What about "Pro" vs. Audiophile ?????

As speakers and rooms are interactive devices the needs may differ. Some recordings are monitored with this in mind. If you listen to a lot of these recordings, it may well be a good idea to listen to some pro gear. Ironicaly, when this is the case it seems as though the recording monitors were actually audiophile gear. Another thing about pro vs. audiophile gear is the emphasis put on durability. Pro gear may be treated quite less gently than the way audiophiles baby their gear. Some very good pro ideas see limited use in audiophile gear for reasons I don't understand. Balanced wiring makes sense to me (at least at the upper end of the price spectum). Putting cross-overs before amps seems like a good idea to me. Putting musicians in plexiglass boxes with a multitude of microphones doesn't.

I have done a bit of recording and mixing, I'm one of those guys with a home studio. I have also taken a few recording classes from the college in my area. The class took place in a proffesional local recording studio and the teacher was the owner of that studio. The playback system (amps and monitors) was just horrible, muffled bass dull treble, and absolutley no imaging. I couldn't believe anyone could make choices based on the sound of that system. Of course I didn't say what I thought to the teacher, but he made it very clear to the class how lucky we were to be able to get a listen to a playback system like this. Personally I don't think most pro audio guys even know that hifi plaback is so much better. I think the playback system is the most important link in the recording studio. I have applied all the tweaks and tricks we know as audiophiles to the recording studio and they do as much to the sound of the recording as they do to the playback of that recording.

What prompted me to start this thread..I recently bought some "Pro Gear" a MOTU (Mark of the Unicorn) A/D computer I/O and a "Pro" Marantz Cd Player. Seems this got me on the mailing lists for every Pro Audio catalog there is. Cut to the chase... in looking through these catalogs there isn't a single interconnect that sells for more that $79.99. It just makes justiying $5000.00 or even $500.00 for a pair of RCA interconnects (not even 1/4" balanced, another topic entirely) seem ridiculous! Haven't we all claimed " a system is only as good as it's weakest link"

Is the sound we (audiophiles) achieve actually better, more revealing, more accurate, or merely different ??

Maybe we're trying to get closer to the music than the master tape. That may not necessarily be more revealing or accurate, but it is better if it connects us to the music better. Pro gear that I've heard just sounds sterile and uninvolving--give me my tube distortions anyday. One man's opinion.

A lot of good points, especially with respect to the pro's valuing durability, reliability (no tubes), and cost effectiveness (no expensive interconnects) - in the end the pro's (particularly studio owners) look at equipment just as tools to make money. Unfortunatley - if the end result is a commercial release for car radios and boomboxes - the only thing that matters is that it sound LOUD (there goes the dynamic range). Another problem for the pro's is that there may be literally miles of cabling in a modern studio including a 96 input console and perhaps thirty or forty outboard effect devices and hundreds of op amps in the signal path. All that stuffs absolutely kills the transparency and detail - it's a wonder the music doesn't sound worse than it already does. Just replacing the power cords with even moderately priced $100 units would be an improvement! Have you ever listened to Yamaha NS 10's, the "industry standard" nearfield monitor? Just horrendous (even with the "hip" modification of scotch-taping a sheet of toilet paper over the tweeter!!!) It's a shame that although the pros have a lot to learn from the audiophiles, they'll never admit it (it's easier to dismiss us as fanatics and pretend that their music sounds great just the way it is). On the other hand, there are a few honest pros -Roger Nichols of Steely Dan fame recently complained in EQ magazine that as a judge for this years engineering Grammy -he didn't hear a single recording that he though worthy of any award at all! Classical recordings and really good jazz recording (e.g. ECM) obviously are exceptions. If you listen to some Mapleshade recordings you can get an idea of what just a few microphones straight to a 2 track master sound like (now if Pierre could just get some better talent to record we could all die happy). Finally, if you look at the playback systems used by the top mastering guys (Ludwig, Purcell, etc) they look exactly like....AUDIOPHILE rigs - complete with multi-thousand dollar interconnects and speaker cables. The bottom line is that every single resistor, capacitor, wire, tube, compnent, whatever in the signal path - whether it's on record or playback - affects the sound. Then it's just a matter of money, effort, and fanatacism. But the choice is yours - you can get off whenever you want.