cakes wrote: Mon Jul 07, 2025 12:02 pm I'm about to go into the recording studio and then have to take the audio back home to mix. I have a nice pair of mixing headphones and headphone studio software. My mixing monitors are just OK, a pair of Eros 5s. I'm considering buying the ARC Studio, it can be found new as an open box on Reverb for, $219. Seems like a worthy, inexpensive investment to improve my mixing environment.

https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/arcstudio/

losthighway wrote: Mon Jul 07, 2025 1:02 pm

cakes wrote: Mon Jul 07, 2025 12:02 pm I'm about to go into the recording studio and then have to take the audio back home to mix. I have a nice pair of mixing headphones and headphone studio software. My mixing monitors are just OK, a pair of Eros 5s. I'm considering buying the ARC Studio, it can be found new as an open box on Reverb for, $219. Seems like a worthy, inexpensive investment to improve my mixing environment.

https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/arcstudio/

Monitors are personal. Most of the low priced stuff is different, but not necessarily better. Any change will take some time to adjust to, so plan on that taking a little while. I'd sooner spend a couple hundred on room treatment than new speakers.

cakes wrote: Mon Jul 07, 2025 1:50 pm

losthighway wrote: Mon Jul 07, 2025 1:02 pm

cakes wrote: Mon Jul 07, 2025 12:02 pm I'm about to go into the recording studio and then have to take the audio back home to mix. I have a nice pair of mixing headphones and headphone studio software. My mixing monitors are just OK, a pair of Eros 5s. I'm considering buying the ARC Studio, it can be found new as an open box on Reverb for, $219. Seems like a worthy, inexpensive investment to improve my mixing environment.

https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/arcstudio/

Monitors are personal. Most of the low priced stuff is different, but not necessarily better. Any change will take some time to adjust to, so plan on that taking a little while. I'd sooner spend a couple hundred on room treatment than new speakers.

I've got some room treatment already. it's an oddly shaped room and I think I can't squeeze more out of it, or what I need would be much more costly.

Kniferide wrote: Mon Jul 07, 2025 2:20 pm

cakes wrote: Mon Jul 07, 2025 1:50 pm

losthighway wrote: Mon Jul 07, 2025 1:02 pm

Monitors are personal. Most of the low priced stuff is different, but not necessarily better. Any change will take some time to adjust to, so plan on that taking a little while. I'd sooner spend a couple hundred on room treatment than new speakers.

I've got some room treatment already. it's an oddly shaped room and I think I can't squeeze more out of it, or what I need would be much more costly.

I've been using ARC sense V2. It used to not be very good, and now it is better. The hardware is nice cause you can apply your correction to all your system sounds and easily bypass it without looking at software. It's an eq. I don't think it does much other than be an eq but it does it's thing. I use it on the gentle setting and it is in bypass like 80% of the time since my monitors have DSP and I can just enter curves into them directly, but it is there. I did a ton of sweeps to see if it returned the same results and it tends to, and also matches what fuzzmeasure spits out fairly closely.

After my last round of shoving absorbers in every space I could I haven't felt like I really "needed" it very much. You can't EQ a null away. I also upgraded my monitors and feel like I'm not fighting speakers anymore.

cakes wrote: Mon Jul 07, 2025 2:41 pm

Kniferide wrote: Mon Jul 07, 2025 2:20 pm

cakes wrote: Mon Jul 07, 2025 1:50 pm

I've got some room treatment already. it's an oddly shaped room and I think I can't squeeze more out of it, or what I need would be much more costly.

I've been using ARC sense V2. It used to not be very good, and now it is better. The hardware is nice cause you can apply your correction to all your system sounds and easily bypass it without looking at software. It's an eq. I don't think it does much other than be an eq but it does it's thing. I use it on the gentle setting and it is in bypass like 80% of the time since my monitors have DSP and I can just enter curves into them directly, but it is there. I did a ton of sweeps to see if it returned the same results and it tends to, and also matches what fuzzmeasure spits out fairly closely.

After my last round of shoving absorbers in every space I could I haven't felt like I really "needed" it very much. You can't EQ a null away. I also upgraded my monitors and feel like I'm not fighting speakers anymore.

What you're saying is, getting the perfect setup is a slow progression of small additions, getting you closer to nirvana. Upgrading speakers I feel is a waste (at least, starting with that), because the space isn't ideal and not completed with treatment. But, being the least expensive thing I could do, the ARC would handle some EQ correction. Maybe later, I could add more treatment, rerun the ARC for a new EQ curve. Then, when things are looking better, consider upgrading speakers...

I'm not entirely sure I'd go through all of that, but getting an EQ curve correction doesn't seem like a bad idea. I probably mix one or two things a year, this isn't my profession. So I'm just looking for something modest. I also have the headphone studio, which is already a huge upgrade and was totally worth the $60.

Kniferide wrote: Mon Jul 07, 2025 3:10 pm

cakes wrote: Mon Jul 07, 2025 2:41 pm

Kniferide wrote: Mon Jul 07, 2025 2:20 pm

I've been using ARC sense V2. It used to not be very good, and now it is better. The hardware is nice cause you can apply your correction to all your system sounds and easily bypass it without looking at software. It's an eq. I don't think it does much other than be an eq but it does it's thing. I use it on the gentle setting and it is in bypass like 80% of the time since my monitors have DSP and I can just enter curves into them directly, but it is there. I did a ton of sweeps to see if it returned the same results and it tends to, and also matches what fuzzmeasure spits out fairly closely.

After my last round of shoving absorbers in every space I could I haven't felt like I really "needed" it very much. You can't EQ a null away. I also upgraded my monitors and feel like I'm not fighting speakers anymore.

What you're saying is, getting the perfect setup is a slow progression of small additions, getting you closer to nirvana. Upgrading speakers I feel is a waste (at least, starting with that), because the space isn't ideal and not completed with treatment. But, being the least expensive thing I could do, the ARC would handle some EQ correction. Maybe later, I could add more treatment, rerun the ARC for a new EQ curve. Then, when things are looking better, consider upgrading speakers...

I'm not entirely sure I'd go through all of that, but getting an EQ curve correction doesn't seem like a bad idea. I probably mix one or two things a year, this isn't my profession. So I'm just looking for something modest. I also have the headphone studio, which is already a huge upgrade and was totally worth the $60.

If I could go back in time, I would have saved up and bought the best speakers I could possibly afford earlier instead for going through something like 5 pairs of lower end speaker that in the end all had the same issues. Treatment your ass off first, then the best speakers you feel comfortable spending money on, and as little eq as you can get away with is my opinion. ARC is good at what it does, and I like that it isn't hosted by a plugin anymore cause that was a pain, but since IK upgrades are really just a slight discount under MSRP I think I'm like $400+ into ARC over the years and that ain't nothing. I blew a lot of time and money chasing ghosts with speakers and sweeps over the last 10 years. Treatment (for the most part) is cheap and easy. Just build wood frames and shove a shit ton of Mineral wool or even Pink Insulation in there. Put it everywhere you can. EQ couldn't help the issues that putting a bunch of shit on the walls did. Room is still a mess, but it works well enough. Enough that a guy I know likes to come over just to do mix passes in my room to help manage his low end which is insane for how bad it used to be.

cakes wrote: Mon Jul 07, 2025 3:16 pm
I have treatment behind and on the sides of my workstation. I put some thinner stuff on the ceiling and on the wall way back behind the chair to kill reflections. I'm sure I could do more, like bass traps in the corners. The ceiling is super low (in a basement) and there's ductwork on one side, so there's some asymmetry going on. To be honest, the headphone studio is probably the best solution (and the cheapest).

Kniferide wrote: Mon Jul 07, 2025 3:33 pm

cakes wrote: Mon Jul 07, 2025 3:16 pm
I have treatment behind and on the sides of my workstation. I put some thinner stuff on the ceiling and on the wall way back behind the chair to kill reflections. I'm sure I could do more, like bass traps in the corners. The ceiling is super low (in a basement) and there's ductwork on one side, so there's some asymmetry going on. To be honest, the headphone studio is probably the best solution (and the cheapest).

I too and in asymmetrical basement hell. Ceiling is like 6'8" so nothing's going up there. I have a big 3x8'x8" packed with pinky shit and 2 corner traps on the wall behind my speakers near the ceiling and 2 2X4'X6" absorbers sitting the corners at ground level near the corners. On each side of mix position I have another pair 2x4x4" for first reflection, also packed with a couple layers of cheap pink shit (I know it is slowly choking me to death). Behind me I have another 2x4 and a 4x6'x10" bass trap monolith that is packed with mineral wool. there is the obligatory random foam shit that doesn't do anything here and there too. It took pretty much ALL of this before I saw a decrease in my low end null start to become not catastrophic. Now the lows don't drastically boost or cut if I move my head by 2' to either side or stand up. My room is 8.5" by 11.5" with a weird little corner in the back caused by the fireplace, there is literally zero room for more treatment so now I just kinda live with it. I cannot get used to headphones for mixing and am still trying. The thing that helped the most for that has been a pretty heavy eq curve and folding the stereo spread in on itself by about 15% so I have cross talk in each ear, but it still just feels weird to do.