Wouldn t be a KH 120 || that have dsp better choice instead of having all these speakers ?

I loved this reality check: nobody’s right and nobody’s necessarily wrong, but there’s a lot of lazy half-qualified opinions out there masquerading as gospel as to what exactly constitutes ‘proper’ studio gear. You can’t dodge having to do the research and the learning, putting in the time to develop bona fide mixing, listening and calibration skills that are relevant to your own studio space. You can spend all the money you like and argue until you’re blue in the face, but you’re wasting your cash and your time if you’re not prepared to get stuck in and get to the bottom of really knowing your room’s characteristics and instead just assume that throwing enough cash into the fire will magically earn you great sound.

Hi Paul, how about the new SPL? Have you compared?

at two min5 i have your answer about human ear, it's because they used dogs to implemented their algorithms. (something like that)

Good advice! Subscribed!

Paul, this is just a very subjective impression talk, right? I'm lacking quite a bit arguments and throughout thinking. For instance: how does Sonarworks compare to ARC Studio, when you put its mix dial to let's say 50%? Because these seems about what ARC Studio actually does. The latter is just doing a little less correction and thereby keeping the character of the speakers a bit more. You can easily do that with Sonarworks as well. And then you say: you like that ARC Studio is NOT changing the phase characteristics. But isn't that what Sonarworks Linear Phase is doing as well? So, having that in mind, it seems like the amount of correction is the ONLY decisive difference. Or is there something else that I am missing? And is the "setting back" of the speakers in Sonarworks not just the volume difference that is being introduced for clipping reasons?

Hi Paul. Hi from a fellow Scot im in Glasgow. Quick question if you have time im a noob. Would you use crossfeed in conjunction with the harmon curve or just use one or the other.

Hi Paul, there is a lot of reviews talking about edition XS ? What do think about them ??

Have you tried the Swissonic HA660 headphone amp ? its 160 bucks thomann brand wich also features a adjustable crossfeed function. I ordered one just out of curiousity ... i like the idea of having crossfeed by a toggle switch on whatever source im listening to without the need of a Plugin

at the end of your mastering chain what order do you put harman / crossfeed, is it important to have one before the other?

I want my music to sound good in a club so I mix on PA speakers in my studio 😎

I sort of agree with you. I don't work as an engineer but I did study music production and recording. For what I do, I don't even consider "studio" monitors anymore. I didn't work too much with expensive ones or in treated rooms except for the studios I used when I was studying, but since where I live the pricings of even cheap "studio" monitors are quite high one or two of my teachers said the following, regarding this issue: ALWAYS have a reference mix, meaning that if you are, for example, recording and mixing metal, compare your mix to a finished one from Metallica, for example, on whatever monitors you are using. I find this coherent, specially if your monitors, whatever they are, and your room, whichever treatment it has or doesn't, are also where you listen to music. You know the response of those monitors in that room. You probably also know how your headphones of choice for listening to music sound and with these elements you can make a decent mix. I'm not gonna say "up to the standard" because of what you already said: What is the standard? What was the standard when Dr. Dre made his own monitoring system for what he needed to hear in his mixes? You work with what you have and, while I was one of those guys who NEEDED flat response once, now I just think that if whatever you compose, arrange, record, mix or master gets to the people who are listening to it, that's a job well done. They don't care about response curves or how did you do it, they are listening to music. And they're gonna oversaturate the low end and high end anyway with their multimedia headphones, so you might as well mix on those as long as you know that you are having exaggerated parts of the frequency and are able to compensate for it, which gets me back to the reference mix... How does Metallica sound on this cheap multimedia headphones? Can I make my mix sound the same? Of course I have different speakers and headphones to try things on and my monitors are Edifier I believe 1000R or maybe 1500R, I don't know anymore since I bought them like 16 years ago and right now it's hard to reach the back of them to see the exact model, but nothing fancy, nor flat response either; they do have a treble knob and a bass knob so I can clean them up or mess them up a bit if I need to listen to a different range... But ultimately I stick to what I said.

That's the most aggressively Scottish accent I've ever heard in my headphones

You don't need 6 or 7 figure $ worth of equipment to make decent music or mixes. Lot's of talented producers who also are mixing have been using yamaha's hs8 and krk rokits or adams. Those are great quality speakers for the price. The only difference is price and max output gain. This type of opinion is like saying that you need a porsche to prove you are a good driver. In reality it doesn't matter what gear you have but what you can do with it.

I have Said this once and I will say it a million times the only way to know if your mixes and your music is right is that you have to have a review of your tracks by other artist musicians and engineers who know what they are doing. You have to have more ears on the track than just yours, after you do this enough times you will know what you are doing right and wrong no matter what gear you are using. the biggest lie in audio engineering is not studio monitors it is plugins and their so called modeling. Thanks for the great video really enjoyed it.

dont bother with slate VSX ... its marketing BS ... realphones are the topdog when it comes to speaker emulation period i mean mayyybe slate VSX would be a better choice if they wold not force you to use their dirt cheap plastik headphones. The Reason im saying this: on Realphones: you Engage it and you instantly understand whats going on and its nice Slate VSX: you Engage and are confused AF of wtf is going on ... then you spend like 5-10 minutes listening to reference tracks to kind of train your brain to understand the clusterfuck youre hearing. After you put them down and rub of the sweat of your Ears and get back to your normal Headphones theres a good chance youll be like "why did i even do that" xD I do Sound like a hater here but honestly realphones beat slate VSX in every regard ... prove me wrong !

The best aand most accurate headphones that iv ever used for years is actually the cheaper audiontechnica at40x. Not the 50x or any other. Please try it. So cheap but the most accurate as yourve recorded from mic, to audio interface.

How Paul Congratz on new studio.. By the way I'm wondering if you have a opinion on the "new" (not sure if its that new) SoundID with Custom target, can it do the Harman that you teached us now? Thnx Much :)

muahahahahaaaa, PAUL… PA have released the official SPL Machine Head. perhaps THIS finally is Serban's secret sauce (i can't help it… this expression just sounds weird LOL).🙂 hope, you're doing well! cheers, mate!

My Tascam US 16x08 is unreliable, slow and big with a ton of ins and outs that i don't use anymore so I bought an Audient 14 MKI second hand for 100€ impulsively, it's 2025, is it still a good deal ? for a hundred and a bit more i could get the mkii which retails for 205€ currently at thomann, i don't care much for the extra outputs (could always divide the main outs through a desktop samll mixer and still do a loopback for and have separated monitor channels) or adat capability, (the the mki still has it tho, right ?) or the type of usb port that uses, however, the type of usb protocol might matter to me and will the usb 3.0 make a lot of difference in comparison with usb 2.0 in terms of latency ? (i mostly make electronic music and i play live using only laptop and ableton and using a ton of plugins, so i was looking for something compact AF that could eradicate latency at a low price) Should i have bought the ID4 MKII instead ? What's your opinion on this purchase and was it worth it ?

Your rant didn’t do much to dissuade Plugin Alliance from releasing their own version of this 😅.

Hello Paul! I have a question about over ear harmon ii.3 vs harmon (non version) which harmon curve would be more suitable for general headphone experience in your opinion?

Hey Paul! Love your Videos man! Youre def my savezone when im looking to improve my headphone listening experience. I have a Question tho ... i would like to get the Ananda coupled with a presonus hd 2 Interface... Do you still think i would need a headphone amp in that combo ? ^^

hey ho, where can i hear your productions ? my mastermind said: "hear the productions when someone is talking about sound". thx from germany!!

what an inspiration you are sir . wish i had half the energy to do all you do

Marketing your right , but really if it sounds good u usually good

Hey Paul, thanks , very helpful. would you mund sharing the pro q preset for sundara v3?

I have many many roundtrips through my converters because i use my outboard as "external effects" in my DAW. I think that counts. A/D-D/A. I hear the sound "like live playing" in my room. Not only " from my speakers". Every step from my Motu 828 to Midas venice F32 to Lynx aurora (n) was very big.

I literally hammered like and subscribe when I heard "All you need to do is get the speakers in the fucking room..." probably the best advice for monitoring in your own space, especially if it's a bedroom setup like mine.

that couch is yellow man

In the world of today - where we have a large number of listening devices like cell phone, laptop, HiFi, etc. - it makes perfect sense to me to do the monitoring over various devices as well.

they all sound the same in this vid anyway

Hi Paul, what do you think about MQA format in a DAC/Amp? Is it something you should look for to get the best sound experience ?

When I listen to loudspeakers/headphones with ”flat” frequency response I usually find them boring. That makes me prefer loudspeakers/headphones I really like listening to, despite the fact that they don’t have a flat response. This mean that when I mix with a flat response loudspeaker/headphone I will most probably tweak the sound to be similar to how it sounds using my not flat loudspeakers/headphones. So, the consequense will be that the mix may get e.g. a high frequency boost, and this will not happen if I mix with my preferred not flat loudspeakers/headphones. I think the strive for flat response assume that we have absolutely no hearing loss, which is very often not the case. Therefore, loudspeakers/headphones that compensate for your hearing loss probably will be your preferred choise, and there is nothing wrong about that. I would be interested to hear your comments! 😊

Regarding Point 7 i wonder if an RME UFX III has a "bad" Headphone amp or is this interfave one of the 2% taht is ok-ish? Would it really make a big difference if i add a D90 III + A90 to it?

HAHAHAHAHAH STUDIO STUDIO STUDIO STUDIO

You even took them to London? 😮 Now that really is a test of durability! 😉

Sonarworks sucks

What I always wanted to do is to correct my headphones not only to harman curve but to my slight hearing loss on my right ear. That would also be very cool. But I guess o have to do it in the daw.

been using hs5 pair for at least 15 years there not for listening with highs and lows, you boost the mids and turn down the highs and lows they become like auratones in the sense you can see the center with little fluff they will sound bad but it makes the mid range a more delicate place were problems stick out like soar thumbs. i never used a sub some how you ears wont let add too much sub being it will lower the volume of your mids in the mix and anything too high cant pass thru the mids without being noticed.

I buy them, but I buy them even if theyre a 10 year old plugin...just the ones that have held up. fuck a bunch of hardware though. The fact that some of the greatest mixing engineers are strictly in the box now kind of helps me out in that decision. You can be selective and get new plugins for inspiration for fun or trying out, but use the ones you know well, and not over doing it..

This is a nice hardware, but the execution is not that good, not only they are far from the Harman curve, but it has some nasty problems in the high frequencies. With the EQ they are good, but again measuring and correcting headphones is extremely difficult.

Hardware and its status is so overrated. I have had a good insight into the production, studios, and A&R world since the early 90s. You would be amazed how many awesome successful hits were made and released using absolute crap hardware. You would also be amazed how often A&R people are not capable of distinguishing between different sonic qualities. A good track is about a lot more than its execution. At the end of the day, hardware, mixing, mastering, and overall production quality will not dictate what a listener likes. Sadly enough, we are being brainwashed to believe a number of hypes... Look at the Loudness Wars, manipulated playlists, and social media channels with an agenda... And then we haven't even started about how a social media following has an influence on how an artist and his music is received. With every piece of music, I have ever liked, I never thought about how and with what it was made. I either like it or I do not. And that goes for the majority of listeners and music lovers. Best advice for producers, publishers, and anything in between... If it works, it works, no matter how it was created. Doing the best you can is often enough.

Great points! Ive had my monitors since 2007 and i will probably never change them :) Love your accent!!

Hello everyone what about the Sennheiser HD-600 controlled by Sonarworks reference ID for Studio, or could you please recommend something in headphones domain because the room treatment is a nightmare and costly. Thank You

One of the early fifties rock stars, unfortunately I've forgotten which, used to mix his record and then use a small AM transmitter to broadcast it to his car radio outside the studio too listen to it 'as his audience would hear it'... Whoever mixed your absolutely favourite track was the last person to hear it as it was intended to be heared, even if you own the same 50K speakers and amplifier and have borrowed the master tape and player, unless you are listening in the booth it was mixed in, the room you are now in will add it's own flavour to the soundscape. The point of good music is it should 'transcend' the playback method and inspire listeners everywhere.

Thank you for the review. I enjoyed it. I am trying out your recommended rooms as well. Howerver, one thing I am really curious about and you did not show in the video is there last Snapshot for the "HE1000SE". I really want to know which room and setting you used there, mind sharing? Thanks.

If you close your eyes, it sounds like Shrek dropping audio knowledge on us.

The Lynx sounds the best to my ears. The 96k Audient sound extremely dull in comparison, using your ears vs your eyes is key in this particular demo.