Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

I have good memories of 1 year I spent in London. Opportunities to watch Wimbeldon and Test match at Lords were bonus.

 

I moved to London in September, after 8 years in Chicago (with some back and forth between NYC and LA). A tricky move in some ways, as salaries are lower for my field in the UK. The upsides are as you describe @purr1n

Britains think London is horrifically capitalist, but relative to most American cities you get 1) frequent and well-tended parks and other green spaces. Beautifully leafy, really, in many places. 2) A pretty incredible TFL (Transport for London) system that can get you nearly anywhere, and unlike, say, NYC's MTA, you're less frequently stranded waiting for a train or bus. There's almost always another along in less than 4 minutes. There are break downs and inconveniences, and it's not like the incredible reliability of, say, the Swiss system, but it's leagues better than Chicago's CTA for reach and frequency.

The national rail system is less reliable, but the big difference is that you can get many, many places, nationally and internationally. I recently went by train from London to Basel in 7hrs, about the time it would take to mess around with airports on either end, without having to take a car once. I find it far more relaxing and productive than air travel.

Another good thing about TFL is that it's multi-modal, so they can also coordinate bike lanes. This is far from perfect, but it's impressive how fast London is coming along for cyclists. One entire borough (Waltham Forest) now mandates that all new housing developments are car-free. I.e. no parking spaces. This would cause mass revolt in any American city, even NYC.

London is expensive as hell, naturally, but not more expensive, now, than LA or NYC, and the difference is that you can live further out from central and still get 'into town" by transit.

It's arguably one of the best food capitals now. (Try Sri Lankan--Hoppers--and South African cuisine if you get a chance.) If London can survive Brexit, the looming recession, and shitty government, it's pretty well-positioned to maintain its Alpha + status. (Whatever that means.)

I'm sure I'll see more negatives eventually, but London impresses thus far. I've been coming to Britain every year for my entire life, but this is the first I've lived here indefinitely. So far, so good.

 

Easy. There are several areas with large Sri Lankan communities. eg East Ham, Wembley, Ealing, Tooting. Veg and non-veg Sri-Lankan/South-Indian quisine.

By the way, as an ex-Londoner, I'm amazed how the tube map, etc, has faded from my brain cells. When I visit, I find an app called Citymapper very useful. Especially for bus routes. It even guides you when you are on the bus, telling you where to get off. Android --- but I'd be surprised if they don't do Apple too.

As long as I have money in my pocket, I love London, now, as a place to visit. I can do a month there. By which time I no longer have money in my pocket anyway! And hey, I rely on friends for accommodation. Hotel stuff there is expensive.

 

There is, indeed, a small chain called Hoppers. With several locations in central. Often booked up, but not impossible

 

There are only two studio monitor manufacturers with worldwide distribution and pro service left: ATC and Genelec. There were others but except for Barefoot and some custom mains for hip hop places here, they have been defeated in the commercial music studio marketplace in the USA by corporate shenanigans, poor distribution, and poor service or are just too small and located across the ocean. If anyone wants to debate me on this, you’re wrong in advance.

One sounds much more detailed than the other. Guess which? Genelec only just got decent crossovers with the 83x1 series but you have to pay way too much money to get volume and an even response vs ATC, which all have them from the cheap 11/12 up to the 50. ATC has lower distortion drivers and uses very good, ultra high powered amplifiers while Genelec used off the shelf chip amps. You have to pay out the ass to get bass from either brand. Sure you can get the 8050 for under 3k but there’s no midrange. Genelec works in dogshit rooms like the JBL waveguide magic does too.

Everyone with those JBLs is feeling the Samsung shit service pain now. There’s no stock of parts. There are no replacement monitors, there are no replacement parts. The just in time Toyota Way does not work for pro audio. They all should’ve bought Meyer Sound but they didn’t want to pay. That’s why PSI and ME Geithain cannot get a foothold here. They have one dealer each in the entire USA, which spans two oceans and ME Geithain is distributed by the Sweetwater wannabe that is Vintage King now. Quested and Dynaudio are pretty much gone here.

 

There are more (East) Asians in the UK now. It feels like half of HK has already gone there or planning to, as well as Asians who stayed after uni there.

Pre-Brexit, London had some of the best South Asian and European cuisines I’ve tried. I haven’t been back since. I’m itching to go.

 

You'd have to build your own 3-way speakers . I was told it isn't that hard (choose simpler cabinet design). Sure, you are not getting "unobtanium" sound but your are getting a lot. The driver makers are said to be "light years" ahead of most HPs technology. "Been there, done that." There are a lot of great driver manufacturers who are good at what they do plus you can even order customs drivers if you are up to it. I am not saying that this would fix your supply chain issues though. Then again, It might, because you could just fix it with the parts you built it with.

It is a myth that a 3-way with good 12" must cost a fortune. It isn't cheap but it is definitely worth it too. No idea why there are next no offers in the market.

 

The biggest thing is the distributor and dealer markups. Traditionally it is 1/3rd or so. So huge! But even then, the cost of building some of these speakers with comparable driver and amplifier quality is very high in terms of time and money. You'll spend a lot for quality of the amplification in stuff like ATC amps and the MC2 in Quested. Somewhat comparable dome and woofer cost is huge too. Then you need woodworking tools, soldering skills, and TIME. I already have enough audio work that I am behind where I want to be in terms of a timeline. Time I lack more than money. I don't even have time to make cables. I'm editing toms as I write this.

 

Havent heard ATC yet. // Regarding the mainstream brand It seems that all the overdone DSP washes over the magic. It can fix your setup fast but does it sound better? Idk.. I havent auditioned 10s of DSPed modern speakers. So the problem is 3 part. First, the amplifications. Second, how much DSP and where it is in the chain. DIgital is not bad but should it be everywhere in the audio chain is questionable. Finally the drivers, materials, crossover components.

 

They use dsp because it's cheaper than analog active crossovers. The conversion in the dsp speakers is not nearly as good as in a reasonably good interface or dac. What active ported speakers traditionally do is boost the crap out of the woofer in the crossover and slap a limiter on it so you don't blow it. Speakers like the Genelec 8351 and the Kiis take this to the extreme and sound very processed.

 

I did some edits there, to be more clear.

 

Yeah, I have heard that the DSPed Gs do not sound that great compared to the analogue versions. That is to say, I am not saying I consider what the mainstream thinks, thats just the guys I know say that.

 

Well first what the speakers do is they take the signal and convert it back to digital with something worse than in an above entry level interface. then they chop it up, process it with eqs and filters usually worse than what plugins you can buy for 100-200s bucks or even sometimes what comes with a DAW, limit it with the equivalent low quality digital limiters, and run it out to a worse than what's in a decent interface (say above a focusrite) converter to the absolute butt distorted class d amp with a bunch of treble distortion and phase shift (in some of them like the hypex if the class d amp is analog with an analog filter) to the drivers.

HOW CAN THIS GO WRONG? Ever heard a cheap codec chip? Ever heard a soft knee limiter or played with Waves L 1, 2, or 3 to see what a limiter that's not oversampled sounds like? Remember what slammed popular music sounded like in 2005? Well they'll do that with a soft knee so it starts distorting before it flat lines. Not that you want to hit the limiters on analog active monitors either. they usually sound like crap too then, they might even sound even crappier because they can't try to hide most of the distortion with clever algorithms and are just a cleaner, more aggressive glorified 1176.

Oh and the crazy ass dsp ones all add latency to the sound too. Crap for tracking and mixing. Yeah your eqs may be fine but your fader moves and meters will all be off a bit from the sound.

 

Yes.. Like why would you have a high end dac / interface in the first place.

-------

I was wondering.. What are the high quality sources in the DAW nowadays. Do they use a lot of VST soft synths or more hardware synths? Do the soft synths sound as good as Nord Lead, Moog, Dave Smith I ?

 

No they don't unless they're U-he. Lots of soft synths presets. U-he is great. Serum is shockingly good if you don't use the presets, which are focused on basic bitch edm.

I don't use samples or VSTis at all really for metal. I will do everything to avoid samples. I have taught myself to use the craziest stuff imaginable because they sound better than most samples. The unprocessed old jazz and 60s-70s music sample packs are the best ones ime if you must.