Here's my *experience* with FRFR speakers.
1. When I mix music at home I sit directly in front on my Yamaha NS-10s.
When I sit off to the side of the speakers *they sound different*. Less bright, less direct, more muddy.
When I track and/or mix at a good studio we sit right in front of their hi-quality reference near field monitors.
Sitting off to the side sounds wrong.
2. When I'm out in the crowd at a show with a medium sized PA the speakers are always situated such that most of the audience is directly in front of them.
When I stand off to the side, *the sound is different*. Less bright, less direct, more muddy.
So, *in my experience* Jay's notion that an FRFR speaker sounds the same on-axis or off-axis is simply not true.
Now, with a stereo setup your ears are on-axis through-out a much wider compass than they are with a single speaker.
To get off-axis you pretty much have to get pretty far off-axis from both speakers.
3. When I run my Axe, in mono, through one of the 2 or 3 top of the line Yorkville powered monitors I've rented, or the Traynor and Roland keyboard amps I've rented; and I sit right in front of the speaker, the sound is too bright and harsh, just like it would be if I sat right in front of my guitar speaker. When I sit off-axis from the monitor is sounds much more musical.
Here's the thing...
As guitar players using real amps we've always listened to our rigs off-axis.
Even guys with Fender Twins using the tilt-back bars on the side to point the cab more toward their heads don't point them right at their heads. I.e. We never listen to guitar cabinets in the same orientation that we do when listening to near-filed monitors or PA speakers.
Yet, when we mix music we use near field monitors pointed right at our ears.
When we listen to our home stereos we're usually on-axis to the speakers.
When we go to a club the PA speakers are pointed right at our ears.
[The only time I can think of where I'm routinely off-axis when listening to a stereo is in the car.]
When we mic a guitar cabinet and mix it through near fields or a PA we try to make it sound as if we're standing off-axis from the guitar cab. We either mic slightly off-axis or use other mic'ing techniques and/or EQ to accomplish this. If guitar speakers were FRFR to begin with we wouldn't need to go through all of this.
But they're not. And if we want to capture the *feeling* of real guitar speakers through FRFR speakers we're going to have to try to make FRFR speakers behave more like guitar speakers, IMO. What we've been doing throughout the history of recorded music is the opposite of that. We've been trying to get guitar speakers to behave like FRFR speaker via our various mic'ing techniques.
Now, if an FRFR system could *really* reproduce the *feeling* of standing off-axis from a real guitar cab even though the FRFR speakers were on-axis to our ears, then IMO that might be a really wonderful thing. But I've never experienced that. The far field IRs some of you folks like to advocate here as a solution to this dilemma sound like shit to me. Maybe I just haven't found the right far-field IR yet. But based on what I've heard thus far the farfield IR idea does not hold much promise.
What I *have experienced* is getting a very decent convincing (but not perfect, of course) 'in the room' sound and feeling out of a cheap Traynor K1 keyboard amp with my Axe, by simply not pointing the Traynor at my head.
This business about how we should need near perfect FRFR speakers in order to get a decent 'in the room' feeling out of the Axe is bullshit. What we really need, IMO, are IRs that are better suited to the task.
When I run my axe through something like a Traynor K1 I should it expect it to sound just as good as a well recorded CD sounds like coming out out of that same speaker. With most of the stock IRs I can get that. So it stands to reason that the K1 isn't as all-out shitty as we might tend to think. But that's the sound of well-mic'd guitar speakers, not the sound of the guitar speaker itself.
The fact that I can get a K1 to sound and *feel* so much like a real guitar speaker by simply not pointing it at my head, as well as my experience with other FRFR systems, tells me that of Jay's notion that FRFR speakers sound the same on or off-axis is just wrong.
That's my *experience*.
1. When I mix music at home I sit directly in front on my Yamaha NS-10s.
When I sit off to the side of the speakers *they sound different*. Less bright, less direct, more muddy.
When I track and/or mix at a good studio we sit right in front of their hi-quality reference near field monitors.
Sitting off to the side sounds wrong.
2. When I'm out in the crowd at a show with a medium sized PA the speakers are always situated such that most of the audience is directly in front of them.
When I stand off to the side, *the sound is different*. Less bright, less direct, more muddy.
So, *in my experience* Jay's notion that an FRFR speaker sounds the same on-axis or off-axis is simply not true.
Now, with a stereo setup your ears are on-axis through-out a much wider compass than they are with a single speaker.
To get off-axis you pretty much have to get pretty far off-axis from both speakers.
3. When I run my Axe, in mono, through one of the 2 or 3 top of the line Yorkville powered monitors I've rented, or the Traynor and Roland keyboard amps I've rented; and I sit right in front of the speaker, the sound is too bright and harsh, just like it would be if I sat right in front of my guitar speaker. When I sit off-axis from the monitor is sounds much more musical.
Here's the thing...
As guitar players using real amps we've always listened to our rigs off-axis.
Even guys with Fender Twins using the tilt-back bars on the side to point the cab more toward their heads don't point them right at their heads. I.e. We never listen to guitar cabinets in the same orientation that we do when listening to near-filed monitors or PA speakers.
Yet, when we mix music we use near field monitors pointed right at our ears.
When we listen to our home stereos we're usually on-axis to the speakers.
When we go to a club the PA speakers are pointed right at our ears.
[The only time I can think of where I'm routinely off-axis when listening to a stereo is in the car.]
When we mic a guitar cabinet and mix it through near fields or a PA we try to make it sound as if we're standing off-axis from the guitar cab. We either mic slightly off-axis or use other mic'ing techniques and/or EQ to accomplish this. If guitar speakers were FRFR to begin with we wouldn't need to go through all of this.
But they're not. And if we want to capture the *feeling* of real guitar speakers through FRFR speakers we're going to have to try to make FRFR speakers behave more like guitar speakers, IMO. What we've been doing throughout the history of recorded music is the opposite of that. We've been trying to get guitar speakers to behave like FRFR speaker via our various mic'ing techniques.
Now, if an FRFR system could *really* reproduce the *feeling* of standing off-axis from a real guitar cab even though the FRFR speakers were on-axis to our ears, then IMO that might be a really wonderful thing. But I've never experienced that. The far field IRs some of you folks like to advocate here as a solution to this dilemma sound like shit to me. Maybe I just haven't found the right far-field IR yet. But based on what I've heard thus far the farfield IR idea does not hold much promise.
What I *have experienced* is getting a very decent convincing (but not perfect, of course) 'in the room' sound and feeling out of a cheap Traynor K1 keyboard amp with my Axe, by simply not pointing the Traynor at my head.
This business about how we should need near perfect FRFR speakers in order to get a decent 'in the room' feeling out of the Axe is bullshit. What we really need, IMO, are IRs that are better suited to the task.
When I run my axe through something like a Traynor K1 I should it expect it to sound just as good as a well recorded CD sounds like coming out out of that same speaker. With most of the stock IRs I can get that. So it stands to reason that the K1 isn't as all-out shitty as we might tend to think. But that's the sound of well-mic'd guitar speakers, not the sound of the guitar speaker itself.
The fact that I can get a K1 to sound and *feel* so much like a real guitar speaker by simply not pointing it at my head, as well as my experience with other FRFR systems, tells me that of Jay's notion that FRFR speakers sound the same on or off-axis is just wrong.
That's my *experience*.
