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

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.

I'm a classically trained pianist and been a studio musician (pianos, synthesizers and keyboards) for many years, and currently do a fair amount of home recording as well.

Lps2cd brings up a good point about the ceiling on pro interconnects and wiring…but remember in context we’ve already invested $10,000 in a single vintage Neumann large diaphragm microphone, $6,000 each in AKG414’s, and $5,000 in Avalon mic preamps, not to mention the thousands invested in Pro Tools plug-ins (that don’t work…LOL). On top of that, each microphone lends distinct colorations to the source that the engineer must understand and leverage as an artist, not a workman.

We may need to choose between 8 - 10 different mikes for close-mic'ing a nylon string guitar, and select from a different 8 - 10 mics for tomorrow's voice over.

As far as monitors go, I don’t know of an engineer worth his salt who hasn’t gone through ten’s of different monitors for just their near-field requirements…and even that being said, a lot of us still use NS-10’s for an isolated, particular purpose. We all know they aren’t "uncolored, ruler flat" speakers, but that isn’t the reason we check mix with them, and no one in the business uses them as primaries. And I'd NEVER use my home speakers (Maggie 3.5's) as my primaries, either.

Rives Audio’s post is like a well driven nail – “There is a lot the audiophile community could learn from "pro" gear. However, the goals of the two are not the same at all. Take the design of a studio control room vs. a listening room. The studio control room is designed to give the engineer exactly what is coming from the mics with no coloration (I might add, with a full understanding of the signal chain's inherent coloration) due to the room, and usually in a small environment.” That's the voice of experience talking.

I would also gently commend audiophiles to be careful not to lump all recording studios and engineers into one homogeneous group to excoriate. Yes, I’ve met a few studio owners who “look at equipment just as tools to make money”. But in my experience this generalization is the exception rather than the rule. Most engineers at good studios (Fantasy in Berkeley, the old Hyde St. Studios in SF, Integrity in Alabama) have far better ears than the audiophiles I’ve met, and are also more concerned with providing a supportive, interactive relationship with the artist than with the exact, precise soundstage placement of that one ride cymbal.

Finally, no matter what I listen to on optical or vinyl, the more aesthetically pleasing experience is always…sitting down at the piano and improvising through “Stella by Starlight” for two hours. There is no audiophile system I’ve heard that comes close to duplicating the real musician’s auditory experience of, say, playing in a small ensemble, or even playing cocktail in a small bar.

Your mileage may vary.