Quote:
Originally Posted by brainwreck
I just stumbled onto this a little while ago, and I'm passing it along. This company records monitors, headphones, and other bits of gear for your comparison pleasure (and to sell you gear). It seems like this will be much more helpful to those looking for monitors and headphones than sifting through endless pages of opinions on forums.
Here is their test method for monitors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EAFBysViAg
Here is a comparison between three monitors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riXAOTRdTNA
Source playback is in red, and recordings of monitors playing back are in other colors.
The audio files for various monitors/etc. are here: https://soundcloud.com/sonic-sense-pro-audio
To compare, download the source file and the files for any monitors which you want to compare. Insert the files into Reaper on separate tracks, and use solo-exclusive (ctrl+alt+click track solo button) to solo a track while Reaper is playing.
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This is phenomenally cool. I have always wanted to do something like a blog/CD with this kind of strict, transparent A/B/X testing. I have just never had a sufficient range of gear to make it worthwhile.
I'll throw out a recent real-world example:
Our studio has a decent assortment of bass amps, but the good ones are all "vintage"-type: Ampeg, Acoustic, Fender, etc. I am currently looking to add a more "modern" sounding amp for 80's/90s style slap-bass or grindy rock bass guitar, something better than the stalwart Peavy Mark IV in the main room.
I was thinking something like the Gallien-Krueger combo I had in college, but I went to check some youtube videos, to try and compare the sound to things like MarkBass, Hartke, Trace-Elliot, Genz-Benz, Eden... just anything, any kind of shootout between bass-amps, to try and narrow down differences between sounds. It was impossible. I couldn't find a single remotely-respectable comparison of "here's what this bass sounds like through a Hartke, and here's what it sounds like through a GK", or anything like that.
Of course I can (and should) take a bass guitar down to Guitar Depot and try a bunch of different amps, but it was insane to me that I couldn't find a single credible audio or video shootout or comparison between different brands of bass-amps, which should be simple as dirt to compare.
Mics, preamps, and studio monitors are million times harder to compare in the store, assuming you can even get anything like a fair comparison. You can nit-pick the methodology a million ways to sunday, but I'm glad someone is at least trying.