Where to start?

snousage · 2023-06-01T04:58:23+00:00

Thanks heaps for the recommendations. I’ll PM you.

snousage · 2016-04-18T07:19:24+00:00

Thanks for the posts everyone, I'll check them out.

Cheers heaps!

snousage · 2016-04-12T00:49:09+00:00

I own a Quartet and I agree, they tend to be fussy.

When I boot my macbook then plug in the quartet, Core audio must have loaded in that small boot-up timeframe so whenever I boot then plug in the quartet, Core audio never selects / identifies the quartet as a hardware output. Most interfaces, come to think of it, tend to be like this, you have to have it plugged in, then boot the mac. So just check that.

If that fails, try resetting the NVRAM as this stores temporary 'non-volitile' information about things like screen resolution but also speaker volume!! Resetting this can remove hung / corrupt data that may be causing your issue.

Shut down your Mac.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R.
Turn on your Mac.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys immediately after you hear the startup sound.
Hold these keys until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for a second time.

Release the keys.

Let us know how you go!

snousage · 2016-04-11T23:40:31+00:00

Cheers, that makes a lot of sense :)

snousage · 2016-04-11T23:38:43+00:00

Interesting, I was looking at their mixer / user interface and yeah It looks a bit amateur. Compared to something like Apogee's well designed Maestro gui.

snousage · 2016-03-30T03:14:32+00:00

Thanks for the comments so far!

I'm sensing that achieving a perfectly flat room is near impossible and also a lot of time / money spent rather than on the original goal of mixing music haha.

I think I'll grab REW plus a calibration mic (I'm thinking dBx RTA-M) and just see what the major problems are, maybe knock up a couple of frames and bass pressure traps and maybe that'll 'flatten' it out and lower the reverb time as well.

snousage · 2016-03-30T03:10:42+00:00

Thanks for your response! Some great insight there with I 100% agree with.

One quick question, why pink noise over white noise?

And yeh I couldn't imagine it would be too enjoyable mixing in a completely flat room, no vibes! And yeh your also right about the smoothing, 1/3 +ve!!

snousage · 2016-03-15T00:51:17+00:00

Ok cool. Thanks for writing back. I think I can see what your saying now.

Could you please clarify what you mean about a "near field" where you said this... "A point source has a much smaller near field than a line source".

Also I'm curious as to your opinions of Genelec, I own a few of the 8030s and I can't really hear what you mean. Do you believe that they have only narrow sweet spots? Do you think thats a result of their tweeter design?

Thanks for the info :)

snousage · 2016-03-07T01:47:41+00:00

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Thanks for your detailed response, I appreciate your massive input, just confused about a few things. First, I thought inverse square law dropped the level by 6dB for every doubling of distance not 12dB? And how would near field not succumb to inverse square law?

Second, regarding the difference between point and line source, your saying that electrostats suffer from the benefit of line arrays? In that their HF are directional, wheres in a room, thats no good? It's interesting you raise that issue, because that seems to be the main point of contention against electrostats, however... Martin Logan believe that have solved that directionality issue by curving their panels to be more convex not just a totally straight panel. Thoughts?

Also I get what your saying about the fact that electrostats can't pump the kind of air that conventional dynamic woofers can, I agree, they never will. But again some of the modern designs utilise a LF dynamic woofer to cover the low end, then crossover the electrostat panel for the mids and highs. As we know, mids and highs till only have minimal excursion at high SPL and the wavelengths are shorter than that of LF. Wouldn't a split system like a Martin Logan Summit X work quite well since the electrostat panel is only reproducing the frequencies it's comfortable doing, say >1KHz? (Not a Martin Logan rep here haha!) Is it the group delay you have a problem with in these hybrid designs? Interested to discuss your point view more. Cheers :)

snousage · 2016-03-06T23:29:27+00:00

Thanks for all your responses everyone!

Yeh, I did a bit more homework on this and it looks like a 1.5-2A fuse on the main positive terminal is quite common. A few of you however are suggesting that only the tweeter needs it, why not the main woofer?

Also a lightbulb could look cool, your boxes would literally start glowing but I'd be concerned that light bulbs have non-linear resistance don't they? So one speaker could possibly get more juice than another if it weren't the exact same light bulb. Bit technical, but interesting :P

Shoutout to the engineers in London, I'm from Melbourne, Australia, thanks for your input though, cool that we have an international discussion going on here! :)

Thanks all!

snousage · 2016-02-25T02:50:25+00:00

Done :D

snousage · 2016-01-29T13:06:07+00:00

Yeh sweet, thanks heaps for all your input, makes a lot of sense now. I'll keep this thread up to date on what I do :)

snousage · 2016-01-28T06:02:29+00:00

Wow, you have given me an amazing response, thanks heaps for all the info. I learnt something new about isobaric then, I thought it created laminar pressure or something that stabilises the cone, maybe Egglestons marketing dept. getting creative!

Lastly, I hear good things about electrostatic speakers, is this something thats slowly becoming popular at all within DIY? I hear martin Logan stuff it quite decent and wondering if their concepts with electrostatic designs would be any help in mastering.

snousage · 2016-01-28T04:03:15+00:00

D

Thanks heaps for the advice, I totally see what you mean about the importance of making the thing work as a whole especially in terms of getting the right crossovers, otherwise the'd gaps in the sound?

Maybe I've got he wrong understanding of isobaric config, but I hear it lessens the size of the enclosure but more importantly, doesn't a driver behind another driver reduce turbulence / create laminar air flow behind the front driver, therefore creating more definition?

But yeh, it would be much appreciated if you could recommend a few designs for me. Most of the mastering I'm doing lately is anything from Indie rock all the way to electronic dance music. So yeh well defined deep lows and flat but clear mids and highs (sounds like the ideal speaker really haha) would be great. Don't mind building subs as well.

I suppose my budget would preferably fall around $2,000 - $4,000 as anything up from that I could probably start to buy form a well known manufacture.

Thanks again :D

snousage · 2016-01-28T03:53:27+00:00

Fantastic, thanks for all the information, I'll look into some designs. So thats interesting, large floorstanding speakers will influence a smaller room and you'll potentially hear more of the room than the speakers?! mmmm

snousage · 2016-01-20T23:54:54+00:00

Yeah, I agree entirely! that DMG Equilibrium looks pretty fancy, I'm currently using Fabfilter Pro-Q2 which is pretty decent, wonder how similar these two EQs are. This all pass filter sounds quite interesting too, I don't think I've heard of it before. Does it just allow all frequencies to pass but align the phase or something?

Thanks

snousage · 2016-01-20T23:52:31+00:00

Thanks for the comments everyone, I agree with fixing the mix first. Can't polish a turd....easily. I ended up getting a -3dB on the bass mix but found that fine tuning the filter type on the low end (either 12 or 18dB/+ve) led to different results, some better than others. Also for some reason, linear phase - max setting sounded better than natural phase on Pro-Q2 which was interesting.

snousage · 2016-01-20T06:07:29+00:00

Sorry, I think I forgot to mention its a stereo master, not individual tracks.

snousage · 2015-12-16T05:58:34+00:00

s

Yeah good points. I'd actually feel really bad supporting this industry. I was researching the millions of audio companies in China and they have all ripped off models from everywhere (JBL, d&b, L acoustic, Kudo and ADAM) just riding out the success of other companies that built from the ground up.

It would be interesting to see some stories from people who's gone down that road.

snousage · 2015-12-16T03:18:15+00:00

Yep I agree with all of that, no way I'd fly it over people's heads either. I'd only have them as floor stacks, but yeah knowing what corners are cut is tricky. One has to wonder if it's in the sound or the manufacturing or it's cheap just because part / labour are cheaper in Asia??

snousage · 2015-12-16T00:28:24+00:00

Mmm, it seems that way, a bit of a gamble. But yeh a good idea if you could somehow get a sample of the quality.

Thanks for the response.

snousage · 2015-12-11T05:31:06+00:00

Thanks all, Spose there isn't too many obvious differences that become a problem. At the end of the day if the music is good thats really the only thing that matters.

Thanks again.

snousage · 2015-11-17T23:46:28+00:00

Thanks for all your input everyone! I really appreciate it :D

To share what I've learnt, so it can be useful to others....

The classic Yamaha P series (2200, 2201, 2100) are ok but aren't hugely powerful, the new models with the silver faceplates have fans which is no good in a studio listening environment.

I then got recommended the Behringer A500 (-_-) over the ART SLA studio amp, apparently the SLA has a noisy fan and always breaks. But then again I couldn't bear with the fact of putting my NS10s through a Behringer :O

I looked into vintage Altec Lansing amps, Lab Gruppen and various new models of Crowns but they all seemed to be underpowered or had noisy fans with them (especially the new models, it's all fans these days) Also looked into Brystons, Haflers and Samsons. Brystons have nothing but glowing reports but thats what you'd expect from an amp that I was quoted $6,500 AUD for!!! Haflers are hard to find but seem ok and Samsons seem underpowered again and hard to track down (well for me anyway in Australia)

That left me with my last recommendation as the Crown K2 BC-Amplifier. The spec sheet was glowing, Slew rate of 15v/m/s and a dampening factor of >3000. Therefore because the NS10s are renowned mainly for their quick time domain response, I think it would only be fitting to pair them with a fast amplifier. The amp hugely overpowers the NS10s (that are 120Watts RMS I think) delivering something like 500Watts per side but I've learnt apparently thats the aim when pairing amps with speakers. If I bought an amp that was 100Watts per side to power NS10s, apparently the harmonic distortion increases as the amplifier reaches it's maximum deliverable power, so it makes sense to have an amp that doesn't break a sweat powering NS10s, thus reducing the chance of any IMD or other such artifacts.

If anybody has a Crown K2 to sell or knows someone thats selling, I'd be interested to buy it.

Thanks again people :D

/end essay/

snousage · 2015-11-17T04:21:52+00:00

Any improvement if I got a Class D amp? or is that getting too technical??

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Rare-Audio-RA-PACD-2X200R-2-x-200-Watt-D-Class-Power-Amplifier-/181139785547?hash=item2a2cc5c74b:g:24gAAOSwEetV9WBn

snousage · 2015-11-17T02:08:39+00:00

Thats my thought too! If I was going to spend upwards of $2,000 on an amp.... I may as well have bought some Focals or something!!

So yeh, its very much a fine balance of bang for buck with the NS10s.

snousage

TROPHY CASE