional pitfalls when used as general purpose speakers or as piano monitors. Some are designed with reduced dispersion giving them a very narrow listening sweet spot. I believe that this is to cut reflections of sound so that they convey more information about a mix. Some also reduce bass response likely deliberately, sounding out of balance, I believe to enhance midrange clarity, again to provide more information about what is going on in a mix.
Monitors designed this way are marketed to professional audio engineers who know what they are looking for in a monitor, which is for the monitor to provide the information they need to do their work. These types of monitors may make mediocre piano monitors, and I believe that this should be independent of price point. Paying attention to bass extension and width of listening field is a way to avoid these as piano monitors.
Another important point concerns how close you will sit to the monitors. If you want monitors on the other side of the room, or to fill a living room adequately to play for others, you are looking at a midfield application. Most home stereo speakers are designed as midfield speakers, but some are nearfield speakers. If you sit too close to midfield speakers, sound from different drivers will be on different axes, and imaging will suffer.
For any instrument monitor, response should be linear enough to play an even scale without some notes being louder than their neighbor or exhibiting a shrill tone from accentuation if some frequencies in the notes overtone series. I have experienced these types of problems with some of the speakers I have used as piano monitors, and consider it unacceptable. It is particularly common with keyboard amps and some PAs, but I experienced it with some vintage stereo speakers as well.
The cheapest and a very effective way to get flat enough response is with monitors that equalize the sound using a DSP tier in the design. These will have a noise floor that I believe is the result of broadband distortion from the DSP tier, but the cause may be different. It may be noticeable if you place your ear an inch or so from the tweeter. Some are more objectionable than others. If you sit at a distance from the monitor where this is fully attenuated, these are a very cost-effective solution. You may pay triple the cost to get comparable performance without a DSP tier for speaker voicing. This may be worth it to some.
Another question is subwoofer integration if monitors will be used for organs, bass synthesizers, etc. Some monitors integrate more easily with subwoofers than others. I'm not fully certain what the issues were with monitors I had that did not integrate well with a subwoofer.
If I were to use a digital instrument to perform for a group of people in home living room, I'm not sure what speakers I would want to use, but most likely not nearfield monitors.
There may be material or technical errors above, but it is my $.02 worth.
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I guess to summarize, there is a ton of mystery regarding how to playback your keyboard sounds and powered monitors are a common approach.... the most common? And a ton of misinformation... like the only thing that is important is flat frequency response or how a speaker can play in the low registers... Bruce in Philly
Hi-Fi and passive speakers are dead and are for the hobbyist. Forget about the flat frequency. The consistency and the fact that you won't be doing a random mix n match with active (monitor) speakers are far more important than what you're talking about.
Just google active and passive speakers and read their advantages and disadvantages. A professional high-end monitor speaker is an asset. The internals (amps, cones, crossovers etc) are all designed to deliver a solid and predictable performance for a reasonable price.
The importance of the flat frequency response is something beyond the silly videos posted here. Not that it is rocket science, but it is a form of standardization of a sonic experience.
If you are in music production, you need a baseline for the mix. Something that gives you the coordinates of your music and its mix. This is a twofold problem as we are speaking today: the software aspect and the hardware aspect. Both HW and SW should work hand in hand. If your set the levels properly but your speakers deliver crap freq response, you will EQ your mix inappropriately and your mastered work will not sound as you expect on other audio systems.
It took decades for the industry to get here where we are today and if you are listening to music that is not too loud or doesn't sound like it's coming out of a time machine it's because of the advancement in technology and standardization.
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