Mastering Engineers check multiple sources for translation, yes - that's how it works. Typically, they favor the sources where the most consumers will be hearing the material. They even reference ear buds that come with your cell-phone.
Sure. For mass-marketed product. I'm strictly interested in advancing the state of the art, not making something that has been EQed to sound very "hi-fi" on the dashboard of a Chevy Cobalt! You see, GT, THE MOMENT YOU DO THAT, you destroy any chance that the recording will sound good on HIGH QUALITY sound systems! So, each engineer must decide what his goal is: in making the best product he can make which will sound BETTER THE HIGHER QUALITY your playback equipment is, or making a product which will sound BETTER THE LOWER QUALITY your playback equipment is.
And anyone worth their salt knows that the better the playback equipment, the more transparent and revealing it is of flaws in the recording, which includes EQ to the bass, even the quality of the recording chain from the mics on down.
I don't know why you're mocking synthaholic for elucidating a very basic aspect of music mix/mastering. That's really weird!
Don't get me wrong, GT-- -- I came here because the OP claimed it was a thread about the
highest end in audio, which is strictly a term meant for mainly home playback equipment, but this thread is not about that at all but instead about someone putting a personal home studio together for recording and saving his own work, so right off, his thread title is misleading and violates basic rules for the forum.
It's a totally different realm in pro audio circles, I know because I worked in the pro sound engineering and installation industry decades ago once helping to design the sound system for a place which seated nearly 3,000 people, where
features and reliability are the main drive as well as coming in at
as LOW a price as possible. The pro sound engineer is mainly interested in getting the features, quality and reliability he needs-- AT AS LOW A PRICE AS HE CAN GET. No one gets jobs based on costing the customer MORE money than they needed to spend! The high end of home playback includes a lot of pro gear, but its goals and standards are also TOTALLY DIFFERENT.
Back in the 70s, a friend proved to me that 90% of industry, especially in consumer gear, is based on hype and marketing, and that all gear is built now with designed obsolescence-- -- in other words, decidedly inferior so that they can come out with an "improved" model next year! Not so much with pro sound equipment. People in pro sound want VALUE: a product that performs reliability over a long period of time!
From the 70's on, a friend and I worked on pushing the envelop and improving the technology and I know that nearly all consumer equipment is a rip off. My buddy once built an amp in a coffee can and used to take it around to high end audio salons and invite the owners to listen to their best gear then listen to his coffee-can. In every case, his can amp sounded better, usually WAY better than the expensive stuff on their shelf!
So the real arbiter of sound quality is HOW CLOSE THE LISTENING EXPERIENCE COMES
to the live experience. You obviously can't evaluate that in a near field studio with a couple of bookshelf speakers, so it isn't that I'm "mocking anyone on basic aspects of music mix/mastering" because THAT'S NOT WHAT THE THREAD NOR THE TITLE started out or promised to be about!
I'm mocking the industry that lies so much about what good sound is and then rips people off blind.
If you want, I can direct you to a pair of speakers whose STARTING PRICE is $93,000 and tops out at 7.4 million dollars.
My only point here was that most audio gear falls far short of what is really possible and in most cases is marketed at a far higher cost than what it really costs to make it to an obscene degree. Not what it costs in order to SELL IT profitably, but in what it can be engineered for YOURSELF. This has NOTHING to do with mixing panels and the like, but it has everything to do with the fact that for $2,000 - 4,000, an astute person in audio playback engineering could put together a couple of speakers + sub module and the amplifiers needed to drive them, that would easily equal if not surpass what is being offered above for $20,000!
And make a nice profit while doing so!
That's all my point here ever was, GT. I've been in recording studios, worked in them, I've played guitars and drums and been in bands, I don't expect the average musician or even recording engineer to understand this because ALL THEY ARE MAINLY INVOLVED IN is making the recording itself, so will naturally buy commercial solutions he knows and trusts at whatever the best price they must pay, then PASS THAT COST onto the consumer.
I came here hoping to read about someone's exploits in the high end to see what they were doing and maybe share some ideas, but its actually a rather common attitude when you try to tell people what is wrong with various gear and why and how it can be done better and cheaper, much less that most of the claims of the audio industry are hype, to get a rather deaf ear. I once knew a guy who spent $14,000 on a pair of speaker cables and got rather offended when I told him that he could have made cables as good himself for under $100.
No one likes to be told they just wasted a buttload of money I guess.
You think only musicians and people in studios buy studio monitors?
www.rockvilleaudio.com
I'm thinking there's better stuff than that. Any recommendations?
www.bowerswilkins.com
