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tullymars
01-25-2004, 11:14 AM
What is the difference between,monitor,reference,and loudspeakers?

markw
01-25-2004, 01:36 PM
"Monitor" and Reference" are terms that are generally applied by marketing departments to loudspeakers to make consumers believe they are used by professionals, or at least preferred by professionals, thereby better than others.

This is not necessarially so and the more one touts these words, the less inclined I am to be impressed by them..

tullymars
01-25-2004, 01:45 PM
Are you a Mexican,or a Mexicant?

Geoffcin
01-25-2004, 01:53 PM
What is the difference between,monitor,reference,and loudspeakers?

Monitor speakers are designed to have the flattest response in nearfield listening. The are used by engineers in studios to master recordings.

Monitor speakers are also used by musicians to hear themselves, and others while performing.

Reference speakers are usually the "flagship" of any speaker line that the others, (in that particular line) are compared against.

Also, companies that do not make speakers often use a particular speaker, or speakers as a "reference speaker" to compare the sound of the companies different components.

Loudspeaker as defined by the Church Audio & Acoustics Glossary;

1. An electro-acoustical transducer that changes electrical energy to acoustical energy.

2. A transducer (or group of transducers) within a single cabinet that converts electrical energy into acoustical energy. The piece of equipment that makes the sound.

RGA
01-25-2004, 09:58 PM
It's marketing mumbo jumbo nonsense. If it's got the words Studio, Monitor, Digital, or Refeference in the title I get suspicious.

PMC speakers stand for Professional Monitor compnay and their speakers are widely used in studios - that does not ean they are better AT ALL in ANY WAY than speakers NOT used in recording studios(Though the PMCs are very good but won't satisfy all tastes). The B&W Nautilus 802 is used by Skywalker sound and has no such words in the title.

Reference 3a is well the name they have chosen but they make fine speakers...Some magazines use some of their speakers as References to rate the competition against.

Most speakers with the terms in the title have never seen a recording studio and some are just not very good speakers. Unless they mean BAD studios which explains why so many recordings are lousy.

The best way to find a good speaker is tolisten to the Upper end Stax headphones or the Sennheiser HD600s and look for speakers that can match that kind of sound and even surpass it. Very few I have heard can even come remotely close, some do of course and those are the ones I would be trying to shortlist for speaker auditions.