http://bruceamiller.us/bamaudioschool/audio_course/00_req.html

One of the course recommendations is: 1. Listening to different music on different systems and considering the differences.

Use this topic to write about the different playback systems and media formats you use to listen to music, and the differences you notice and experience.

Ive listened to my work on different systems alot. I have 5 different systems. My HD200 headphones on my computer, small computer speakers, and 3 hi-fi systems all with totally different room characteristics.
My hi-fi systems arent great sounding although not cheap because of the rooms im guessing. Each hi-fi has different flaws in their sound, which means i can spot certain aspects of my mixes which are wrong which i might not have picked up on with just my HD200 headphones or other hi-fis.
By listening to comercial CDs and getting to "know" your systems then it makes it easier to notice flaws in your mix becuase of flaws in hi-fi/room setups.

My current monitoring setup is my Delta 1010 card into M-Audio SP5B's. The longer I have the M-Audio's, the less I like them. I find I really have to work to get mixes that translate well on them & have a lot of problems getting the midrange right. I plan on upgrading at some point in the future-I tried my friend's Wharfedale 8.2a's out for a weekend & thought they were a noticeable improvement, but its still hard to say if a Wharfedale mix would translate any better than the M-Audio mixes do. I'd like to add a sub that I could turn off & on to check the low end as well. I also have my soundcard running through my home stereo which is a Jolida 40w tube amp & Paradigm Titan bookshelf speakers. I always check my mixes here first since the stereo image is much more clear on them & I get a better idea of what's going on in the low frequencies. Then I'll burn a cd & take it to the car-this is where I listen to music the most, so I can usually spot problems here easy. I also have cheap boomboxes at home & at work I can check them out on-a lot of times reverb & effects will be much more noticeable on these for some reason.

At home I'm using a mackie 1202 mixer with M-Audio BX8 monitors. Right now I'm in between soundcards.
At work I listen on an old 882 Mix system with Tannoy System 12 Monitors and a Yamaha 03D mixer.
Then of course, I've got headphones and my car stereo (stock Honda speakers!)

I haven't had a real stereo system for years. It's mostly been either listening on fairly high-end studio monitors, or else the lo-fi route on boomboxes and on car stereos. We still have a cassette player in one of our cars, and I gotta say the tapes still sound really good.

I spend a lot of my time listening to MP3's and streaming internet radio. And I hear a lot of music on TV, which is so compressed I often hear the vocals ducking with the kick drum.

I've got some vinyl LP's here, and I'd like to get a good turntable and hook it up to my studio system and get back to listening to records.

Just built a new system with a Asus A8V Deluxe motherboard with a K8T800 prochipset with a 64x2 4400 dual core processor. I'm using a LynxTwo C soundcard with Cubase SX. I have Truth monitors for nearfields, a 16 channel analog mixer and various other equipment, mics, guitars etc.

You may find a certain combination of speakers and amp will show ugly parts of your mix that will be hidden on "nice" speakers. I had an old stereo in college and still had it when I started mixing. I would bring home mixes I liked and then HATE them when listening on the crappy system I knew.

I eventually found a pair of speakers that sounded AS BAD as my college stereo and that helped me to clean up my mixes.

Mixing on "good" monitors is important, but how many consumers will listen in the same conditions? Your mix must sound good on bad speakers...it's that simple. Most people will hear your mix from the next room, or with a large plant obscuring the sound from one speaker or even with the left speaker in a different room from the right speaker!

I always listen to my mixes on my main monitors, then a variety of boom boxes (complete with mega bass and every other button turned on) and then from another room. When the mix passes that test, I sometimes go to Price Club or BJs and listen to a CD of the mix on every stereo and boom box they are displaying. I keep going until I hear something WRONG.

Of course, the CD with the song I "test" at stereo stores also has songs I normally reference to when mixing...for perspective.

-B

Here is a quick off-topic story that I was reminded of when writing about "plants placed in front of speakers" in peoples' homes:

I was doing live sound for David Sanborn at the Blue Note and during the sound check everything was perfect. Unfortunately, when the band started to play the organ sounded very muddy. I was pulling my hair out at the board and between songs ran to check the mic.

I found that the person sitting at the table by the leslie had put her large purse IN BETWEEN the microphone and the leslie, which was amazing considering the mic was only INCHES away from the leslie. I politely told her to please leave her purse someplace else then ran back and mixed the rest of the show without any problems.

-B

I usually listen to final products or semi-final products on my Mk2's, headphones, then online through my generic comp speakers, through a little boom-box and in the car.

i recently stole a set of craptacular speakers from an old ghetto blaster i carried on the road..
plastic boxes, with 3" drivers..
but it was a panasonic, and actually sounded quite good..
i'm going to get a a/b switch for my regular monitoring system, to bring those little suckers in for comparing mixes..

my monitors are KRK rokits, which do a good job for what they are...driven by a hafler TA-1000 power amp.

my home system is a Samsung dvd/cd player through a yamaha natural sound system pushing a pair of older Infinity Research Standards, and they pretty much kick ass.
i have a matched cassette deck in this system as well, that i sometimes use....

i can burn to cdr straight from my roland recorder, and then rip wav's from the cdr's at work, to burn multiples of that...

i use my RCA Lyra 2012 mp3 player a lot...
i rip 320kbps mp3's from my cdr's (using musicmatch jukebox or audacity or audiograbber)..
spend a lot of time listening this way.
i've got some sony earbuds as well as sony mdr w20b phones, that offer a pretty good low end..
sony car stereo in the truck...

I wanna hear that craptacular setup!

Any boom box with a "line in" that you can monitor through while mixing instead of listening to burned CDS is GOLD.

Try to have a really cheap small one and also a hyped up mega bass one.

-B

yeah!
it'd be cool, to purchase one of those cheap, big boxes they sell to put in the back window of your chevelle...

LOL

for a low end tweak...

i'll have to remember to get a digital shot this weekend, of my craptaculars.

I like listening on "BAD" speakers at home. I listen with this Sony boombox I have at home. I find that when I'm at home my mood is different.
I listen more as a consumer would listen. Does the music make me want to move? I walk away into the kitchen alot and listen for things within the music which catch my attention when I'm not really directly listening. We routinely listen to our mixes at the studio outside in car systems. I also go around to my friend's and listen on their stereo systems. I pay particular attention to the vocals. I think that once you know the lyric to a song, you need the perspective of someone who is not familiar with the song to really know whether or not the song's message is coming across correctly or not. I listen on headphones at home a lot while we are in the tracking phase but, I also still listen to my trusty boombox.

I monitor with my Mackie 624s but always AB them against my mono Auratone. I can usually tell if a snare's too loud or a vocals sticking out too much. I also listen to mixes upstairs in the family room on my home stereo with JBL 4408s. My small Infinity computer speakers also give me a reference. So that's four speaks. Then there's the car stereos. I've been using the "listen in another room" trick for years. Sometimes I have to listen while the wife's doing laundry. Don't want to but---I have to.

Additionaly, I've kept and added to my 1500 album collection which I listen to on a Technics turntable. Bought it in 1977 and it's still going strong(just changed the cartrige).

I've got my studio monitors, but also a pair of aiwa porta system speakers that I hook up also.

I have a gaming computer with 7.1 speakers, and a home theatre,2 cars, and about 4 pairs of headphones I regularly listen on.

When something sounds close on all those systems, I know the master will come back perfectly.

While activley mixing I often bounce back and forth between my Yamah NS10's and my Audio Technica M30's (reference headphones). I try not to spend to much time on the M30's...mostly, I use them to help with stereo placement and applying reverb. Once I feel a mix is close, I stream it to my Delta 1010 sound card and listen on a pair of powered 8" Edifier monitors (surpisingly "Nice"). I have the ouputs from the 1010 running all over the studio to different systems ("Nice and not so "Nice"). 1 of those systems uses a pair of tiny Cambridge Soundworks speakers and a sub. I never was a fan of referencing with a sub but it helps me out a lot when I use to check a mix.

I've only got the one set in my studio to monitor on. Afetr them...it's the car, truck. home stereo, computer with crappy speakers and a couple sets of headphones.

eh...

The more speakers you check, the better. Even if you have to burn CDs to do so, you need to find out problems BEFORE the mix is released!

I had just done a prelim mix of a song my wife and I were working on and brought it down to the living room to listen. We have a very nice Onkyo/Infinity/Cambridge Audio system, and something wasn't 'quite right'. When my wife came home we went out into her Pathfinder and tried it. Too loud, WAY too much bass content, not enough upper end.

Remixed, time to try out the boom box!

Don't forget mono.