I got the JBL LSR4326 speakers this past week and set them up Thursday night. I also picked up a nice set of speaker stands and some foam pads. I kept my existing speakers which I have had for over ten years - a pair of passive/analog JBL 4406 near-field monitors driven by a RAMSA WP9055 two-channel amp of the same vintage. So now I can run my mixes through either configuration, toggling back and forth. This has proved helpful in learning the new monitors, and I think will also be helpful to A/B mixes.
I've been spending as much time as I could find the past two days listening to familiar familiar music on the new speakers. These particular monitors come with a built-in Room Mode Correction function, which is very easy to use. You plug in an omni-directional mic (which comes with the pair) into the back of either speaker and then push a button on the front of the speaker. It then emits a short sequence of reference tones (rather loud ascending-frequency emision) and voila - the speakers are adjusted to be flat to the room environnment. You can use a remote control to toggle the RMC on and off.
I have always worried/wondered about my basement studio, which has 7-foot ceilings and some odd-shaped alcoves and closets and lots of book shelves and furniture. What has surprised me the most so far is that I haven't heard much difference on the reference music I've been playing with the RMC on or off, which tells me that my room acoustic coloration was, perhaps, less intrusive than I had feared. That is a good thing. With all the carpeting, book shelves, and irregular wall and ceiling planes, I guess it is a pretty dead room.
There is a much more marked difference, however, between the new JBL LSR4326's and the old JBL 4406/Ramsa Amp setup. The new config sounds much brighter with a lot more detail on the high end and less roundness on the low end. The old monitors actually sound more "pleasing" to my ear on some of the music - so, they must roll off or blend some of the higher frequencies which makes everything sound smoother, but in some cases muddier also. I can really hear what is going on in the mix with these new babies. Very cool. I think it was worth the $1000 investment less a nice discount my GuitarStore sales buddy worked out.
Now, I'm gonna MIX MIX MIX. I also bought the S.M.A.R.T guide to Mixing and Mastering which has some interesting reference videos and audio tracks on a DVD and I've been working my way through that along with reading some stuff NickT pointed me towards at
www.tweakheadz.com. I'm finding that reading two or three different sources which cover the same topics is helpful for me, because what one source leaves out the other sometimes fills in. Having some audio and video segments to watch and lisen to are also helpful. I've been playing around with this stuff for years, but this is the first time I've really tried to LEARN, in a more systematic way, what it is I'm doing with all this mixing gear. (The old approach was more or less to just twiddle knobs until something sounded good; although that technique still has its uses).
The new monitors have both analog and digital inputs. I have only tested the analog in's so far, but will hook up some digital inputs from the MOTU traveler later in the month.
Rob T
