Monitoring through a colored loudspeaker embeds its signature into the recording

Evidence

I once had a long discussion with an accomplished recording engineer who concentrated on the classical repertoire. I was told that a particular loudspeaker, the B&W 802N, was particularly well suited for monitoring classical music. I happened to know the product. As described in Section 2.9.1 it is not a neutral loudspeaker, exhibiting problems in both measurements and in subjective evaluations. However, it flattered the sound of an orchestra miked from above, where excessive high frequencies are radiated. Instead of equalizing the mix, the loudspeakers were doing the equalization. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 1423

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• DEFINE: Illustrates what ‘translation’ means concretely: a non-neutral monitor equalizes the source, coloring the art for everyone downstream.

Related

• Engineers’ colored monitors embed personal EQ into the recording itself (similarity 0.85)
• Audio watermarking embeds inaudible, copy-surviving data into signals (similarity 0.81)
• Flawed studio monitors bake their own coloration into recordings (similarity 0.81)
• Recording monitors with deliberate response errors perpetuate the circle of confusion (similarity 0.79)
• Mixing decisions are monitored through loudspeakers in a room. (similarity 0.79)
• Mixing engineers hear recorded sounds normal listeners will not perceive (similarity 0.79)
• A spectral flaw echoed across many speakers gets misattributed to the recording. (similarity 0.79)
• Mastering engineers must undo sonic artifacts introduced by flawed mixing monitors. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Engineers’ colored monitors embed personal EQ into the recording itself #expands (0.80) — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 264
• Measured instrument spectra reveal both the source and the sound modifiers at once #expands (0.72) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1129
• Audio watermarking embeds inaudible, copy-surviving data into signals #complicates (0.70) — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 2586