Room Treatment combined with "Smart" Monitors?

[AfaraWayland]

Hi all,

Not many of us have near perfect acoustic representation in our mixing rooms.

I am a firm believer in making an effort to treat a rooms acoustic problems first.

I want to get your thoughts on combining room treatment with these new "smart" monitors. The ones that I know of at this moment are the JBL LSR4328P and the Genelec DSP 8200 series.

Do you think having a combination of the two, that is, room treatment and "smart" monitors would make for a more accurate mix?

[brandondrury]

I'm guessing these "smart" monitors are just using some sort of RTA concept with an EQ. I've seen autoEQ's sound like total nightmares before, but I'll assume that these guys have it together.

From my travels, it seams that just about every real studio still uses a little EQ on the monitors after the room has been treated in an ultra-hardcore fashion.

I've got a gut feeling that the smart monitors will automatically apply a similar EQ. Unfortunately, there are sometimes dips of 20dB or more, so bumping up 60Hz for example an extra 20dB in addition to the loud volumes you may already be listening at would destroy a woofer in no time. So there is no way that they can completely compensate for severe room problems.

However, I bet their system does help a little bit, for whatever that is worth. Then again, my gut says that using a parametric EQ and a good RTA / test mic would probably be better. Maybe not.

Generally, this smart little gadgets don't get used on the ultra big boy level. We'll see though.

Brandon