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About the Point Seven- Chapter 1
A Liltle History
br the early days of recording, most recording studios used big monitor speakers
almost exclusively. Unfortunately, they also required high powered amplifiers and
expensive acoustic treatment (often poorly done) of. the entire control room. Still, a
well-constructed big monitoring system really was impressive to listen to, a fact not
overlooked by the studio owners who wanted to imPress the record company
executives who paid for the big studio's time. These big systems had big level
control knobs, and clients enjoyed
"cranking-up"
the volume. Fortunately, recording
engineers and producers eventually leamed that this was not the best way to
accurately rrix music because it wasn't the way most people listened to their radios,
cassettes and C-D,players. Also, big monitor systems and the costs for the required
qonh.el:room,acorrstg-treatments
were going through the roof (no pun intended),
parircularly,b€yond!&e
brrdget limits of smaller project and home studios which
were growing in numbprs, Aner4{ way of accurate monitoring
was needed: near-field
monitoring.
Near-field monitors, by their definition, are intended for mounting close to the
listener. The idea here is to improve the direct acoustic path between the speaker
and the listener by making it shorter, thereby giving less opportunity
for the always
present indirect (reflected) sounds to get back in and muddle things up. With near-
field monitoring,
the surrounding
acoustic environment becomes a much less
significant factor in establishing the monitor system's sound character.
A good set of small monitors properly placed in a reasonably non-reverberant
room
and poweled by a 1*watt
amplifier will yield surprisingly
accurate results at
budget prices. CarrM
to another studio, the same monitor should also provide
repeatable reults"
In fact, some recording engineers carry their own speakers around
because they know how they will sound in almost any room. Now, even the big
studios use smaller speakers to augment their big monitoring
systems, and near-field
monitors have become proven tools in the recording business.
Point Seven Reference Manual
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