Sonarworks Reference

Discussion in 'Software' started by anonymouse, Jun 26, 2020.

  1. anonymouse

    anonymouse Platinum Record

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    Ok then, this was me: ready to sell the most thin, sizzling sounding studio headphones on the planet; Beyerdynamic DT880

    I decided, before selling them for the Sennheiser HD 660s or 650, to try Sonarworks Reference 4 and their 880 profile.

    Holy shit. What a miracle. Music actually sounds like how it's intended. It sounds closer to my Neumann KH120a monitors. The bass finally hits my eardrum, the mids give clarity and the highs don't cut my brain like knives anymore.

    What is your experience with this? Is this good enough to continue mixing with a correction profile, or maybe still buy a pair of actually decent out of the box headphones?
     
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  3. shinbeth

    shinbeth Ultrasonic

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    It's amazing. Game changer. Only started to use it in January, I regret not using it before.

    Thinking of getting a 650 HD with individual calibration from Sonarworks website, is it worth the price difference? The normal 650 sounds so flat already.
     
  4. Boosire

    Boosire Producer

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    People are gonna holier than thou about it but it's just perfect when you don't have room for speakers and have to do it all by headphones, i don't have to correct much because it's so neutral/ AKG k702 and this.
     
  5. Peter Gabriel

    Peter Gabriel Platinum Record

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    Useful tool along with Abbey Road Studio 3. Helps alot when you are on the road or can't use monitors in your room.
     
  6. Pule

    Pule Producer

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    I used Sonarworks until I found dSONIQ. Now headphones really sound like a studio. dSONIQ is like Sonarwoks + Abbey Road Studio 3 but much better.
     
  7. Baxter

    Baxter Audiosexual

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    Crutches. When you remove them, you fall. Also, enjoy the latency. :rofl:
     
  8. Ayc

    Ayc Ultrasonic

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    dSONIQ is ... rather shit + vomit!!
    One of the worst sounding plugin in the planet, trying to sell shit at that price is just ridiculus IMO
     
  9. Ayc

    Ayc Ultrasonic

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    I have the same headphones Dt 880 pro and without sonarworks is almost unusable, i can't understand how people recomends these for mixing purposes without any correction with that amount of pircing highs.

    In my case the correction at 100% sounds really bloated in the bass and muddy so after more than 1 year of OCD tweks and changes i'm using these settings:

    Sonarworks Zero Latency works the best for me between 30% or 50% wet at most but before that in the chain i put one instance of Equilibrium (IIR mode) with (-12 db at 11432 hz Q of 2.82 Butterworth filter) finally it sounds really good to me.


    Equilibrium.jpg
     
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2020
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  10. Colin

    Colin Producer

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    Sonarworks is great. It would be a lot better if they could get the latency down, but overall it's a lifesaver.
     
  11. shinbeth

    shinbeth Ultrasonic

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    What latency are you guys even talking about lol, first time I see this being talked about on forums
     
  12. shinbeth

    shinbeth Ultrasonic

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    That's why you should get the Sennheiser if you want neutral flat sound, why do you think Sonarworks themselves are using/calibrating the 650 HD as their flagship reference headphones.

    https://www.sonarworks.com/blog/reviews/sennheiser-hd650-review/

    It’s hard to overstate the importance of the Sennheiser HD650. For Sonarworks this headphone was used to translate a neutral sound from speakers to headphones. They’re also used by our engineering team as reference headphones, so they’re really special to us.
     
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  13. anonymouse

    anonymouse Platinum Record

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    It seems that Sonarworks is actually using the 650 as reference. For the individual calibration, I mean, if you think an extra 2db of accuracy is worth it... then it's worth it.

    Crutches, yes I feel you. Currently it's making the best out of a worse situation. In the end, I want a headphone that delivers a trustworthy sound out of the box, and then as a add-on use sonarworks occasionally. But not ALL the time, as is the case now with the DT880. Completely unusable out of the box.

    Good, in the end, you need to listen for yourself and not take presets for granted.

    There's a reported latency coming from the plugin around 100ms.


    Btw, I'm now using it as Monitoring FX in Reaper. Easy to bypass, never gets rendered.
     
  14. Ceja

    Ceja Ultrasonic

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    I have been using Sonarworks for a while and it did massive improvements when I had mediocre speakers and not the best treated room. In my current room with pretty good speakers and some good treatment the difference isn`t that big anymore, I mostly produce on speakers without it. On headphones it is pretty unuasble. Not sure what happened but with my DT1990 it sucks everything out of the mix, this is not linear, just a dead sound. I tried that with another 1990 from a colleague too, with the same result. For me the headphone callibration just does not work on these headphones. For a mostly untreated room with mediocre speaks Sonarworks is great though.
     
  15. GodHimSelf

    GodHimSelf Platinum Record

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    they are not flat at all, "veil" and some mid-bass mud.
     
  16. shinbeth

    shinbeth Ultrasonic

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    They're the flattest mass market headphones available, it's been proven countless times all over the web through reviews and analysis. Even Sonarworks use them as reference.

    Or name a flatter pair.
     
  17. shinbeth

    shinbeth Ultrasonic

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    2db of accuracy is huge, so yeah it's worth it to me. I will wait until their next sale to grab the calibrated ones.
     
  18. shinbeth

    shinbeth Ultrasonic

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    I've never noticed anything like that using SW, 100 ms is huge - I'd like to see some data because it's the first I hear about this.
     
  19. merko

    merko Member

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    Wow, sounds amazing, how ever did anyone make music without it....

    Lol
     
  20. anonymouse

    anonymouse Platinum Record

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    What do you mean? I've been making music without it for 17 years.
     
  21. Olymoon

    Olymoon MODERATOR Staff Member

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    He was being sarcastic I think.
     
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