radioactive28 0 Report post Posted May 6, 2010 First off, the background to this thread. Situation 1: Was listening to the Chesky Ultimate Demo Disc on my home stereo. Perfect showcase of the stereo's abilities, as well as the various factors that the disc highlighted. Used the same disc for listening on my ER4P, and anything that involved physical dimensionality (soundstage, depth, etc) sounded flat. Situation 2: Played some recent Japanese anime pop over the same home stereo, and I realised they're pretty flat as far as soundstage and depth are concerned. All that space available to the system, but the sound was largely bound to the centre in a single layer. When played through my earphones though, the sound did move about quite lively between L/R, so it looks as though the songs were mastered for something without much soundstage and depth. So I've read that mastering engineers have to work with good monitors, and they should mix for their intended audience/medium. Now, portable listening is very much the norm these days, with the growth of the IEM and MP3 player market. Made me wonder if studios have started taking that into account for mastering, at least for pop music. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
stargazer 0 Report post Posted June 2, 2010 Maybe the Japanese sound engineers live in small houses that's why the sound on home stereo rather falt! (just joking) Different studios master differently, like Telarc labels their sound mastering rather soft , whereas EMI classical is higher as compared! TBM / XRCD labels mastered very well as versus this CD JVC Jazz festival ( a night of Checky Jazz ) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kchew 0 Report post Posted June 3, 2010 Maybe the Japanese sound engineers live in small houses that's why the sound on home stereo rather falt! (just joking) That's not really a joke. Since land area is scarce in Japan, most people live in small apartments so not many people have proper speaker rigs. Headphones and earphones are much more popular, so it makes more sense to master popular mainstream music for them instead of speakers. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites