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Author Topic: Speker construction fashion over the years  (Read 4859 times)

FarleyCZ

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Speker construction fashion over the years
« on: May 09, 2016, 08:58:19 am »
Here's a thought:

If you listen to tracs from 80-90's, they tend to be a bit muddy. Tracks from early 00's start to be less muddy. Today's tracks are in lot of cases really high-end heavy with clear, present, but no so much owepowering bass. I wonder why is this. Only thing I was able to come up with was that mix/master engineers might have always took the "average speaker" as a target. In walkman day, that probably was sh**ty plastic Sony headphones, in 00's I don't know ... Porta Pro's? And today dunno, Apple headphones?

...this hought brought me even further. You see, eventhough that scientific "mix on flattest speakers possible" approach is nice and neat, it doesn't work like that, does it? Flat speakers are hard to enjoy music on (so I heard, lol) and in reality you can't even manufacture a completely flat speaker. Also on majority of monitors, you find little shelf eq at the back, so you can fit it to your needs.

Also, though not while mixing music unfortunately, I've worked with few pairs of Genelecs, Klein & Hummels, Neumans and Yamaha's. ...and though nicely close, they still sound different from each other. That makes me think that somewhere while designing those speakers must be some kind of crucial listening test. Isn't it possible, that there is a little fluctuation going on? That speakers from one decade will have a bit more highend, speakers from another will have a bit more bass? That would explain why music from different time periods sound differently frequency-balance-wise.
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Two Suns

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Re: Speker construction fashion over the years
« Reply #1 on: May 10, 2016, 05:51:49 pm »
While this doesn't necessarily answer your question, I believe this information is sort of relevant. Last week in my Physics of Sound and Music class my professor (who runs his own pro loudspeaker company) was discussing an issue in the industry. In reality, constructing a fantastic-sounding, flat speaker isn't that challenging (at least according to a man who does it all the time). The problem is companies will almost always compromise an amount of sound quality for aesthetics. This contributes to different brands having slightly altered sounds.
You also need to take into account your environment and room acoustics when you listened to these different speakers. If you aren't listening in the exact same setting and on speakers with the same dimension there's going to be some more variance.
Lastly, I know very little about speakers from different time periods but I'd assume speaker technology, consistent manufacturing, and general knowledge has just improved leading to cleaner mixes? Plus there's always audience preference. Perhaps speakers didn't have as prominent subwoofers in the 80's because there was very little music with emphasis on bass. Which would also tie into your "average speaker" theory because nobody would hear outside of a live setting in the first place.
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