AudioCircle
Industry Circles => GR Research => Topic started by: Danny Richie on 13 Jul 2016, 07:43 pm
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I designed an upgrade for the Yamaha Studio NS-10M several years ago and just haven't had time to post anything on them.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/yamaha.jpg)
And here is a peak inside.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/yamahacrossover.jpg)
This is not exactly what you want to see in a speaker being used for mixing by a huge percentage of the industry. This is typical of a mass produced speaker of its time though. It had a plastic cup with ferromagnetic connectors in the path, electrolytic caps, and common electrical wire and connectors.
But the real question is how accurate are they right? Well here is the on axis response.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/stock%20yamaha%20on%20axis%20response.jpg)
They are within +/-5db and have a huge hump centered at about 1700Hz.
Looking at them individually it looks like the hump is in the woofers response.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/stock%20yamaha%20crossover.jpg)
On a good note the spectral decay was fairly clean. So while the woofers response had an amplitude peak it didn't have stored energy in that area. So no ringing. The woofer is actually pretty good and does use a paper cone.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/csd.jpg)
There was a little stored energy in the lower range of the tweeters response but not bad. Unlike the woofer, the tweeter was nothing special.
So I stood the speaker up with the tweeter on top and shot some vertical off axis responses. Not too bad actually. The vertical off axis did not vary much from the on axis.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/vertical%20tweeter%20on%20top.jpg)
I then flipped it over and took the same measurements with the tweeter on the bottom. Again, not bad.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/vertical%20tweeter%20on%20bottom.jpg)
And then with the tweeter on top I shot on axis and horizontal off axis measurements. Again not bad.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/horizontal.jpg)
And here is the impedance curve.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/stock%20yamaha%20impedance.jpg)
Now to give them some much needed help.
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Next was to redesign the crossover and fix the amplitude problem and give them a level of accuracy needed for the role that they are used in.
The drivers were pretty easy to work with and it wasn't real hard to correct the response issues and make improvements in all areas.
Here is the new frequency response.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/new%20yamaha%20on%20axis%20response.jpg)
And the crossover response.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/new%20yamaha%20crossover.jpg)
Straightening out the woofer and tweeters response was no problem.
The spectral decay is really clean in the woofers range. There is still a little stored energy in the lower range of the tweeters response but not too bad.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/new%20yamaha%20csd.jpg)
And standing up again with the tweeter on top here is the vertical off axis response.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/new%20yamaha%20vertical%20tweeter%20on%20top.jpg)
There is some cancellation in the crossover region in this direction.
Now with the tweeter on the bottom the vertical off axis looks great. The drivers are in phase over a very wide range.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/new%20yamaha%20vertical%20woofer%20on%20top.jpg)
So since this speaker is designed to lay on its side then I would position the speakers with the tweeters on the outside.
And here is the horizontal off axis response. It looks real good this way as well.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/new%20yamaha%20horizontal.jpg)
And here is the new impedance response.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/new%20yamaha%20impedance.jpg)
The impedance is a much more even load now.
The new crossover used all Erse XQ inductors, Sonicaps, Mills resistors, and in the impedance trap an Erse poly cap and a Lynk resistor was used.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/newcrossover.jpg)
Then our high quality, four 9's pure, solid core wire was used.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/newcrossover2.jpg)
I had to design the board to leave space for the wiring from the tube connectors to come through the middle of the board. The reason for this was that the old binding post cup was replaced with a solid piece of MDF that allowed for mounting of the tube connectors and the crossover was too big to fit on either one side of the connectors or the other. So the crossover board splits the connectors and allows them to pass through the center.
Here is a look at the back now showing the MDF panel that mounted from the inside.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/back.jpg)
And with the tube connectors. I love the tube connectors. They are always a clarity improvement across the board.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/back2.jpg)
And here is the gutted inside. There were no braces and the side panels did produce some resonance issues, but a little No Rez will fix that.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/inside.jpg)
And with the crossover dropped in.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/inside2.jpg)
Mounted in now and lined with No Rez.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/inside3.jpg)
Then a little fiberglass insulation over the crossover.
(http://gr-research.com/yamaha/inside4.jpg)
I have sold four or five of these upgrades just from word of mouth and feedback from studio to studio as they contacted one another. I love getting those calls after the upgrades are installed. The difference on these speakers is substantial and most of the guys that are used to listening to these speakers are freaked out by how much better they sound.
Every studio out there using these old speakers needs this upgrade. So you guys feel free to share this with your studio friends.
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As always, nicely done Danny !
Love these upgrade threads 8)
jay
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Wow. Looking at those initial F/R graphs, my high school physics students used to do better than that... and Danny knows that that's the truth. I'm sorry, but that's just lazy or cheap... probably just cheap. Wow.
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I always wanted a pair of these when they came out, now selling around $400 a pr. on Ebay.
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Wow. Looking at those initial F/R graphs, my high school physics students used to do better than that... and Danny knows that that's the truth. I'm sorry, but that's just lazy or cheap... probably just cheap. Wow.
The stock response is SO bad it makes one wonder if it wasn't actually deliberate. Perhaps Yamaha was building a monitor to replace all the JBL Century L-100's in the studios, whose cone surrounds were starting to decompose from all the air pollution in L.A. Every single studio I was in during the late-70's through the late 90's had these Yamahas on their mixing consoles, some with toilet paper over the tweeter, an attempt to get rid of some of the NS-10's extreme forwardness. I imagine they also had the 1000Hz fader on their graphic equalizer pushed way down. Imagine monitoring and mixing through a speaker with that stock frequency response!
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There is some insight to be gained in the pdf linked to on this page, called 'Yamaha-NS10M twenty years a reference monitor-why?
http://reflexion-arts.com/insights/the-yamaha-ns10m-twenty-years-a-reference-monitor-why/view?set_language=en#portal-globalnav
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While I realize that these speakers were designed to be laid on end, apparently because that's how the sound engineers want them on their mixing consoles, it still begs the question-why? Why don't sound engineers want their small two way monitors positioned vertically?
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While I realize that these speakers were designed to be laid on end, apparently because that's how the sound engineers want them on their mixing consoles, it still begs the question-why? Why don't sound engineers want their small two way monitors positioned vertically?
Horizontal placement obscures the view over the top of the console to the recording room less than vertical orientation and sight lines from engineer to artist(s) in the room are often horizontal or slightly downward, so the lower the better. On big consoles there is usually a shelf along the back edge for placement of near field monitors and still smaller speakers like the Auratones and also devices like big level meters and stereo correlation displays or goniometers, although this is increasingly being relegated to screens in mid size and smaller control rooms.
Also, some engineers do not seem to consider the fact that the tonality of a two way speaker oriented horizontally varies more with lateral displacement, i.e., as the engineer moves left and right in front of the console, than it would if it were vertically oriented. Similarly, the monitors are typically not fully toed in to cross in front of the engineer even when vertically oriented. It seems this detail remains to be discovered by many, pros and amateurs alike.
And, by the way, I don't think the speakers were designed to be laid on end. No two way performs as well horizontally as vertically with less than, say, 48dB/octave crossover slopes or very high crossover frequency to the tweeter, in which case it becomes, effectively a widerange driver augmented by a tweeter for the top two octaves (5-20k, for example). The modern trend for three way near field monitors like my K+H O300s and some others is to have the mid and high drivers vertically oriented and the bass driver horizontally displaced. This is a better compromise, but still a compromise vs vertical. The O300s are the ones to the right in this picture:
Not my studio, I hasten to add!
(http://www.audiocircle.com/image.php?id=146793)
Finally, it must be admitted that in the minds of some, horizontal orientation looks more 'pro', as it was first seen regularly in million dollar studios on hundred thousand dollar consoles for reasons explained above, so now you will see horizontal oriented speakers when there is no reason whatsoever to do that, such as in the picture below. I am referring to the Yamaha NS-10s to the left and right of the K+H O300s, and well out of the sight line to the recording room:
(http://www.audiocircle.com/image.php?id=146794)
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Danny,
It appears you performed these measurements in late March 2013, so I'm pretty sure the speakers are long gone. (And of course the end user was advised on the exact positioning/orientation of the loudspeaker after the crossover modification).
Did you ever perform horizontal and vertical off axis measurements with the speaker laying on its side? Just curious. I imagine the woofer's peaky response wouldn't change though.
Best,
Anand.
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Did you ever perform horizontal and vertical off axis measurements with the speaker laying on its side? Just curious. I imagine the woofer's peaky response wouldn't change though.
Best,
Anand.
The measurements are the same regardless of what side the speakers are laying on. So long as the mic is on the tweeter axis then you can spin the speaker around in a circle and the measurements do not change. But since the speakers are commonly laid on their side I do perform off axis measurements in both directions and to the side (or up down and sideways).
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There is some insight to be gained in the pdf linked to on this page, called 'Yamaha-NS10M twenty years a reference monitor-why?
http://reflexion-arts.com/insights/the-yamaha-ns10m-twenty-years-a-reference-monitor-why/view?set_language=en#portal-globalnav
I am glad you posted that. I haven't read that in a while. Some of that is almost comical. They have just enough information to form some assumptions, but not enough information or comprehension to understand what is necessary for accurate playback.
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I am glad you posted that. I haven't read that in a while. Some of that is almost comical. They have just enough information to form some assumptions, but not enough information or comprehension to understand what is necessary for accurate playback.
The early studio recording engineers were trained radio and electronics guys, often building their own mic pre-amps and mixers. They returned from WWII and went to work in the new booming music business. By the time I got into recording, most of the guys in studios had gone to some kind of school specializing in training one to do studio recording, and most of them left those schools having no education in basic electronic and acoustic theory. I went to a session with a singer/songwriter I was working with live but not recording with, and the engineer came up with the brilliant idea of putting an "ambience" mic in one of the rooms' top corners. Have you ever put your ear there when music is playing? It is THE worst sounding location in the room! It wasn't my gig, so I didn't say anything, but on playback all agreed the channel of "ambience" sounded like c#&p. If that "engineer" knew even a little about acoustics he wouldn't have to learn it on the job, with the client paying for it. The concept of accuracy is not part of most recording engineers' mindsets these days.
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The early studio recording engineers were trained radio and electronics guys, often building their own mic pre-amps and mixers. They returned from WWII and went to work in the new booming music business. By the time I got into recording, most of the guys in studios had gone to some kind of school specializing in training one to do studio recording, and most of them left those schools having no education in basic electronic and acoustic theory. I went to a session with a singer/songwriter I was working with live but not recording with, and the engineer came up with the brilliant idea of putting an "ambience" mic in one of the rooms' top corners. Have you ever put your ear there when music is playing? It is THE worst sounding location in the room! It wasn't my gig, so I didn't say anything, but on playback all agreed the channel of "ambience" sounded like c#&p. If that "engineer" knew even a little about acoustics he wouldn't have to learn it on the job, with the client paying for it. The concept of accuracy is not part of most recording engineers' mindsets these days.
Which is a problem because how can anybody evaluate the sound of speakers or any other component if they don't know what they are feeding it?
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I have never mixed anything, but I have a couple of thoughts.
It would seem to me that one would just directly use whatever the microphone gives you without any kind of equalization. The only reason to apply equalization would be if you had a very accurate measurement of where the microphone was in error and an exact correction curve could be applied. This however really has nothing to due with the speakers used for playback. It is just DSP correction of the microphone.
The second thing one needs to do is level match the recorded tracks. If each instrument is recorded on a separate track, you need to blend each one at the right volume. I am not sure you need an accurate speaker to achieve this. In fact, having a bump at 1.5 kHz seems like it might improve ones ability to perform the level matching since the human ear is so sensitive in this region. It seems like one might be able to mask out all frequencies except 1k to 4k to perform accurate level matching. Of course sometimes you want certain instruments to stand out a little louder, often the vocal. You might bump the guitar volume during a solo, etc. Maybe an accurate speaker is better to hear where everything should fall into place, but I can definitely see why it might not matter.
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The only recordings that will be close to the mic feed sound are acoustic recordings, and some of those use things like added reverb, so no longer the mic feed.
It is nearly impossible to know what any other recording sounds like unless you were the recording engineer who heard the live mic feed during the performance either live or studio. Once it goes to the mastering engineer it is a new creation, unless he purposely does nothing to the mic feed.
You have to search out recording labels that discuss how it was recorded and mastered to know it is as close to the mic feed as possible. As examples from the early recordings, RCA Living Stereo, Everest and Mercury Living Presence were done with simple stereo mic setups for the recordings. Telarc and Reference Recordings are recent labels carrying on the ideas for classical recordings.
There are pop recordings like The Cowboy Junkies The Trinity Sessions that are simply miced recordings as well.
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I am glad you posted that. I haven't read that in a while. Some of that is almost comical. They have just enough information to form some assumptions, but not enough information or comprehension to understand what is necessary for accurate playback.
You think?
http://philipnewell.net/
https://www.routledge.com/Loudspeakers-For-music-recording-and-reproduction/Newell-Holland/p/book/9780240520148
http://tinyurl.com/zruq9fm
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I have never mixed anything, but I have a couple of thoughts.
It would seem to me that one would just directly use whatever the microphone gives you without any kind of equalization. The only reason to apply equalization would be if you had a very accurate measurement of where the microphone was in error and an exact correction curve could be applied. This however really has nothing to due with the speakers used for playback. It is just DSP correction of the microphone.
The second thing one needs to do is level match the recorded tracks. If each instrument is recorded on a separate track, you need to blend each one at the right volume. I am not sure you need an accurate speaker to achieve this. In fact, having a bump at 1.5 kHz seems like it might improve ones ability to perform the level matching since the human ear is so sensitive in this region. It seems like one might be able to mask out all frequencies except 1k to 4k to perform accurate level matching. Of course sometimes you want certain instruments to stand out a little louder, often the vocal. You might bump the guitar volume during a solo, etc. Maybe an accurate speaker is better to hear where everything should fall into place, but I can definitely see why it might not matter.
Believe me, what you are talking about has absolutely nothing to do with how most recordings are made. Microphones aren't selected for their accuracy, but for their sonic signature, their character. A lot of engineers record snare drums with a Shure SM57, a mic designed for live PA systems. It has a built-in presence peak, great for keeping vocals hearable on stage. But accurate? Not even close. But the thing is, the engineer isn't trying to get an accurate recording of that particular snare drum, he's trying to get a snare track that "pops" in the mix.
The mic feed then goes through a mic pre-amp, a compressor, a parametric equalizer, an echo chamber, a reverb plate, and whatever else the engineer or musician thinks makes the track sound "better".
It doesn't end there, because the mastering engineer then puts his touch on the final mix. Again EQing and compressing, then digitizing. The final sound is not compared to a live reference, but to other recordings. The idea is to get the record to sound like whatever's "hot" at the moment, whatever that may be. And if the monitor speaker in any of these stages has a, say, huge 1kHz peak, one of the engineers may have equalized the recording to compensate for that peak. When the recording is then played back on a speaker without that peak, there will then be a deep suckout in that frequency range. Oh, it's a complete, utter mess.
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The measurements are the same regardless of what side the speakers are laying on. So long as the mic is on the tweeter axis then you can spin the speaker around in a circle and the measurements do not change. But since the speakers are commonly laid on their side I do perform off axis measurements in both directions and to the side (or up down and sideways).
The more I think about this, the more I wonder if the design axis of the NS-10 as intended was for a mixing console and not 2ch "audiophile" seated playback like "we" assume. That I bet would make a difference.
Best,
Anand.
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You think?
http://philipnewell.net/
https://www.routledge.com/Loudspeakers-For-music-recording-and-reproduction/Newell-Holland/p/book/9780240520148
http://tinyurl.com/zruq9fm
Yes for certain. Do I need to elaborate?
And the point of your links?
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The more I think about this, the more I wonder if the design axis of the NS-10 as intended was for a mixing console and not 2ch "audiophile" seated playback like "we" assume. That I bet would make a difference.
Best,
Anand.
The measurements are made at 1 watt/1 meter. So they show exactly what would be heard in the near field.
And even assuming that the location of the front wall and a console were to contribute (or disrupt) to the output the, net effect would be an increase in some low frequency output below 200Hz. The response curve of the speaker does not show a compensation for that effect.
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I always thought those types of monitors were to have a mid forward respnse to mimic boom boxes and car audio. A quick way for an engineer to hear that instead of making a copy and trying it in those situations. In that case you want that freq. response.
Rocket Ronny
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Yes for certain. Do I need to elaborate?
And the point of your links?
I don't think you could elaborate in a way that would convince me. I posted a much more detailed response but deleted it because I have got into this type of exchange with you before and it has ultimately resulted in nothing that feels constructive, so I deleted the whole damn thing except for that one snarky comment which, in the final analysis, is all I thought your arrogant reply deserved.
The point of the links in my last post was to establish the credibility of those whom you accused of having 'just enough information to form assumptions'.
Back atcha.
What gifts do you imagine you possess that override the thoughtful analysis of credentialed and respected engineers who have made it their life's work to design spaces and systems specifically for the processes of tracking, mixing and mastering recordings? And then to have the gall to say this of them: 'Some of that is almost comical. They have just enough information to form some assumptions, but not enough information or comprehension to understand what is necessary for accurate playback.'...and not see the pathetic irony in that comment.
Yes, any one of a number of crossover designers could flatten that response curve, including me, probably, but do you really think Yamaha is incapable of doing that if that were the goal?
This speaker is valuable only as a tool for mixing music, not for listening for pleasure. I don't know anyone who is inclined to kick back and listen to music through NS-10s in the living room, even if they were actually mounted in bookshelves as apparently was the serious original intention. People actually did mount speakers in bookshelves in their living rooms then, when more people actually had bookshelves in their living rooms.
Did you catch the comments in section 5, para 3, page 3 of the pdf you found comical regarding how the reflections off the console surface tend to flatten the response—and no, not just by lifting the bass but also by introducing a dip which goes some way toward flattening the peak around 1.5k?
What you have turned the NS-10 into is a speaker that will certainly sound better on a stand in free space, but does anyone want to do that?
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I don't think you could elaborate in a way that would convince me. I posted a much more detailed response but deleted it because I have got into this type of exchange with you before and it has ultimately resulted in nothing that feels constructive, so I deleted the whole damn thing except for that one snarky comment which, in the final analysis, is all I thought your arrogant reply deserved.
The point of the links in my last post was to establish the credibility of those whom you accused of having 'just enough information to form assumptions'.
Back atcha.
What gifts do you imagine you possess that override the thoughtful analysis of credentialed and respected engineers who have made it their life's work to design spaces and systems specifically for the processes of tracking, mixing and mastering recordings? And then to have the gall to say this of them: 'Some of that is almost comical. They have just enough information to form some assumptions, but not enough information or comprehension to understand what is necessary for accurate playback.'...and not see the pathetic irony in that comment.
Yes, any one of a number of crossover designers could flatten that response curve, including me, probably, but do you really think Yamaha is incapable of doing that if that were the goal?
This speaker is valuable only as a tool for mixing music, not for listening for pleasure. I don't know anyone who is inclined to kick back and listen to music through NS-10s in the living room, even if they were actually mounted in bookshelves as apparently was the serious original intention. People actually did mount speakers in bookshelves in their living rooms then, when more people actually had bookshelves in their living rooms.
Did you catch the comments in section 5, para 3, page 3 of the pdf you found comical regarding how the reflections off the console surface tend to flatten the response—and no, not just by lifting the bass but also by introducing a dip which goes some way toward flattening the peak around 1.5k?
What you have turned the NS-10 into is a speaker that will certainly sound better on a stand in free space, but does anyone want to do that?
Hi Russell,to flatten the response you have to have the right drivers too!! crossovers simply crossover frequencies for drivers,driver freqs peaks and dips are entirely up to drivers
cheers
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The point of the links in my last post was to establish the credibility of those whom you accused of having 'just enough information to form assumptions'.
Credibility? :lol: Just 2 months ago you lamented...
The lack of a quality reference speaker (and room), agreed upon globally, is a glaring and embarrassing oversight in the recording industry, particularly in N America, and has slowed the development of sound reproduction quality for the entire history of sound recording.
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So...you're saying I'm incredible?
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Nope.......he's saying your trolling.....
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Credibility? :lol: Just 2 months ago you lamented...
John, you should probably actually read the PDF Russell linked to. Just a thought... ;)
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I read the conclusion / summary. And my take from that was if these guys were carpenters, I wouldn't hire them. It also sheds light on why there are so many substandard recordings.
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I confess that I haven't read a lot of papers about speakers written by carpenters. Perhaps you should read the whole thing.
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In every studio I've been in, playback is done on every monitor speaker in the room, switching between them all, making adjustments to the sound as necessary to get the recording to sound "right" on all of them, via compromise. The NS-10, the Auratone (5" midrange driver in a small box, to simulate a car radio), the JBL or Altec 15" woofer/horn midrange-tweeter loudspeaker (sometimes built into the wall), and more recently British Tannoy's. Speaking of British, studios in England have traditionally had monitor speakers more like consumer audiophile designs, by companies like B & W, IMF, KEF, and even Quad!
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Something to remember, the recording engineer is a hired gun and does what he is told. The customer is always right even if the recording sounds like a POS.
Scotty
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After all of this I was reminded about International Guitar Night II. What an awesome album! Great job Russell! :thumb:
https://www.amazon.com/International-Guitar-Night-II-DGary/dp/B000VWYUU8
Clearly he knows what he's doing.
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This is a long way from its starting place. I believe the point was that Danny is offering his services to make improvements on some widely used older Yamaha monitors. He can clearly show the results. If you don't want the service, don't buy it... the rest of this crap is trolling. Or go open your own thread about the specific design of monitors vs consumer speakers. This is a service offering. Don't like it, fine, don't use it.
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After all of this I was reminded about International Guitar Night II. What an awesome album! Great job Russell! :thumb:
https://www.amazon.com/International-Guitar-Night-II-DGary/dp/B000VWYUU8
Clearly he knows what he's doing.
If you want to go there,How many speakers does he sell or design? :thumb:
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Hey Russell,
I'll elaborate in a more detailed fashion so that you might understand better where I am coming from.
The point of the links in my last post was to establish the credibility of those whom you accused of having 'just enough information to form assumptions'.
You posted links to studios that may still use these speakers to some degree. That does not mean they are loudspeaker designers or have any idea of what is involved in creating the tools they need for their work.
What gifts do you imagine you possess that override the thoughtful analysis of credentialed and respected engineers who have made it their life's work to design spaces and systems specifically for the processes of tracking, mixing and mastering recordings?
Again, they don't design the tools they use. And those engineers have no idea how to improve their playback monitors to help reveal the information they just recorded. And my comments were not directed at those engineers but rather the guys that wrote the article that you linked to.
By the way, The studio's that are now using the upgraded version of these speakers are singing their praises as they now have speakers that will reveal details that they never heard before. And they are now producing a higher quality product.
There are also a lot of studio's using our N2X speakers for the same reasons. And there are about six or seven studio's using speakers that I designed for Tyler Acoustics. And I have heard a lot of feedback from those studios. And I have assisted several of them in performing upgrades to those speakers (that I designed) so that even they get taken to another level.
Yes, any one of a number of crossover designers could flatten that response curve, including me, probably, but do you really think Yamaha is incapable of doing that if that were the goal?
It really isn't just about having an accurate frequency response. There are a LOT of other factors involved in accurate playback.
This speaker is valuable only as a tool for mixing music, not for listening for pleasure. I don't know anyone who is inclined to kick back and listen to music through NS-10s in the living room, even if they were actually mounted in bookshelves as apparently was the serious original intention. People actually did mount speakers in bookshelves in their living rooms then, when more people actually had bookshelves in their living rooms.
Well, I didn't redesign it for listening pleasure. I redesigned it to make it a better tool for mixing with. And it my opinion it was horrible for that application.
Did you catch the comments in section 5, para 3, page 3 of the pdf you found comical regarding how the reflections off the console surface tend to flatten the response—and no, not just by lifting the bass but also by introducing a dip which goes some way toward flattening the peak around 1.5k?
Yep, that is comical. To flatten out a peak you have to introduce a reflection right at the wavelength of the peak so that the distance to the reflection source and back will cause an out of phase cancellation at that wavelength. That's about 7" in this case, by the way. So even if you did find a position in the room that would give you an out of phase reflection at that wavelength (1700Hz) you'd then miss it by moving a few inches in either direction. You couldn't even get both ears to hear it if you could create it in one point in space. Good grief.
Please let me give you some more comical examples.
Form page 4 "During the mixing process, there is a tendency for recordists to want to hear a clear mid-range, because that is where more instruments are often fighting for the same space. Once things are balanced in this region, the basis of a mix is often established. This process may be helped by the raised mid-frequency response of the NS10M."
The peak in the response at 1700Hz isn't even in the mid-range. It's almost two octaves above the mid-range. The heart of the mid-range is in the 300Hz to 500Hz region.
Maybe this illustration will help:
(http://gr-research.com/images/musicrangeb.jpg)
And did you catch this part on page 1? "The original NS10s were often used with toilet paper over the tweeters, because early experience found them to lead to mixes which lacked high frequencies compared to what was considered to be normal in people's homes."
Engineers were covering the tweeters with toilet paper to try to soften the hot peak in the response. That hot peak caused engineers to mix the hot region down resulting it reduced high frequency ranges in the mix. The funny part (or sad part) is that the hotness they were trying to correct in the Yamaha's response was not a result of a hot top end but the result of a peak that is in the upper range of the woofers response. Knocking the tweeters response down some will help, but the tweeter was not the problem. :roll:
And studio's that were using them, and did complain of brightness and fatigue, now tell me that with the upgrade there is no more listening fatigue.
And it is comical to me for someone evaluating the speakers to make assumptions that in order to get a desired result in the mix then maybe a speaker is needed with a response that will fool the engineer into thinking that it sounds different than it really does and in such a way that it will trick the engineer into making adjustments that in the end will be better. Give me a break. :roll:
And evaluating and comparing speakers by distortion measurements and trying to draw sound quality conclusions based on that is as I stated earlier. They have just enough information to form some assumptions, but not enough information or comprehension to understand what is necessary for accurate playback. Distortion levels as measured are 40 to 50db down in level and difficult to hear or even identify comparing any speakers. Go ahead and listen to any speaker and try to draw out what the distortion curves look like.
Now, let me explain to you what does make a real difference and where and why this speaker really shines.
The strength of this speaker is in the woofer. It is a paper cone woofer with good internal damping and a pretty smooth response. It is free of any break up and shows very little stored energy. Stored energy or lack of stored energy is the key. Speakers with woofer break up or ringing will carry that on over time and often at a high level. It is VERY easy to hear.
Now while the woofer is very good, and it makes the spectral decay look really good on paper, there are still several other factors resulting in stored energy that are very important and they are not looked at or considered by the guys that wrote the the paper on the NS10M. First of all have a look at the capacitors used in this speaker. Capacitors are energy storage devises. They store and release energy. That's a fact. And discharge rates vary greatly. And it is commonly known that electrolytic caps are a slow discharge cap that has the effect of smearing the signal. And in the case of this little speaker that was a big issue. There was a lot of smearing going on.
And they not only got a cap upgrade, they got a big cap upgrade.
So it really isn't just about playing a note as seen in the frequency response. It is about letting go of that note that is important and that is not seen in the measurements. It is the space between those notes and that black space that is key.
And no engineer running a mixing board thinks that smearing the signal and running everything together into a mush will make it easier for them to adjust the mix. No one ever thinks taking away detail and resolution levels are going to make things better.
Secondly, there is stored energy in the unbraced cabinet. Bass notes buzz the little box and smear the lower ranges and lower vocal region. It is a source of coloration not even considered by the writers of the paper on this speaker. And some of the speakers on their list suffer greatly from it. Simply lining it with No Rez solved that problem.
Then there is the quality of the connectors, wiring, etc and the effect it has on the signal. Half of those engineers out there don't even believe that stuff could matter, let alone have any experience with comparisons of that stuff.
The writers do acknowledge and understand stored energy though. From the second page: "The waterfall plot in Figure 3(36) shows a very rapid decay over the entire frequency range and also an absence of the mid-range ringing evident in many of the other plots in Figure 3."
They are right. It does look good in the spectral decay. But they ignore other important causes of stored energy. And again they do not have enough information or comprehension to understand what is necessary for accurate playback. In other words, they are not loudspeaker designers and they do not know how to do what I did.
Funny thing though, the hobbyist that come here completely understand what I just said and know it to be 100% true.
What you have turned the NS-10 into is a speaker that will certainly sound better on a stand in free space, but does anyone want to do that?
No, I made these speakers a LOT better specifically for what they are designed for. The engineers now hear a LOT more accurately what they are working with. And the studios love them now.
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If you want to go there,How many speakers does he sell or design? :thumb:
I have no idea but his albums are pretty badass.
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the rest of this crap is trolling.
Russell's comment was actually in response to the sub-thread that you started on the frequency response. I believe it was intended to be informative, as in Q. "Why is it so bad?" A. "Here's an analysis that you might find informative."
:dunno:
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I confess that I haven't read a lot of papers about speakers written by carpenters.
The point was analogous to if these guys were carpenters, they're not building on a flat foundation. :wink:
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That was tongue in cheek, but the metaphorical mixups have me topsy turvy now.
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Some of you might find this article to be "enlightening".
http://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/yamaha-ns10-story
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Something to remember, the recording engineer is a hired gun and does what he is told. The customer is always right even if the recording sounds like a POS.
Scotty
Scotty, I'm going to take a wild guess and say you haven't spent much time inside recording studios ;-). In the incident I recalled, the customer was the singer/songwriter I accompanied to the session. Do you think the engineer "did what he was told" by this s/s? Most musicians know very little about big studio recording and engineering, and certainly don't tell the engineer on duty how to do their job.
Here's the problem, and it relates to Danny's statement about someone knowing just enough to make them think they know what they are doing, but not really knowing enough to do it well: British recording engineer Andy Johns became renown for his Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stones albums of the 70's. Now everybody wants the "Andy Johns" sound. So a young aspiring recording engineer goes to one of the big-city schools offering classes in that field, and learns of Andy Johns' technique of placing a distant mic in the recording room, to capture the big sound a room produces, one of the things that made Andy's recordings sound the way they do. But he isn't taught the basics of acoustic theory.
So along comes the singer/songwriter I'm with, and this young engineer puts a mic in the wall/ceiling corner, to record some room sound. What he doesn't know is that the corner of a room sounds terrible, the worst possible place to put a mic. That's not where Andy Johns put his ambience mic. During the playback of the recording, the ambience track was isolated, and everyone at the session agreed it sounded like s@&t. The recording of the song has to start anew, the singer/songwriter paying for the time wasted by this under-educated recording engineer to learn something he should have already known---acoustics theory. That's what I call on-the-job-training, paid for by the customer!
Andy Johns was hired by The Eagles to engineer an album with them. They were already huge stars, with a platinum album under their belts. Andy set up his mics, got his levels, and recording began. Hearing the playback of the first song, drummer Don Henley asked Andy to turn up his kick drum level, it wasn't prominent enough in the mix. Don hadn't noticed that Andy Johns, unlike a normal engineer, doesn't "close" mic a drummer's kick; he records a drumset with an overhead stereo mic, a mic on the snare drum, and a distant "ambience" mic. There was no way to turn up the kick drum, it wasn't on it's own isolated track. Andy told Don that if he wanted his kick louder, he should hit it harder. So much for an engineer being a hired gun and doing what he is told!
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Some of you might find this article to be "enlightening".
http://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/yamaha-ns10-story
+1
Summary: small/sealed cabinet = little bass; rather uniquely constructed woofer cone and largish tweeter leading to good transient response; peaky midrange response to balance typical hi-fi speaker frequency response and reveal issues in the heart of the music; overly bright high frequency response; a love them or hate them studio de facto standard thanks to their adoption by Bob Clearmountain (a "name" engineer/producer circa 1980).
Not mentioned: passive design (not active) which is rare in studio circles.
So the NS10 is an quirky vintage design that was never popular in hi-fi circles.
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...so, I find this very interesting.
It might be fun to modify a pair of NS-10M's. Is there a kit one could from you to do this?
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...so, I find this very interesting.
It might be fun to modify a pair of NS-10M's. Is there a kit one could from you to do this?
I can send you all the parts, No Rez, schematics, etc and you can give them a whirl. Several studios now have upgraded them the same way. They were all quite surprised and well pleased with the results.
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Danny I'm sorry if I've missed but how much do the mods cost?
In context of price + mods upgrade where would you assign value for either a hifi listener or a mixing engineer in the market for a new speaker?
Thanks!
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Danny I'm sorry if I've missed but how much do the mods cost?
In context of price + mods upgrade where would you assign value for either a hifi listener or a mixing engineer in the market for a new speaker?
Thanks!
As shown the total for everything was $355.90. That's all parts, wire, tube connectors, No Rez, schematic, support, etc.
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A lot of graphs.
Yamaha HS5 Powered Monitor Review, by amirm
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/yamaha-hs5-powered-monitor-review.10967/
(https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?attachments/yamaha-hs5-studio-monitor-powered-speaker-cea-2034-spinorama-full-horizontal-reflections-audio-png.46450/) (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?attachments/yamaha-hs5-studio-monitor-powered-speaker-cea-2034-spinorama-full-horizontal-reflections-audio-png.46450/)
(https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?attachments/yamaha-hs5-studio-monitor-powered-speaker-distortion-noise-and-spl-audio-measurements-png.46455/) (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?attachments/yamaha-hs5-studio-monitor-powered-speaker-distortion-noise-and-spl-audio-measurements-png.46455/)
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The HS5 was aimed at amateurs, hence the "HS" (home studio). It was a successful attempt to lure the neophyte who bought slightly inflated bass and treble response. The real deals were the MSP5 and MSP7, but they were too expensive for the dabbler who didn't understand the value or meaning of "reference standard".