Recording Studio sound Vs. Audiophile system

I spent years in recording studios and it’s very hard to generalize. I have seen recordings mixed on everything from Klipshorns to Auratones, which are single 4" drivers in a tiny box. I’m not sure I can say what the actual difference is between studios and audiophile systems, except to say that the engineers have to know their monitors and rooms and try to predict what the end user will hear with no idea of where it will end up being played. I don’t think they look for harmonic textures as much as balance and eq settings to get the track to sound how they want. Basically, they’re doing the recording and we’re doing the playback.  Very different priorities.  

Been pondering most of the day as to whether or not I could add any value to this thread.

Perhaps not but I can offer a perspective and I'll try to keep it as quick as I can.

1) I've been a musician for about 35 years and have setup, owned and used three nom-commercial recording studios.

2) My "audiophile" speakers were specifically chosen as they are used for final mix and mastering in one of the largest and most well-known studios globally

3) I recently setup my most recent studio and have just completed recording about 20 songs.

Here's what I've learned:

- There are a lot of cycles that occur between initial recording and final master and just as many pieces of equipment and individuals involved in the process.

-All recorded music these days enters the digital domain - there's nothing we can listen to now that's been created in the last couple decades that remained in the pure analog domain.

- Every studio, every individual, every piece of equipment and most importantly the workflow and priorities vary from project to project.

Here's what I know and what I'm doing now:

- All recording (including mine) is done in what's referred to as a "live room" - this is where all the source tracks are created.  It contains a mix of analog equipment, analog to digital conversions and audio to computer interfaces.  I record live at 24/192Khz which is probably beyond what most studios are doing (for cost reasons) that are still at 96Khz sample rate.

- I do all source recording and track creation on studio monitors first.
- I then do a mix down on headphones that are sonically matched to me speakers.
- Final master is done on my speakers and then I listen and take notes ad tweak repeatedly until everything sounds the way intended before even the first track was recorded.

So in my case, I'm a little bit of odd man out (I suspect) as I own "audiophile" speakers that are also well known for being used to master professional recording and I use them not just to listen to my music library for final master recordings.

I then optimize all my music creation to sound "perfect" on that setup.

And most importantly I will say that - These recordings that are optimized for these speakers/ setup actually sound really really good (way better) on other systems than those that were not.

My system and speakers convey so much detail that there's no way you can get away with shortcuts - so any flaws in final mix (Mix, pan, effects, automation, EQ, staging) and the final master that these will be glaring flaws and in need of rethinking and tweaking to be listenable.

I used to take pages of notes on my main system after final mix and then lather rinse and repeat - Now my workflow consists of bringing the final system into the process iteratively in a per/mix or even per/track basis during the production process.

It has made a huge difference in the outcome and I now know that I could never master an album on my live studio gear and expect it to sound great on the final listening system - maybe I'll lear this over time and how to adapt after years and years of experience...maybe not.

So yeah- The odds that your audiophile system will be able to reproduce brilliant sound that was mixed and mastered on a lesser studio system is to be completely expected and that's how the vast majority of the industry will remain.  Why?

If the recording sounds OK on OK equipment the it will sound OK to the vast majority of listeners and buyers of that recording - pure business and economics.

Dang - Meant to keep it quick - sorry :(

Greg

It's been my experience that in a control room, engineers use equalizers and acoustic treatments to set up the room to measure as flat as possible. Having said that, the recording/mixing engineer is listening to the monitors in a near-field situation and is exposed to colourations of the speakers and amps.

As far as audiophile gear in the recording studio, the top studios use very high-end monitoring systems. A quick google search showed that some of the top studios in the world use B&W, Tannoy, Dynaudio monitors and Bryston or Classe amps. And what a surprise; they still have a set of Auratones in the room.
When I was mixing (on a much smaller scale) I was in analogue studios in which JBL was widely used for monitoring. Plus we had Auratone mini-monitors where we would check the final mix because it simulated the sound of a car stereo or a cheap stereo.

the engineers have to know their monitors and rooms and try to predict what the end user will hear with no idea of where it will end up being played. I don’t think they look for harmonic textures as much as balance and eq settings to get the track to sound how they want.

I agree with @chayro and @bdp24 in that the engineer is looking for a balanced mix, which does not include any of the qualities desired by the audiophile. But, and this is a big but, the producer always has the final decision. This is often unfortunate because a producer may have a certain "signature sound" that he imparts to the final mix.
 

So far, I assume we have been discussing Rock music production. Jazz and Classical would be treated very differently as far as the use of effects and compression. I once mixed down a Classical performance for PBS, syncing picture and sound, and the producer had the full score laid out on his desk. No effects were added, only EQ.