Discussion: Are high-end Monitors needed?

[Seafroggys]

An interesting point I was thinking of that was generated by an article I read awhile back. Is it really necessary to put hundreds, even thousands of dollars on good monitors? I've read everywhere that its best to test your mix on different devices. So why not hook up, say, cheap computer speakers and make said adjustments, higher end computer speakers, then into say a boombox, a home stereo, then burn a CD and play it on several car systems, and adjust accordingly. You could potentially save lots of money, since most everybody has all or some of these.

[ares]

I'm to the point where i'm so aqcuainted with my headphones I can mix almost completely in them. Every once and a while i have to listen through my speakers to get a better idea of the stereo image.

no moniters here, and I do near professional quality work.

[Seafroggys]

I never got the whole "you can't mix with headphones" ordeal. I mean, in theory, headphone mixing is probably the way to go because you completely eliminate the room, negating the need to treat the control room with acoustic treatment.

Of course, the one problem with headphones is that stereo spacing is wider with headphones, but I'm sure any old stereo speakers could be used to realize the stereo field.

[Akira]

Yeah, I don't get spending that much money on high-end monitors when most people listen to music on crappy speakers anyways.

[The Chemist]

The reason why is clarity. My friend's $4000-a-box Dynaudios blow all others out of the water in terms of clarity. The clarity is needed to hear imperfections in sound and playing accurately and quickly.

[Moseph]

That's a loaded question (or set of questions, as the case may be).

I guess my short answer would be that the goal isn't to mix so that it sounds pretty good on most playback systems, but rather to make it sound very good on all systems.

For one thing, consider the case where 2 different low-end systems have very different frequency responses (assume a completely neutral listening environment for both). Let's say you're mixing on a system that has very good highs but lackluster lows (not atypical for computer speakers or low-end monitors). Now let's say that you record and in the performance there's a slight plosive behavior on the bass: it creates a low-frequency "whomp" on some notes. You don't hear it very much (or at all) and so you tweak it very minimally and it is gone. Later, it's played back on the other system, with really pronounced bass, but very few lows (not uncommon for computer systems or car systems). Suddenly those whomps sound massive and terrible, and all the work you did on the high end is muffled and destroyed.

Having a perfectly neutral playback system/environment provides the best method of combating this sort of problem. Although there's no physical realization of "perfect" neutrality, you can get pretty close. That's where the money should be going.

As for headphones, they have a few inherent limitations that should be considered:

1) Headphones (regardless of style) tend to minimize the acoustic properties of the outer ear, which are very important as a filtering mechanism for natural hearing. For instance, there is no "around the corner" test with headphones.

2) Heavy low-frequency vibrations tend to have a psychoacoustic "boost" with headphones, sounding louder than they actually are. This is largely because of the interaction of the headphones with the human skull for loud low frequencies.

3) There is no method to adequately recreate surround sound fields using only the two headphone speakers in a stereo array. HRTF and binaural audio are not effective for the entire population in a general fashion. Additionally, both have admitted approximations that can alter the localization of audio from listener to listener.

4) The Haas effect behaves very differently at very close range (less than 6") than at moderate to long distance. This has a very strong impact on stereo balance and phasing between channels in mono summing.

That being said, I still only use headphones for various reasons. I have plans to get some nice low-middle range monitors (I'm looking at the DynAudio BM5a's). However, this is a forum oriented towards the project studio environment (which suits my current situation quite well). That being the case, I do make it a point to suggest headphones for monitoring as well, since cost is normally a huge barrier here, regardless of the disadvantages compared to a well-designed listening room.