What about "Pro" vs. Audiophile ?????

I'm a classically trained pianist and been a studio musician (pianos, synthesizers and keyboards) for many years, and currently do a fair amount of home recording as well.

Lps2cd brings up a good point about the ceiling on pro interconnects and wiring…but remember in context we’ve already invested $10,000 in a single vintage Neumann large diaphragm microphone, $6,000 each in AKG414’s, and $5,000 in Avalon mic preamps, not to mention the thousands invested in Pro Tools plug-ins (that don’t work…LOL). On top of that, each microphone lends distinct colorations to the source that the engineer must understand and leverage as an artist, not a workman.

We may need to choose between 8 - 10 different mikes for close-mic'ing a nylon string guitar, and select from a different 8 - 10 mics for tomorrow's voice over.

As far as monitors go, I don’t know of an engineer worth his salt who hasn’t gone through ten’s of different monitors for just their near-field requirements…and even that being said, a lot of us still use NS-10’s for an isolated, particular purpose. We all know they aren’t "uncolored, ruler flat" speakers, but that isn’t the reason we check mix with them, and no one in the business uses them as primaries. And I'd NEVER use my home speakers (Maggie 3.5's) as my primaries, either.

Rives Audio’s post is like a well driven nail – “There is a lot the audiophile community could learn from "pro" gear. However, the goals of the two are not the same at all. Take the design of a studio control room vs. a listening room. The studio control room is designed to give the engineer exactly what is coming from the mics with no coloration (I might add, with a full understanding of the signal chain's inherent coloration) due to the room, and usually in a small environment.” That's the voice of experience talking.

I would also gently commend audiophiles to be careful not to lump all recording studios and engineers into one homogeneous group to excoriate. Yes, I’ve met a few studio owners who “look at equipment just as tools to make money”. But in my experience this generalization is the exception rather than the rule. Most engineers at good studios (Fantasy in Berkeley, the old Hyde St. Studios in SF, Integrity in Alabama) have far better ears than the audiophiles I’ve met, and are also more concerned with providing a supportive, interactive relationship with the artist than with the exact, precise soundstage placement of that one ride cymbal.

Finally, no matter what I listen to on optical or vinyl, the more aesthetically pleasing experience is always…sitting down at the piano and improvising through “Stella by Starlight” for two hours. There is no audiophile system I’ve heard that comes close to duplicating the real musician’s auditory experience of, say, playing in a small ensemble, or even playing cocktail in a small bar.

Your mileage may vary.

Like Timwat, I'm classically trained and have worked as both a symphony/chamber player and as a studio musician.

I emphatically agree that many studio folks have ears that the rest of us--even the touted Golden Ears among us--would kill for. In my time as a player and later as a recording consultant for a small label specializing in English choral music, I was repeatedly astounded at what engineers and producers could hear that I...and the singers...and the players...and the conductors...could not hear.

I also agree that much of the equipment used in major studios equals or exceeds in quality anything the audiophile is likely to have at home. OTOH, I've seen those Neumanns and Nagras connected by right-off-the-reel comm cable and XLR connectors bought in bags of a hundred; signal cables and power cables run side by side in the same chase; NS-10s with one tweeter original and one reconed with a non-OEM driver ("I just listen around it"); transgressions that would make an audiophile weep yet result in recordings that audiophiles die for.

This says something to me; it may say something else to you.

will

Bishopwill - you're absolutely correct. My worst experience in the studio was being brought in to lay keyboard tracks at a studio in the worst part of the East Bay Area here in California.

I walked into the control room and gazed in horror onto about a hundred bare lines running on the floor, running out the back of an dusty old board with not faders, but big peppermint patty channel volume knobs.

The owner of the studio proudly told me that 1) the board was used in several Elvis Presley recording sessions and 2) the 60hz that I might hear occasionally in my cans almost never made it onto the final track.

And not just Elvis recordings, Timwat. You can see that same kind of business in studios that produce "audiophile" recordings.

will