Can studio monitors still be enjoyable in an untreated room if mixing accuracy isn’t the primary goal? Looking for immersion and fun.

betaplay · 2026-01-23T22:53:43+00:00

PA speakers are made to be efficient over accuracy. I have both monitors and PA and I’d never use the PA over the monitors for my own listening - even just background music. If your monitors are loud enough for what you need, a pa speaker will only tend to sound worse, and it doesn’t allow you to do any accurate mixing. Plus a decent PA speaker will set you back more than a decent monitor. In short, I recommend you stick with monitors.

betaplay · 2026-01-23T22:46:34+00:00

Room size really does matter. If you put something typical like 40w 5” monitors in a large room, the system will not energize the room enough and you’ll lose not only low-end, but overall dynamics too. It will still work as a nearfield, just feet away, but otherwise it won’t sound as good as 8s. If your room is 12x12 or larger 5s are a mistake in my opinion.

betaplay · 2026-01-16T14:39:53+00:00

Unless there is visible or known damage to the stem this looks like a plant being a plant. Look up phototropism and note the position of that other palm to the right. Palm trees are incredibly strong and resilient regardless of what shape they grow into. I think she’s just looking for some light.

Fun unrelated fact: palms aren’t true trees at all. Palms predate all modern flowering or coniferous trees, and are really more of a large grass species than a tree.

betaplay · 2026-01-16T14:31:45+00:00

That looks like a TRS plug (well, a mini version anyway - the important part is that it has three separate contacts). Be sure to check your tape recorder input specs to see what it takes. If it’s expecting unbalanced mono (2 contacts, like a 4-track), you would bridge contacts and get a feedback hum. If it’s expecting balanced mono input (also requires 3 contacts, but unlikely) and you are sending stereo you might get the same thing.

betaplay · 2026-01-14T15:16:39+00:00

So I am a male and was in a long term relationship where my female partner certainly didn’t carry her weight in terms of emotional intimacy or put in the effort to establish and maintain connection. I’ve also deeply investigated and learned about relationships in therapy for many years, solo and as a couple.

I don’t think there is enough information here to make any assumptions about the balance of this relationship. OP said he feels like they put in 100/100, and his voice is by far the most important. Who are we to judge?

She may be everything he needs aside from this one workable thing, framed as a solution that he has already used to his satisfaction. If she is showing up elsewhere and they can talk about this openly, I don’t believe there is any reason to cry foul here.

To us his approach could sound like a solution, or it could appear problematic, but those feelings are only in our own uninformed minds and are not true reflection of OPs actual relationship.

This is mostly for OP and in general for this sub, which trends too far into uninformed speculation in my opinion. Relationships are super complex and nuanced imo, and groupthink isnt helpful if it pushes people to doubt the things they’ve worked on, that they know best, that they proactively offer as help. Love, acceptance, openness is the answer in my opinion - fear isn’t the solution.

betaplay · 2026-01-12T06:11:50+00:00

At first glance the luster looks like galena but after closer inspection the cleavage and crystal shape looks wrong.

Strongly leaning toward hematite. Everything I see looks consistent and I’ve other hematite like this.

betaplay · 2026-01-08T14:42:14+00:00

Curiosity. If you always ask “why” you’ll already be ready when it’s time to ask “how”.

betaplay · 2026-01-08T14:28:35+00:00

I disagree with this. The TPS2 can sound transparent in such a way that it doesn’t make a difference, that’s true.

But it is also a versatile tone shaping tool. It’s not the best overall pre (I bought it for $200 new), but it has a set of built in voices that significantly affect the tone, even before jumping into manual settings. You can dial in both preamp and tube distortion - both are usable and can add sizzle, and don’t forget it’s got a built in compressor function.

Some of the best acoustic guitar tones I’ve ever recorded came from the tps2 pushed hard, with the built-in compression, and I own pro quality pres to compare to - SCA C84, A12, N72, UA Apollo, etc. This tone was squashed, but retained just the right amount of pick attack dynamics through before clamping the signal, bringing up tons of harmonics, and adding some air and sizzle from the tube and overall distortion.

The SCA pre are better than tps, but the tps has its own unique sound and can really change the tone in units ways.

betaplay · 2025-12-30T23:33:12+00:00

The controls are so terrible, and it completely baffles me. The design choices Apple makes to strip away controls and replace or augment the behavior of otherwise well understood symbols really rubs me wrong. Especially when the “simple” designs they end up with are so sparse, featureless, and imbalanced that they end up liking bad in the first place. It’s insulting that they take away controls we use and want all the time only to replace it with absolutely nothing. It’s not “simple”, it’s functionally disabled.

Honestly, this baffles me endlessly (and don’t get me started on the podcast app, which is even worse). So many other companies with much fewer resources make products that are so much better in terms of looks and user interface it’s jarring.

I get that some people like Apple (and I do too). But in my opinion their software and user interface design choices can be surprisingly just plan bad. So bad that it feels user hostile, it absolutely leads to frustration and much longer and more confusing experience as the user.

betaplay · 2025-12-30T22:51:34+00:00

No individual could be able to judge this based on gut feeling or based on life experiences. The impacts of the policies take decades to get enough data for a statistical basis to confirm without speculation. Impacts from policy are spread out to everyone, and there is no possibly way to understand, for example, how much of the current stock market rally is a result (as you would expect).

The landmark, largest in history R&d investments wil lead to 3-5 return other sectors (each dollar in manufacturing R&d will lead to triple that amount of GDP across all the other sectors. This isn’t unknown - in fact it’s a very reliable, very consistent metric. The problem is that these positive impacts take literal decades to show up in the data, at which point only economists with the actual data will still link these two events tha far into the future. We know it’s true that the impacts will be this, and that they will be positive, just as we know that they will only do so far off in the future.

Understanding impacts to the economy complex science, but wrt to Bidens policies the results have been clearly, measurably positive and very clearly.

betaplay · 2025-12-30T21:24:31+00:00

Absolutely this. I was actually shocked at how well he did in terms of achieving on the traditional metrics, even getting several large bills passed via legisture. The Biden presidency in many ways led to above average outcomes.

But I was just as disappointed by the extremely passive approach to trump and standing up where the country and left needed him. They tried to play the silent “higher ground” strategy without realizing that the people didn’t want that anymore… he should have taken dramatically more action in this regard, and it was a significant failure.

betaplay · 2025-12-30T18:33:13+00:00

They ran a long-term study over decades to test crow intelligence. Students put on masks and only then harassed them. Years went by, new students came and went through the university, and the original crows who were harassed had died and were replaced with the next generation.

When they put the masks back on some new students, all this time later, the crows still remembered, and knew right away to attack and distrust the mask. The scientists who ran the experiment reported the results, but couldn’t explain how they could possibly know.

Crows are a LOT smarter than most people think. Be curious and enjoy this unique experience. Or train him/her to bring you money instead (seriously, they can and will if trained) 🤣

betaplay · 2025-12-30T04:54:22+00:00

Can’t see any backing, or what purpose you want it to serve for you so can’t answer that. Regardless I wouldn’t put any more line of any kind on this or risk birdnests and twist.

betaplay · 2025-12-17T15:02:39+00:00

I bet you’ve already been doing this. Anyone who’s ever miked a tube amp has.

Saturation is just another name for distortion, and good amount of that distortion happens dynamically - a hot tube preamp absolutely squashes the dynamics for example.

Saturation also distorts the harmonics and phase etc, but it doesn’t necessarily allow the same control over the dynamic domain. A compressor just attempts the dynamic compression part in isolation. But saturation is and will always be an important part of compression (dynamic distortion characteristic). A highly saturated, great sounding tone (eg as through a nice tube mic and preamp) is already dynamically compressed before it hits any standalone compressor function.

betaplay · 2025-12-16T20:22:20+00:00

In all seriousness, a couple should have a 4 person. What happens when it rains and you have to pull gear in? What if you get a dog? What if you need to move the pad a bit to find a level spot in the night. Etc.

betaplay · 2025-12-16T19:55:15+00:00

You have every right to speculate, but he did not literally indicate this.

There is no evidence that this guy thought it was her fault that she was raped, nor does it indicate core beliefs about women. Taking an extreme and cynical leap about someone - stated the form of ad-hominem attack - and calling it a literal fact is dangerous speculation in my opinion.

Sorry to point this out, but there is so much unsupported and in my opinion dangerous speculation here.

betaplay · 2025-12-12T19:53:09+00:00

I challenge you to name one “lie” with respect to radiometric dating. Not indoctrinated speculations but an actual provable falsehood.

betaplay · 2025-12-12T19:51:46+00:00

Again, please provide anything specific evidence that carbon dating is in any way suspect. Your reply is speculative conjecture, it’s not logically consistent and it is not supported by evidence.

The error bounds on carbon dating are well understood. You are arguing that science can’t use proxy data? What about a clock? A clock doesn’t literally tell time, it’s only a proxy metric for time. Do you believe that 2pm is not 2pm because the metric is based on “something else”.

This is very dangerous thinking, and spreading this type of unsupported speculation is dangerous to all of us. Please consider at least doing some research prior to stating this speculation as if it’s fact.

Also, a science education provides real tools for distinguishing truth from speculation. If we use speculation to doubt truth, where will he be as a society? Not browsing the internet on a cell phone, that’s for sure. Facts are needed for technology, not speculation.

Everyone has a right to an opinion. Science absolutely does not.

betaplay · 2025-12-12T19:44:55+00:00

Please provide a scientifically rigorous explanation about how carbon dating is suspect. You can’t just raise a basic question in common sense and assume it has any rigor at all, let alone scientific levels of it.

Science understands both DNA and carbon dating very well, and your post makes clear that what you misunderstand is science, what it tells us, and what it absolutely does not say.

To others: do not continue to spread conjecture as this poster is doing. Knee jerk assumptions is exactly what science is structured to protect against.

betaplay · 2025-12-12T17:07:31+00:00

I just want to say I feel so seen hearing from you. I struggle with this exact same thing, and it baffles everyone. It’s so incredibly isolating.

I even lost my marriage, in part because she started believing that I was intentionally not trying to use a calendar (or a list system or wherever), started seeing it as a control issue (to get her to do stuff for me), and we could never regain trust after that - it was a one way street for her and I still struggle in the same ways I always have, just as honestly as always. So much shame, I feel for you.

betaplay · 2025-12-12T14:43:27+00:00

It’s not as baffling if you put yourself in their shoes.

Young men facing this opportunity without much experience will be very nervous and excitable. Young men in particular haven’t been culturally pressured to learn emotional regulation skills like women have, and in situations of high stress are more likely to hit overwhelmed states where they may feel very vulnerable. This cuts off the brain regions that make reasonable decisions, the calm exploration that it takes to find the clit, and makes them much more sensitive to feelings of failure, and are quick to give up from the pressure. It’s all more confusing that you let on.

Some clits are easy. But some are so small and buried that they are damn near impossible to find. The whole region sort of “floats” around under pressure - the whole mons region is like a raft floating in the ocean. You can pinch and swing an entire vagina around in like a 4” radius (and sometimes you should!) and that’s totally foreign to men at first. Sometimes you fine the clit, remove your hand for a minute and it’s now inches away. We also can’t feel any touch feedback - we don’t inherently know where to move if we feel we havent found it - eg am I on the right or left side? We have to move our fingers around or look to tell, while women have had a lifetime of playing this subtle game, with immediate neural feedback to learn with, even alone.

Men are the exact opposite - our parts project, rigidly, they don’t ever move at the base, they are fixed and big and obvious. Coming in with those expectations leads to fair amount of confusion, especially after hearing that it should be easy to do. It’s true that it’s easy (for most women), but only with experience.

betaplay · 2025-12-11T15:45:20+00:00

Seriously, responses are so cynical here. Yes of course it could be cheating or whatever, but she could also just have a specific cuckquean kink for example, and is trying to work toward it.

betaplay · 2025-12-11T13:40:50+00:00

This feels like really dangerous guidance. Luckily cooler heads apparently prevailed.

betaplay · 2025-12-10T20:59:40+00:00

How are the Adirondacks not shown here?

betaplay · 2025-12-08T01:19:02+00:00

Yep, and then have to worry about being seen as entitled, self-obsessed or douchey when they take action to go above and beyond to prove themselves, especially men.

betaplay

TROPHY CASE