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Comment by baldfat | Hacker News Reader

> Love or hate the Yamaha NS10, this unassuming little speaker has found a place in the studios of many of the world's top producers. We trace its history, and investigate why a monitor whose sound has been described as "horrible" became an industry standard.

I see people use this all the time as their main speaker? I usually ask why and if they say because it is a standard I stop talking music production. If they say they use them because they use it to hear the sound distorted then I am 100% in the conversation. These are used to hear what the "real world" crappy speaker system would sound like. Problem is EVERY speaker made the last 20 years is better than these speakers. The main response to why they use a NS-10 is "If it sounds good on NS10s then it'll sound good on anything."

I HATE HATE HATE the NS10 speaker. It was used because it was such a BAD speaker. In front of me I have Genelec speakers. They sound so good and clear. NS 10 sound like a brown paper bag with foam is covering the speaker and all low end and high end sounds were scooped out and I have my hands covering my ears!

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> It was used because it was such a BAD speaker.

You clearly haven't read the article. The NS10 is an exceptionally good speaker in certain respects that are not immediately obvious and that convey vital information about a mix. It has superlative time-domain performance due to the sealed box design and the extremely stiff and well-damped woofer. This time-domain accuracy reveals immense amounts of detail that are lost on a conventional reflex-ported nearfield monitor. Crucial decisions about phase and balance in the bass and midrange frequencies are far easier on an NS10 than almost any other monitor. They're not pleasant to listen to, but they produce good mixes, which is entirely the point of studio monitors.

A speaker with similar performance and a similar role is the Auratone 5C, or the more modern Avantone MixCube. In hi-fi terms they are absolutely atrocious, but few other speakers are so revealing of mixing errors.

It is only relatively recently that full-range nearfield monitors have managed to approach the time-domain performance of the NS10 - the Neumann KH310, the Unity Audio Boulder and the Barefoot Sound Micromain achieve that feat, but at vastly greater cost than the faithful old NS10.

If you do not understand why the NS10 is such an iconic and useful piece of equipment, you fundamentally do not understand mixing.

> You clearly haven't read the article. The NS10 is an exceptionally good speaker in certain respects that are not immediately obvious and that convey vital information about a mix.

How so? They were "GOOD?" Where did I miss that?

At the conclusion:

"And the practical? Well, it's certainly true that the NS10s have a mid-heavy balance and little bass extension. This is especially so if they are not mounted close to a suitable boundary — such as a big desk or a rear wall — to provide low mid-range reinforcement. They're also just as revealing of any shortcomings in the monitoring chain as they are of the mix, and they don't take very kindly to being driven loud. While Newells and Holland showed they have very low levels of distortion, they do suffer from thermal compression, which will not only cause wide-band dynamic attenuation in response to high levels of drive, but will upset the characteristics of the crossover filters as the voice-coil resistance of the drivers increases. As temperature rises, the bass/mid low-pass filter frequency will increase significantly (and the tweeter high-pass filter frequency will reduce), and begin to give prominence to the resonances at the top end of the bass/mid driver's response. When NS10s are driven too hard by a poor amplifier, fed by a sub-standard monitor output, and mounted without any boundary reinforcement, you might well find that they sound horrible to the point of being unusable."

ALSO???? If you do not understand why the NS10 is such an iconic and useful piece of equipment, you fundamentally do not understand mixing.

Okay your super off putting. I owned my own studio and small record label with successful bands. I don't know how in the world anything you just said is fundamental to mixing? NS10 are a bad sounding mixer that is a displeasure to listen to. Not one modern near field attempts to be a NS10. Some people think that it is a bonus but NO ONE is saying these were a technical work of greatness. This articles point was that it is odd that they were successful and that they are Hate or Love. They list out some interesting points but nothing is saying they are "Too Good." Quote me some text.

This paragraph precedes your quote:

"Thanks to its time-domain accuracy and mid-heavy balance, the NS10 is an extremely revealing speaker that takes no prisoners. In other words, if the recording is poor, the NS10 will tell you in no uncertain terms. You have to work harder to make things sound good on the NS10 not because it sounds bad but because recorded music, even today, is often a poor approximation of the real thing, and the NS10 reveals it. I found a familiar comment on the SOS Forum that reads: "If it sounds good on NS10s then it'll sound good on anything." Again, that's not because the NS10 is inherently poor, but because it is effective at revealing the fundamental compromises inherent in recorded music. If you've worked hard on NS10s at a mix and overcome those compromises, or perhaps cleverly disguised them, the mix will translate well to other systems because it is a good mix. Put another way, the NS10 better enables you to get to the nub of a mix by more accurately reproducing its fundamental time-domain information — and it is this which can make the task of mixing seem more challenging."

To my mind, that is a very strong justification for the NS10. The NS10 is not without flaws, but it remains a perfectly viable professional tool that can be used to produce excellent mixes. Although it has been superseded by many modern high-end monitors, it retains some distinct advantages over the inexpensive ported monitors that are used in the vast majority of small studios.

But that isn't saying that they were clear. It was because they were skewed in a way that would show ONE place that was also unique to older audio technology. That is not the issue with 20 year old speakers or the way people listen to music.

What it is saying is that the NS10 = What people were listening to. That is no longer the case.

Mate, I gotta say your responses make me dismiss your comment. You misinterpret "good in certain respects", to shout "GOOD?" to an empty room. Caps with a lot of punctuation is a red flag for me, seems very CNN.com political. Finally, you criticize the core argument ("why does the NS10 have such a reputation") without giving me, an ignorant third party, any evidence.

Even if you owned your own studio, aren't there lots of people with that same resume line who were terrible at mixing?

You may be 100% correct, but it was not communicated in a style that would let someone to that conclusion.

You know caps-locking your words doesn't make them more meaningful, right?

I was trying to understand where the remark of me not understanding what I read. The article was not about them being "good" technically besides that if they sound good on a NS10 they will sound good on anything?

I HATE my friend's vintage Porsche. It doesn't even have Bluetooth like my Yaris! And the exhaust sound is so obnoxious. Who even needs to drive fast on the way to Olive Garden? Every car made in the past 10 years is better than that old Porsche.

The article both covers your point and goes beyond it. Did you read it before posting?

I read and even quoted text? I don't get where I didn't read the article when I have few quotes from different parts?

"I see people use this all the time as their main speaker?"

What are you talking about? Nobody uses the NS10 as their main speaker today. It's been a decade since they were in common use and nearly two decades since they were even manufactured.

There still are... I have seen a couple of studios recently on Gearslutz that only have NS10

Sure, every old piece of equipment has somebody that loves it. But, the number of high-end studios (the kind working on records any of us may have heard on the radio) with NS10 speakers, even in a secondary role, is vanishingly small these days. I used to know engineers who kept a set in the trunk of their car, "just in case" the studio didn't have any when they got there (it was their "source of truth", that allowed them to get their bearings in a room even if they used the regular speakers in the studio for most of the work), but even they weren't doing that as far back as ten years ago.

These speakers still have a small cult following based on the strength of the brand during their reign, but it makes little sense to pay "vintage" equipment prices for them when you can buy better new speakers for a similar or lower price. Speakers don't get better with age.

Regardless of the continuing existence of these speakers in active roles I am wildly skeptical that the person I'm responding to sees them "all the time". Unless they keep going to the same old studio that hasn't been upgraded since 1989 and having the same conversation with the owner every time. That'd be weird.

But I am talking about people in small studios. Since around 1998 or so the recording studio was revolutionized and 90% of studios are very small one bedroom or basement size spaces.

My "all the time" is going from the late 1980s to 2007. Though I still see people with only NS10. There was a studio in my city 2 blocks away. NS10 were on the wall and was the primary ears for the mixing.

Ah, you should say something along the lines of, "I used to see this all the time" to clarify that it's in the distant past.

It's pretty rare to find NS10s in active studios today, in my experience (which is much more limited than in the past, but even when I was working professionally in the field two decades ago, the NS10 was on its way out among the thought leaders in the industry).

They were a reliable workhorse that had a good run and helped make a lot of great records, but they aren't really relevant today. I worked on them a lot in the 90s, and I don't think they sounded like a brown paper bag, but I can see how one would prefer a more modern design (I've never owned or wanted to own a pair). But, they had their positive aspects.

> "If it sounds good on NS10s then it'll sound good on anything."

Spot on. I dabble in electronic music production and this is precisely why it's such a "good" speaker, because you want your music to sound good on all systems, and the NS10 is going to simulate what your music sounds like on stock Apple earbuds. If it can sound good on those, you can bet they will sound even better on virtually anything else.

But parent is making a point that technology has moved on and your Apple Earbuds made in 2017 sound way better than the NS10s, and I think after all these years that might be the case

It's not fair comparing speakers to headphones/earphones, because speakers have to move a lot more air. Cheap earphones can have excellent bass response because they're coupled directly to the eardrums. The NS10s only have 18cm (7in) woofers, so it's not surprising their -3db bass cutoff is 70Hz. As "Hoffman's Iron Law" of loudspeaker design says: deep bass, small size, high efficiency: choose two.

> It's not fair comparing speakers to headphones/earphones

True, but we are not comparing for the purpose of finding the "best value for money", we are trying to find an answer to the question: do the NS10s reflect the situation of today's average listener? My argument is that they suck so much that they are now below average... So I think they're not the right monitor choice in 2017

>My argument is that they suck so much that they are now below average...

Ahahahaha no.

You can't convince me they're worse than cell phone, tablet, and laptop speakers, which is how an awful lot of music is being consumed.

Those "speakers" are not meant to be a primary sound source, but I have heard some phones from HTC that sounded MUCH better than NS10.

>Those "speakers" are not meant to be a primary sound source

What the manufacturer means doesn't matter, the real-life use does, and there they are often the primary sound source (if only by the virtue of being the only option available when one doesn't have their headphones handy, or, even more often, wants to share sound with someone).

>I have heard some phones from HTC that sounded MUCH better than NS10.

Maaaaybe. Now try something that's not a flagship, but what 98% of the people have.

There have been high quality loudspeakers available since at least the 60's, and arguably since before then. For example the quad electrostatic from 1957 or there abouts, a selection of which far exceeds the quality of apple earbuds or similar. Or Grado SR60's from 1992 or Stax SR1 headphones from 1960. Or Hartley loudspeakers evolved from an idea originating in the 1940's.

My brothers studio, where music for UK film and TV music was made, had NS10's as near fields. They sounded atrocious, I mean really bad. Leaving aside their electromechanical benefits, which are pretty well covered in the article, the accepted notion was that if you could make sounds sound ok with them with all their colourisation, then you'd get a fair result on televisions, radios and so on. In fact thinking about it, if you wanted music to sound good on Beats, then they'd still make a good reference choice.

Their listenability was pretty well irrelevant.

> roblem is EVERY speaker made the last 20 years is better than these speakers.

I disagree heres.

"Real" speakers might be better, but most people listen to music on crappy laptop speakers or crappy bluetooth 1-inch mono speakers. The quality of the average sound reproduction device has been getting worse the last 20 years.

On the other hand, there are some seriously impressive bluetooth speakers out there now.

I just picked up an Audio Pro Addon T3 on sale the other day. It's obviously no match for my room corrected studio monitor setup with dual 12" subs in regards to sub bass, detail and overall SPL, but I'm absolutely astounded at how much sound (and bass!) they've managed to cram into a speaker that's smaller than a sixpack and plays for ~30 hours on battery.

They're probably doing a ton of DSP and probably some missing fundamental bass trickery, but it does sound really convincing.

I wouldn't buy any bluetooth speaker much smaller than this one, though. You can only cheat physics so far.

Genelecs are notoriously hard to mix on. They take a long time to learn. Probably the hardest speaker to work with out of the box. I know someone who earns 6-7 figures annually mixing some of the biggest acts around. The only speakers on his console are NS10s. The reason being is that they are the best tool for the job. They have a flat and clear response which is what you want when mixing. On the other hand I have heard enough mixes coming out of Genelec equipped studios that sounded amazing in the studio and like garbage anywhere else. I've also heard great mixes on Genelecs but only from engineers who have used them in the same room for a few years.

> The reason being is that they are the best tool for the job.... They have a flat and clear response which is what you want when mixing.

Did you not read how these things are not flat and not clear in any range besides the mids in the article and totally depended on volume, environment and positioning?

NS10 are the Vim vs EMACS arguement but it is more Vim vs ed.

> I've also heard great mixes on Genelecs but only from engineers who have used them in the same room for a few years.

Rooms don't matter on Genelec and yes you will notice that the majority of high end studios mostly use Genelec due to the fact that rooms matter much less with them and the skill can transfer anywhere. That was my whole point on why Genelec are the most popular near field monitors in high end studios.

Rooms always matter unless of course Genelecs somehow break the laws of physics.

70% of studios I have been in have Genelec's. Rest seem to be Neumann or Quested.

I don't know much about professional audio, why these are good speakers?

A legendary engineer educated me about NS10s. With a great amp and a sub, they sound fantastic - especially when listening at low volume. As in... lower than the volume of a normal conversation.

They don't sound fantastic, they sound accurate, which is a vital distinction to make about monitors in a studio environment. Consumer speakers should sound good, studio monitors should sound exactly like what's on tape or disk.

NS10s sound a little harsh in the mid-range and brittle on the high end. But, you can discern all the frequency ranges (except the low end, where they roll off and need to be filled in with subs) with great precision (for the era).

The reason for their good reputation among many was their accuracy and pervasiveness. The reason for the poor reputation was their fatiguing harshness, making them less comfortable for long mixing sessions. Both can be true; we can recognize the good and the bad.

I'll correct even that. I have NS10s, somewhat modified (drivers are almost totally stock though), and I'm driving them off Channel Islands D100 monoblocs, not to terribly high levels, and I have subs to reinforce the lows.

They sound REVEALING. That's not the same as 'good' or 'accurate'. I'm not contradicting you: you can discern all the frequency ranges, and all the tones, and the things you did on other speakers that people complained about in your mix and you went 'but, but, I did a really good mix!' and then you listen on the NS10s and the complaints you got are suddenly right there staring you in the face, so you can't miss 'em.

That's largely because of the exceptional time-domain performance as the article correctly reports. These are not the only speakers that can do that, but they're really good at it. That plus the harsh mid-emphasis and brain-fryingly bright tweeters means the things are ruthlessly revealing. Accurate would be more sympathetic to good mixes and let you slide, but NS10s are merciless and you must get things exactly right: in mixes, in getting sounds, in auditioning things like plugins.

That's largely true and was a big part of their appeal, especially in a time before the widespread availability of good analysis tools and predominantly in-the-box production (which removes all manner of subtle audio problems, from mismatched impedance to phase problems, from the conversation).

That said, I think there's a temptation to exaggerate. A phrase like "brain-fryingly bright tweeters" means something completely different to someone who isn't an audio engineer than it does to someone who's worked in studios or dealt with pro gear. NS10s, while harsh by studio monitor standards, are likely indistinguishable from other mid-range speakers of the era to the average listener. The difference is small, and only really becomes an issue with extended critical listening...8 hours sitting dead center in front of these speakers does feel brain-frying. But, a casual listen wouldn't reveal that. They'd sound like punchy, bright, tight, speakers. Which is what most studio monitors sound like to untrained listeners.

Which is why I'm kinda shaking my head at the comments here saying that NS10s sound "terrible"! It's just not true. They sound like what they set out to make them sound like. And, most importantly, the resulting recordings that came out of more than a decade of market dominance speaks for itself.

They aren't terrible speakers. They were a pretty good quality professional tool used by many professionals for many years to excellent results.

Genelec are amazing speakers. They are the definition of reference. They are clean and they can be loud. They started out about the same time as the NS10 (1978) by the early 1980s they were the definition of the reference speaker. https://www.genelec.com/genelec-story-0

Once you use them you are kind of stuck. Your ear gets use to them and you mix to them. You can go to several different studios and you can mix easily. The idea is that the sound that comes out of the speakers goes directly to your ears and not reflexive sound. I have 1030a and they are small but I can mix in bad acoustic rooms and still have a great reference. You can plug any speaker of theirs into any of their sub woofers and have the same reference sound. So the use of Genelec has been growing and have become the standard. Sadly they aren't cheap but they are worth it. Mine are almost 20 years old and they still are great.

Out of all the monitors that I have used, I still don't get why people use Genelecs apart from the build quality.

There are ATC, PMC, Amphion, BareFoot, Unity Audio, and many others that all sounds more revealing and better.

BUT they sound different and will mess up your mix. If your use to the Genelec direct sound you get a full range reference where problems stick out like a sharp stick in your ear. That is why people stick with them and don't use the newer brands.

Genelec's are the high-end of personal listening for music enjoyment, but they're far from flat. Studios probably have them as a reference for what some critics and fans will be listening on.

70% of studios I have been in haven't had Genelec (europe).

Though they seem to be big in broadcast studios and post-production places or those where people haven't auditioned a large number of monitors.

A lot of studios also have Adam as well.

I like mixing and mastering on my pair of NX-N500 and some Beyerdynamic DT 990 for the bass and mastering. Very revealing. How does the NS-10 compare to the modern incarnation like the NX?

The NX series is a spiritual sequel to the NS10. It was designed with a similar philosophy to the NS10, though most reviews I've read indicate they are less harsh and more accurate due to modern manufacturing improvements. I'd guess the NX series is just a better NS10. I have a high level of confidence in Yamaha's mid-range pro and prosumer audio gear, though I've never used that specific speaker.

Is there a speaker equivalent of Sony pro headphones like the MDR-7506? Something that produces high quality, accurate, flat response at a relatively inexpensive price point?

Yes. There are at least a dozen (just as there are at least a dozen high-quality headphone options). The worst of the mid-range products today is probably better than the best of the mid-range products in 1990, as long as you limit it to respected brands. And, the differences between the best and the worst is pretty small.

I paid $1200 for my home studio monitoring setup back in 1995. It was a set of Tannoy System 600 speakers (about $700) and a Hafler amplifier (about $500). I still own and use the speakers today, but if I were doing any real work, I'd go pick up something new in the $500-$1000 range, and it would be better than my setup from two decades ago.

My point is that there's been a revolution in the quality:price ratio for audio equipment. It's not built as reliably as it used to be, but the quality of sound you can get at a mid-range price, even in transducers like speakers and microphones (which don't follow the same innovation rules as digital tech), is astonishing.

You can safely search any major online music retailer, select your price range, sort by rating, and buy the top-rated thing in your price range, and you'll almost certainly be happy with the result. The product will sound really good for the price (no matter what that price is, though there's a law of rapidly diminishing returns on the high end).

To an extent, JBL LSR305. $300/pair, self-amplified, takes XLR and TRS inputs.

Active speakers for studio use?

https://www.thomann.de/gb/topseller_GF_studio_monitors.html

Take your pick - so much choice for good speakers these days. Your room will be a larger factor in the sound than any difference between two decent pairs of speakers (of same size).

It’s more about understanding how the monitors room translate to different systems and being able to mix to that. Headphones mostly eliminate the room factor. Many recording artists use Beyerdynamic DT770s, Senn HD280s, or ATH-M40x . None are particularly expensive as headphones go.

For monitors, lots of Genelec, Tannoy, Mackie, JBL, and Adam stuff is out there. Focal Twin6 BEs are particularly nice. None are really cheap (they’re all >$500 / one) and go up from there. Meyer HD-1s are apparently amazing, but they’re ~$9k for a pair. Their newer, cheaper Amie is $3500 each. Their new flagship Bluehorn stuff is $xx,xxx per channel. Lots of home studios use KRK Rokits because they’re cheap ($150/channel on up).

The MDR-7506 isn't especially accurate, but it is a very practical tool for use on location. For mixing, you'd be far better off with a pair of open-back headphones like the AKG K701 or the Sennheiser HD 650.

Speakers are inherently more expensive to manufacture, so they lag well behind headphones in terms of price-to-performance. The other crucial factor is the acoustic quality of your listening room, which in most cases is a far more significant factor than the quality of your monitors. Rather than buying expensive monitors, you're usually better off buying inexpensive nearfield monitors like the Presonus Eris and spending the rest of your budget on bass traps and diffusers.

I have a pair of Genelec 8020's which fits the bill pretty well.

Do you have an amplifier, or do you need internally-amped speakers?

I have some fairly old paradigm floor speakers. I’d like to move to some decent bookshelf’s. I have an amp. Any suggestions? I use them for music, TV, and movies.

Wirecutter has a fairly recent review: https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-bookshelf-speakers/

I recently got the KEF Q150s (wirecutter-reviewed below) to replace some old JBL horn floor speakers and can attest that the Q150s sound really good.

What's the amp? There's a lot of info on /r/zeos for the best speakers at each price point.

I have a decent Yamaha home stereo receiver. Nothing crazy, but I don't need powered speakers.

I actually still like the sound of my Paradigms, but something came loose in one of them during a move so now it crackles on low base notes.

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