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> This is a pretty scientific matter - when I say "the purpose is to reproduce the input sound", we can tell exactly what is supposed to be reproduced, and we c

> This is a pretty scientific matter - when I say "the purpose is to reproduce the input sound", we can tell exactly what is supposed to be reproduced, and we can tell exactly how capable the speaker is of reproducing it. You are assuming the song was mixed by someone wearing headphones that perfectly reproduce the input sound. Suppose the person who mixed a song was using beats headphones or other headphones that audiophiles consider inferior but that they know the majority of people use to listen to music. Wouldn't that then mean Beats headphones actually provide the listener with the actual, intended experience?

cthalupa 12y ago
So, headphone use in studios is not generally for creating the final mix. Monitor speakers are used nearly exclusively in professional studios as what you are mixing for. Headphones have multiple places in the production process where they are used, but they're not the final target. There's a few reasons for this. The most pragmatic is that doing so will produce the track that sounds the best on the widest variety of setups - EQed or not. There's also not any single headphone out there that is used so predominately that it would make sense to cater to it in specific. The closest might be apple earbuds, but people using those probably aren't too concerned about sound quality anyway, so it doesn't make sense to mix with those in mind either. From a theoretical standpoint, you're not necessarily wrong, but it's just not how things currently work, and there's not really any reason why it ever would work that way in a professional studio. I make no claim as to what the people making music exclusively in their bedroom are doing, though.
- marknutter 12y ago
  Interesting. I guess the main concept I'm exploring is the idea that if you don't control for the sound quality that the person mixing it (or more importantly, the person approving the mix) then it's hard to make any claims about how the sound was "meant to be heard".

cthalupa 12y ago

So, headphone use in studios is not generally for creating the final mix. Monitor speakers are used nearly exclusively in professional studios as what you are mixing for. Headphones have multiple places in the production process where they are used, but they're not the final target. There's a few reasons for this. The most pragmatic is that doing so will produce the track that sounds the best on the widest variety of setups - EQed or not. There's also not any single headphone out there that is used so predominately that it would make sense to cater to it in specific. The closest might be apple earbuds, but people using those probably aren't too concerned about sound quality anyway, so it doesn't make sense to mix with those in mind either. From a theoretical standpoint, you're not necessarily wrong, but it's just not how things currently work, and there's not really any reason why it ever would work that way in a professional studio. I make no claim as to what the people making music exclusively in their bedroom are doing, though.

marknutter 12y ago
Interesting. I guess the main concept I'm exploring is the idea that if you don't control for the sound quality that the person mixing it (or more importantly, the person approving the mix) then it's hard to make any claims about how the sound was "meant to be heard".