MirrorProfiles
Rock Star
- Messages
- 3,258
Studio rejig is somewhat complete.
Hard to say when this journey began (my girlfriend compares it to building a city as it’s never complete), but it really picked up steam when I heard my old ATC SCM25A’s with Neumann’s MA1 correction. I’d used sonarworks with them, but what MA1 did essentially made the speakers feel like they disappeared and put me inside the music. They also made the ATC’s sound how I wish they always did - while they’re great speakers, I simply find them too soft/lacking detail in the very top end and they were slightly low on low end without a sub.
A day later and I traded them for the KH420’s you can see here. I used those for a while on my Ultimate Support stands, although they were right on the weight limit for the speakers and I never felt that comfortable resting speakers of this size on the Ultimate Support base plates.
Fast forward a few weeks and a smaller desk comes up for sale fairly locally. Unused, and 1/3 of the new price without any import fees. That led to me hunting down some proper speaker stands, switching interfaces from UAD to RME, finding a Satellite Octo (so I can sell the Apollo), changing the cabling so I’m running digitally into the KH750. I temporarily tried a Dangerous Source as a monitor controller which was absolute tripe. Upon hearing how bad it sounded, I decided to switch to RME and use the ARC remote as a controller than deal with passive controllers.
In top of all that, perhaps the most exhausting aspect has been altering the room acoustics. Lots of moving huge panels around (the sides are 60cm x 60cm soffits with an air gap behind them). It was a week solid of 14 hour days moving stuff around, measuring, adjusting.
Anyway. The room is sounding, and feeling better than ever. It measures REALLY well, and feels less dead to be in (because the panels are placed more effectively in the room).
It’s quite remarkable how much of getting a room sounding great costs nothing, and you can do a hell of a lot without spending much. Just getting the speaker and listening positions optimised does SO much, and from there concentrate on absorbing first reflections. Most of my panels were bought 2nd hand or built myself
Hard to say when this journey began (my girlfriend compares it to building a city as it’s never complete), but it really picked up steam when I heard my old ATC SCM25A’s with Neumann’s MA1 correction. I’d used sonarworks with them, but what MA1 did essentially made the speakers feel like they disappeared and put me inside the music. They also made the ATC’s sound how I wish they always did - while they’re great speakers, I simply find them too soft/lacking detail in the very top end and they were slightly low on low end without a sub.
A day later and I traded them for the KH420’s you can see here. I used those for a while on my Ultimate Support stands, although they were right on the weight limit for the speakers and I never felt that comfortable resting speakers of this size on the Ultimate Support base plates.
Fast forward a few weeks and a smaller desk comes up for sale fairly locally. Unused, and 1/3 of the new price without any import fees. That led to me hunting down some proper speaker stands, switching interfaces from UAD to RME, finding a Satellite Octo (so I can sell the Apollo), changing the cabling so I’m running digitally into the KH750. I temporarily tried a Dangerous Source as a monitor controller which was absolute tripe. Upon hearing how bad it sounded, I decided to switch to RME and use the ARC remote as a controller than deal with passive controllers.
In top of all that, perhaps the most exhausting aspect has been altering the room acoustics. Lots of moving huge panels around (the sides are 60cm x 60cm soffits with an air gap behind them). It was a week solid of 14 hour days moving stuff around, measuring, adjusting.
Anyway. The room is sounding, and feeling better than ever. It measures REALLY well, and feels less dead to be in (because the panels are placed more effectively in the room).
It’s quite remarkable how much of getting a room sounding great costs nothing, and you can do a hell of a lot without spending much. Just getting the speaker and listening positions optimised does SO much, and from there concentrate on absorbing first reflections. Most of my panels were bought 2nd hand or built myself
I should mix some in around here 
