Hacker News Reader

Comment by trilbyglens | Hacker News Reader

Any proper mix engineer will do exactly this. They will mix on studio monitors but also shitty laptop speakers, bookshelf speakers, mono Bluetooth speakers etc. You have to design for the medium, and most people have shitty displays. Might look great on a retina screen and have no contrast at all on a $50 LG.

View on HN

Don’t forget the famous car test! A mix is not complete until it sounds good in an old Toyota Camry from the 90s.

Sure shitty laptop speakers are how most people listen to music, but they each listen on different shitty laptop speakers with completely different sound characteristics. This would be like a cobbler wearing the shoes he makes for his customers but only ever trying on the size 9 shoes, because they are the most common, while having a size 11 foot.

I thought an overwhelming majority list to music on headphones/earphones?

As for the rest it seems for me that cheaper (“non-smart”) HomePod style speakers are pretty prevalent at least in higher income countries

This [1] was a multiple choice poll in 2015 that had: Computer Speakers (55%), Headphones (41%), with mostly other speaker related options.

[1] https://www.strategyanalytics.com/strategy-analytics/news/st...

> Sure shitty laptop speakers are how most people listen to music, but they each listen on different shitty laptop speakers with completely different sound characteristics.

The canonical shitty speakers that almost every studio used for years was the yamaha NS10.

They were used because of their limited frequency response and dynamic range. When mixing the engineer would switch between the good speakers and the Yamahas. The reason is if it sounds good on the bad speakers then it will sound good anywhere.

It’s not necessary to test mixes on every conceivable speaker, but a couple of different types should satisfy you that it’s in the pocket.

I remember reading a paper that analysed the Yamaha NS10 and came to the conclusion that they were not just some shitty speakers but actually had some exceptional qualities like their transient response. It probably was the one linked in this article: https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/yamaha-ns10-story

Thanks, that’s a good article. I liked this observation which I think applies to multiple fields.

> Misunderstanding also tends to breed misinformation, which is often disseminated by well-meaning amateurs: those whose knowledge of a subject is sketchy are always prey to the intuitively plausible but utterly wrong explanation for one phenomenon or another.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com