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The other night I was sitting with a couple of musician friends and given that besides working in music I also happen to own a small company making studio monitors we started talking about that particular subject and started sort thinking up the Dream Studio Monitor. I thought I would extend that discussion to my favorite forum . So if You have any (even ridiculous) ideas on the subject I will gladly hear them. Let's go wild
@supersonic
I do not dream about speakers so perhaps my cynical thoughts will not relate to the majority but to add 3 cents.
Price verses cost effectiveness over long term.
Does it help me get the job done faster and better?
Dream - the only thing I might 'dream' about is a speaker that adjusts its monitoring position to match the engineers' position and incorporates room correction (i.e. ARC) that is easier, quicker and cheaper to use than how one currently shoots a room….
. . . and why not, it incorporates a quantum computer that will deploy synthetic biology and nanotechnologies that can invade my control room and adjust for room anomalies.
1¢ tip
Using only 2 speakers they can provide an accurate 5.1, 7.1 12.2 etc control room monitoring environment regardless of the size of the room.
Speakers are tough. Shipping still remains as a large portion of the cost. Technology gets cheaper but transportation of goods goes up.
Be Well
Commadore 64, Sony MXP3036, DEC PDP11's, 1961 Rupert Neve tube / Valve based (@)(@) Console, Telefunken U47, Urei, Studer, MCI and Harris TAPE . . . and 2 turntables(.Y.) and a microphone
…string theory says that all subatomic particles of the universe are nothing but musical notes. A, B-flat, C-sharp, correspond to electrons, neutrinos, quarks, and what have you. Therefore, physics is nothing but the laws of harmony of these strings. Chemistry is nothing but the melodies we can play on these strings. The universe is a symphony of strings and the mind of God… it is cosmic music resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace.
- M Kaku
True, speakers aren't easy. I learnt that the hard way. But they are great fun and anyone with any mixing expierience knows how different listening environments affect the final mix. The sheer span of the offer today going for audiophile speakers to the ones we have in our laptops makes it a challenge to produce a mix that will defend itself in all circumstances. I have a couple of beautiful sounding audiophile recordings that don't translate well on mediocre systems whereas some, like the stockfisch albums are amazing at this job. Which is partly the reason for which I am mastering three last albums I mixed with them. But coming back to the speakers. While I see no reason other then having too much money on ones hands to spend tens of thousands of dollars on speaker system with golden cables etc. one cannot deny the price/quality ratio. We've been looking into all the main speakers on the market and the unfortunate trend is for the insides of those to become lesser quality as time goes by. The models from a couple of years ago have a higher standard of build, components. You mentioned the transport. It's true and were those speakers built locally, US for guys, Europe for us etc, we wouldn't have to deal with such high transport costs. But a very big factor in the final price is really the amount of Middle men. In our case, working with a distributor and individual shops per country gives a ratio of build costs/final price of 1/5. And that's on the low side. A couple companies out there have a much higher ratio then that. Dynaudio has done away with distributors in Europe for the past years and I'm not sure it has done a lot of good. Selling directly locally in the country of origin can work but for any distant markets one has to rely on a network. For a while I've been toying with the idea of getting inspired by the Tupperware model. But I wonder if that would work. Anyway, here are my two cents.
I would like to be able to emulate speakers (in a better way then what I've heard so far) of varying sizes, nrands, on one pair of monitors. Saves space really . Also the final room correction (something like the Ikmultemedia ARC and others which failed to satisfy me) is on my table at the moment.
Direct to end user marketing is an angle; as you say eliminate the middle man and distributors. A bit of multilevel marketing, word of mouth, set up a name to endorse it...
. . . but also selling studio monitors is a very small niche of speaker sales. Especially if you want to break into the 1% of rooms still doing the big boy stuff.
Perhaps researching how the 'hot' or latest studio standard monitors have changed over the years and what was their endorsements might give you an angle to break into the market.
Personally I'd rather put my effort towards breaking the next POP hit; better royalties - lol
Well good luck.
Commadore 64, Sony MXP3036, DEC PDP11's, 1961 Rupert Neve tube / Valve based (@)(@) Console, Telefunken U47, Urei, Studer, MCI and Harris TAPE . . . and 2 turntables(.Y.) and a microphone
