studio monitors and quality of home speakers Options

[Bartholomew MacG...]

Has there ever been a documented case of a recording sounding worse on quality home speakers because the studio monitors used to make the recording where of lower quality?

[Ethan Winer]

Has there ever been a documented case of a recording sounding worse on quality home speakers because the studio monitors used to make the recording where of lower quality?

In recent years I've become disturbed by the trend to market "pleasing sounding" speakers to pro mix engineers. These speakers have an intentional dip in the harshness range around 2 to 4 KHz - often 4 dB or even more - which makes music sound smoother and less fatiguing. So some engineers hear and buy these speakers, wrongly thinking they're "better" because they sound pleasing. This is a terrible trend IMO, because mixes made on such speakers will be overly harsh when played on better speakers. So in this sense the answer to your question is Yes.

--Ethan

[Bartholomew MacG...]

Has there ever been a documented case of a recording sounding worse on quality home speakers because the studio monitors used to make the recording where of lower quality?

In recent years I've become disturbed by the trend to market "pleasing sounding" speakers to pro mix engineers. These speakers have an intentional dip in the harshness range around 2 to 4 KHz - often 4 dB or even more - which makes music sound smoother and less fatiguing. So some engineers hear and buy these speakers, wrongly thinking they're "better" because they sound pleasing. This is a terrible trend IMO, because mixes made on such speakers will be overly harsh when played on better speakers. So in this sense the answer to your question is Yes.

--Ethan

I think the opposite has also happened. Some recording engineers have used "bad" sounding monitors because they thought if the recording sounded good on bad monitors it would sound good on anything.