I'd be stunned if the console it's connected to were any less than $20k. More likely in the $50-100k range.
Audio is a very expensive game to play well.
Audio is a very expensive game to play well.
Object fetishization is not to be dismissed - having dozens of U87 and Manley stuff might be a competitive advantage.
I have a CD or two done with a D&R console and a Mitsu DASH, and I'd say this is comparable. Room and human factors dominate.
You can get 8 channels of A/D-D/A with Lightpipe for 8 more for $500 bucks and while I can't say definitively it's as good as it gets, it loops back to < -90dB for noise & distortion. It's good enough to where the "worst element" is usually me :)
If you want the sound of a Neumann U87, or U47, or Shure SM7, or 57, then nothing - nothing - is going to scratch that itch like the right mic for the job, if you really know what it is you're listening for.
Preamps and signal processors too... I once thought as you did: that digital DAWs have so many advantages over hardware that it just never made sense to put $5000 into a particular piece of hardware when the same money would buy a pile of digital plugins.
Until I had all the digital gear possible, and I came face to face with GIGO: garbage in, garbage out. Audio starts life as analog and that's the beginning of everything that follows in the signal chain. Past that there are certain non-linear things that happen in analog that are particularly euphonic and hard to reproduce digitally.
For example I've got pretty much every plugin compressor ever made, but nothing can take the place of my UA/RE175 compressor, because it's delightfully nonlinear and chaotic and valve-y.
And even if you could perfectly model it, what you can't do is put it where you need it: in the signal chain before A/D conversion, so you're packing as much information into the track as possible. The same goes for mics. Mics distort the sound more than anything in the straight signal chain. Every mic has a fingerprint - once that fingerprint is in the sound, it's there. Same goes for the fingerprint of the musicians instrument / amp. And the room. Etc.
And thus my maxim: the earlier in the signal chain you can get the sound you want, the better.
"Fix it in the mix" is the devil. "Fix" is something you do to a cat.
People who spend thousands on exotic speakers in the name of "transparency" in their home setup could do so much better in that respect with a pair of active studio monitors. But they might not like the results as much.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_NS-10
Things like Beats have frequency response curves that're basically a polar opposite from the NS-10s. Even less cringe-worthy headphones, like Sennheiser HD-280s have sort of a "smiley face" (dip from ~900-2800 hertz, while boosting very low and very high frequencies) EQ curve. Not to discredit them - they are good headphones, but in doing my own projects, I honestly feel like I've done better work on terrible sounding, $5 headphones.
I have fucked up a few mixes by using $5 headphones. But yes properly monitoring gear will point out flaws rather than make something sound good. When I get to the end of a mix (using Sony MDR7506's for example) and I think "man this sounds SO CLOSE but it's still a little shitty" then I'll go and check it on iPhone headphones or something and it'll sound fantastic.
This. All that talk about "great detailed sound" that is "as close to the original as possible" of some $1000+ headphones and yet most music is done on something like $100 MDR-7506. Moreover, 7506s are very comfortable and sturdy, I can't comprehend why anyone in their mind would shell out hundreds or even thousands bucks for their "everyday" headphones (granted, noise-cancelling or sport-y ones are a bit different thing).
Musicians wear headphones in studios when recording, but audio engineers pretty much never use headphones for mixing except as microscopes to listen in terrific detail for something in particular.
Mix engineers mix on speakers almost exclusively.
This is just my personal experience and opinion (and that of pretty much every audio engineer I've worked with): headphones lie. Ears are designed to perceive sounds in 3-space, not to have individual channels shot down the ear canal bypassing the outer ear, with a sealed transducer directly loading the eardrum. As an audio engineer, you're looking for the truth, and this isn't the way for your ears to best perceive it. Moreover headphones are generally fatiguing compared to a good set of studio monitors in a tuned control room.
So the most representative mix - regardless of listening format - is going to come from speakers. I think most audio engineers are going to agree on this point.
Some audio engineers "mix for the format" - I suppose if you want a mix that is optimized for headphones, then yes you're going to at least check the mix with headphones, but I still doubt many engineers would do the mix on headphones.
Seasoned engineers know that listening fads come and go - the way to make a mix that will stand the test of time is to make a mix that sounds good on anything, and "good studio monitors in a good room" is going to get you there best.
This equipment will have to run 24/7, be constantly worked on, be easy to service, will likely have redundant power-supplies, maybe redundant DSPs/Routing/I/O. And if anything breaks, you'd expect to get a 100% drop-in replacement (in terms of frequency response, gain, ...) delivered over-night, or by a courier/technician.
Regarding the mixing consoles: For live-sound (the only area I know a little about), only recently a wealth of very affordable mixing-consoles have flooded the market, but anything slightly larger still sets you back ~€10k for an entry system (Midas Pro, Yamaha CL, Soundcraft VI, Allen-Heath GLD). And there, I suspect the number of units shipped is one or two orders of magnitude larger than what Lawo sells for fixed installation in studios.
Generally, the equipment will work flawlessly, even when hauled around every weekend and not handled very gently.
I won't get into it all unless you want me to, but a system for live performance or broadcast has orders of magnitude more work to do, functionality which is demanded by a tiny market relative to consumer electronics, with far higher expectations on reliability, flexibility, etc.
There are certainly people (Pyle, Behringer, etc) who claim to sell cheap solutions, but they are substantially more likely to bite you in the ass in concrete, embarrassing ways if you try to use them in performance environments.
My experience is 100% studio and 0% live, and though I'm not ygra, if you're willing to type, I'd love to read.