Re: The Mastering Thread
Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2024 11:10 am
If by "audiophile" you mean "dork" then yes.
A couple silly stories because the coffee just kicked in:
1. When I was finally to the point of studio construction where I could set up the speakers and actually fucking listen to something, I was fussing over the exact positions of the speakers and my chair, getting it all a perfect equilateral triangle. While I was doing that, I was flashing back to earlier setups and thinking about how I used to sit really close to the speakers, but over the years that triangle was slowly getting bigger and now I sit like 9' back.
And then I flashed back to being 16, I had a shelf behind my bed with my Fisher boombox on it. That thing ruled, I wish I still had it. Turntable input, 5 band graphic, detachable speakers. I had the speakers spaced out as far as they'd go on the shelf, and I'd sit crosslegged in bed listening to records for hours. So that was my first speaker/ears triangle.
2. In college, we'd be sitting around getting stoned and listening to records, as one does, and there were at least two times where I'd really be LISTENING, i.e. staring blankly into space like I do professionally now, and someone else in the room would say, really uncomfortably, "uuuhhh....dude? what are you looking at?" And I'd laugh and say "oh, sorry, I wasn't using my eyes."
It probably makes sense that kid grew up to be a mastering engineer, right?
3. I used to always make fun of audiophiles because, well, it's easy, but mainly cause I'd always see pictures of their rooms and it'd be a pair of $20,000 speakers and absolutely zero acoustic treatment. Which as I said earlier and you knew already anyway, is not the way to get yourself an accurate listening experience. So I'd always chuckle and think "oh those silly fools"....
Now that I have a room with really serious fuck off acoustics I've softened my stance drastically, because good mastering room acoustics are equivalent to operating room lights: you can clearly see every little detail. Which means really great sounding records REALLY REALLY sound great in a mastering room (take a bow, FM Steve), but with less-great sounding records you start noticing things you'd maybe rather not notice and it's distracting. So I still think it's dumb to put 20k speakers in an empty room but I get it, it's a perfectly reasonable hobby for people with too much money, let them have their fun.
A couple silly stories because the coffee just kicked in:
1. When I was finally to the point of studio construction where I could set up the speakers and actually fucking listen to something, I was fussing over the exact positions of the speakers and my chair, getting it all a perfect equilateral triangle. While I was doing that, I was flashing back to earlier setups and thinking about how I used to sit really close to the speakers, but over the years that triangle was slowly getting bigger and now I sit like 9' back.
And then I flashed back to being 16, I had a shelf behind my bed with my Fisher boombox on it. That thing ruled, I wish I still had it. Turntable input, 5 band graphic, detachable speakers. I had the speakers spaced out as far as they'd go on the shelf, and I'd sit crosslegged in bed listening to records for hours. So that was my first speaker/ears triangle.
2. In college, we'd be sitting around getting stoned and listening to records, as one does, and there were at least two times where I'd really be LISTENING, i.e. staring blankly into space like I do professionally now, and someone else in the room would say, really uncomfortably, "uuuhhh....dude? what are you looking at?" And I'd laugh and say "oh, sorry, I wasn't using my eyes."
It probably makes sense that kid grew up to be a mastering engineer, right?
3. I used to always make fun of audiophiles because, well, it's easy, but mainly cause I'd always see pictures of their rooms and it'd be a pair of $20,000 speakers and absolutely zero acoustic treatment. Which as I said earlier and you knew already anyway, is not the way to get yourself an accurate listening experience. So I'd always chuckle and think "oh those silly fools"....
Now that I have a room with really serious fuck off acoustics I've softened my stance drastically, because good mastering room acoustics are equivalent to operating room lights: you can clearly see every little detail. Which means really great sounding records REALLY REALLY sound great in a mastering room (take a bow, FM Steve), but with less-great sounding records you start noticing things you'd maybe rather not notice and it's distracting. So I still think it's dumb to put 20k speakers in an empty room but I get it, it's a perfectly reasonable hobby for people with too much money, let them have their fun.