DIY COURSE: https://apmastering.com/courses/classic-upgrade
▶ MY PLUGINS: https://apmastering.com/plugins
▶ MY COURSES: https://apmastering.com/courses
SHOPS I USE AND RECOMMEND:
▶ Sound Imports: http://soundimports.eu
▶ SchneidersLaden: https://schneidersladen.de
GEAR I USE AND RECOMMEND:
▶ Squarp: https://squarp.net
▶ Reaper: http://reaper.fm
▶ Hypex amplifiers: https://hypex.nl
STUDIOS I RECOMMEND:
▶ Studio Wong: http://studiowong.de
========== Video Description ==========
I recommend Neumann KH310 monitors. They are a high quality, sealed 3-way that has been an industry standard large near field / small midfield for critical applications for two decades. However, they cost around $5000 in America and around 4000€ in Europe, placing them out of budget for many people. Can we create something for $400 if we make it ourselves, which comes close to the quality of the Neumann speaker? Or even $300 in the case of the 2 ways? Well in this video we do precisely that with extensive audio examples, recording the in-room sound of all these speakers on real music.
Notes on the recording… On my previous video where I showcased the small speakers, I used a quick DIY jecklin disk and a pair of omni measurement mics to record. Especially because those small speakers don’t extend that low, I thought it would be sufficient for the purpose of the recording. In hindsight, the stereo image was lackluster, and now we are comparing speakers with low bass output, such as setup would just render mostly mono recordings. So I decided to use a single omni measurement mic and record the speakers individually. So each recording you hear is comprised of two passes, first recording one speaker and then recording the other.
Unfortunately at times, there is some amount of white noise noticeable and this is caused by my video light which has a cooling fan. It got pretty hot in the room, as we had really hot weather recently, and I only noticed after I’d recorded the whole thing that the noise made its way onto the recordings in certain parts, even more exacerbated by using an omni mic, but omni is most accurate for these kinds of tests. Shame, but I’m not doing it all over again, so just pretend it’s not there. You can still hear how the speakers perform despite that.
Instead of swapping all of the parts out each time, in some cases I’m using the same speaker in both positions. For the classic one, I just swapped around the mid and tweeter so they are slightly asymmetrical. I doubt the sound is impacted that much. The reason the crossovers are just sitting on the speakers instead of going inside like normal is for a similar reason, and that’s because I just built two enclosures and I am swapping out the baffles.
I don’t need 10 speakers in my studio, so I only made a pair of enclosures and I will keep only one pair of speakers. When the mid dome ones are done properly with a 4th order crossover and extra DSP to boost up the bass a bit, they sound exceptional. I measured them after having tweaked to satisfaction with the hypex amps and they were flat as a pancake more or less from 40kHz to 20kHz.
But since my hypex plate amps are being used by my mastering speakers, and the mid dome ones don’t sound as good as the “classic” ones when you use a 2nd order passive crossover like I demonstrate in this video, I’m probably just going to keep the “classic” ones and either sell the parts of the mid dome one or do something else fun with them, not sure. Either way, I’m extremely impressed by the “classic” ones, and considering they cost around $400, they pretty much blow everything commercially available out of the water.
00:00 Intro
08:09 Polar Bear – Beartown
09:03 FKA twigs – Two Weeks
10:32 Deftones – Beware
11:50 Lola Young – Conceited
12:54 PEEKABOO, Flowdan – BADDERS
13:51 Blawan – Under Belly
14:53 João Gilberto – Desafinado
15:55 P Money – No Room
16:43 Converge – Dark Horse
