Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

Kota1
Ok I really don't want to be blunt but I will be. As you probably already know I think tube amps, and microphones, sound better more musical and all that just not in a accurate way but in an effect way because of the natural characteristics of the tubes. We both know that tube amps start to degrade from the first moment you put in new tubes, I've have my BHK 300s and BHK Preamp for about 4 years and have spent 1000s on tubes trying to get the super sexy ones that BHK didn't even have in mind when he designed the units (silly). But in a mastering studio you can't have the slow degradation of tubes to evaluate the recording and mixing of other engineers for the master. Doesn't that sort of put up a red flag? Perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe I'm to analytical and not cool enough. 

 

brianlucey
You are confused, it doesn’t matter how many records you have worked on. My position is not that I have great speakers in my Atmos system it's that they are accurate and industry standard I don’t want them to sound amazing as you have said. You are also confused in that I’m criticizing audiophiles in terms of my Genelec speakers audiophiles and Genelecs are all together different they don’t run in my 2 channel system.

As for now audiophiles don’t think multi speaker systems like Atmos are actually audiophile this will probably change in the future but not yet. You have a successful room but you are full of it, you don’t even have matched speakers you mix tube amps and SS then you have several AD transitions to Protools even though you say you are all analog, Impressive to a 25 year old producer who loves to see your super cool main speakers but has more money than technical chops. I know I’ve been there, I’ve done that and finished the game ahead, nothing wrong with it but don’t try to fool people who have already been around the block.

@donavabdear interesting how this takes us right back to the topic of this thread, active speakers and confusion. In @brianlucey video he states that his entire mastering system is a chain. Change one thing, you change the entire chain. For professionals with budget and trained hearing, that’s fine. For consumers, that’s expensive, possibly real expensive to put a good, cohesive "chain" together as each mismatch needs to be traded, swapped, or sold.

With an active speaker you trade off the ability to "tune" the speakers with variables like the amp and speaker cables. In return, you get a coherent, cohesive "chain" that is portable and replicable. It takes a LOT of the variables that make up the chain out of the hands of a consumer and puts them in the hands of the engineer who spent HIS budget and time putting together a cohesive "chain" (cabinet, amps, crossover, drivers, even the connections on the plate amp in the back of the speaker).

If I want to "tune" my active speakers because of how I place them in the room I have contour knobs, a volume knob, and a high pass filter on the back (see the pic of the controls on the back in my system page). That is common in an active speaker, you don’t get it in a passive speaker and I can dial those contour knobs to the exact degree I want them and they are FREE to fiddle with, unlike swapping out speaker cables.

I saw an interview of recording engineer John Traunwieser where he traded out his B&W monitors for Meyers because the B&W’s sounded too good. They made every mix sound good BECAUSE of the speakers strengths but that didn’t always translate to different speakers. To your point if device (amp/speaker) etc colors the sound in such a way it might not translate the same on another system.

In a way its fortunate that the straight forward path on this journey is laid out with published specs. Specs for a relatively flat speaker, dolby specs on where to place them, specs for treating and calibrating your room, even specs for reference volume levels. As long as you don’t stray too far from the path the specs lay out you can get a good result for decent money.

BTW, if anyone reading this wants the specs for setting up a room and system for Atmos come visit my thread here:

kota1, yours is an extensive system.

I'm confused by which components provide the analog stereo?

Oddly, I'm writing this from the parking lot of the Heinz St. Berkeley Bowl just across the street from Meyer Sound Labs.

@m-db, OMG I was just on Meyers website before posting this...fate!

Good question about the analog signal path. I have two options.

One is to use the Marantz "Pure Direct" pass through on my processor. Is it "pure" analog? No, but it is another option if I am using an analog input on the processor. According to Marantz:

The Pure Direct Mode is passed through the tone circuit/AD Converter/DA converter/DSP include Audyssey processing for Analog input.
In addition, stop the video and the display.

Now my second option is to run a separate preamp. The active speakers I use have both XLR and RCA inputs on the back with a toggle switch. I have tried using a separate Parasound all analog preamp (Zpre) I have connected to the RCA inputs. I liked it but it wasn’t necessarily better.