Sounding Board

Terry Medwedyk of Group One Acoustics was out to the studio bright and early Saturday morning. He came onsite to do a preliminary assessment of the control room and to confirm some of the room measurements.

I have two monitor systems in the control room. One system is a set of JBL 4412 studio monitors. The 4412 is a 3-way monitor with a 12”? woofer, 5”? mid-range and titanium tweeter. The speaker is designed for applications requiring maximum low frequency output from a semi-nearfield sized monitor. The JBLs are driven by a Hafler P3000 power amp direct. There are no processors in the chain. And the speakers are soffit-mounted.

The second system is a set of Tannoy PBM6.5 two-way nearfield monitors. They are driven direct by an NAD power amp. The speakers sit on top of the console.

As part of his due diligence he sighted the speaker placement and alignment. The soffit-mounted JBLs are out of alignment. Not by much but enough to be sonically material. The Tannoy’s were badly out of alignment. Terry lent me some sight mirrors to make the appropriate adjustments. He also left me some material to float the Tannoys to decouple them from the console.

It looks as though the room shape is fine. Some acoustic treatments should help smooth out the room. We also debated an equalizer in the monitor chain to handle any other fine-tuning of the room’s performance.

I should get a first cut of his recommendations in a couple of weeks.