Audio sounded fine in cans, but no low end on playback

[Noah Kadner]

Part of your problem is noise canceling headphones. These are completely inaccurate for monitoring production sound and should never be used. They totally mess up frequencies which is why it now sounds nothing like what you heard initially. Use the standards- Sony MDRV6 or similar for flat, accurate monitoring. As for fixing that up for your laptop speakers, which are also pretty terrible for accuracy- I’d suggest a little post EQ filtering and you’ll be all set.

Noah

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[Arun Marsh]

Thanks Noah, I’ll definitely go back to cans for monitoring. I’m just perplexed as to why changing to this cable (fresh out of the box) made the sound so different.

If you listen to the two clips it really is strange – on phones (even Ipod phones) they both sound pretty similar. Yet on laptop speakers they are completely different!

I guess as you say this is to do with frequencies.

One more point – I bought the cable from a (high end) music store would this be different to the cable I would get from an AV store?

The only reason I want it to sound good on laptop speakers is because that is how most people will listen to the finished video.

Will have a tinker on the EQ to try and improve.

Thanks again for responding.

[Arun Marsh]

Quick update, just listened to this through my hi-fi speakers and it sounds fine, so it’s only the speakers on my MacBook Pro which are producing a noticeable difference between the two clips.

As Noah pointed out prob something to do with frequencies.

[Ty Ford]

Arun,

To hear low frequencies, you need to move a lot of air. Laptop speakers aren’t big enough, period. There are a few systems that have designed enclosures to fake the low end, but they are usually not very accurate.

Regards,

Ty Ford
Forum Leader

Cow Audio Forum Leader
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[Arun Marsh]

Thanks Ty, I know laptop speakers are poor. I just don’t understand why one clip can sounds ok on laptop speakers (test2)and one sound so awful, when in the head phones they both sound similar.

One more clue in this mystery, when I use Audio/pan center on the good clip (test 2) it makes little difference. yet when i do the same to the poor audio it gets noticibly worse/quieter. Not sure if this indicates what the problem might be.

[André Engelhardt]

Hi Arun,

in adition to what’s been said already, test 1 is out of phase. Could be a polarity problem with the cable you’ve used.

—
Audio Engineer, Sound Designer
Video- and Photographer
http://www.andreengelhardt.net

[Arun Marsh]

Thanks Andre, is it possible to correct a phasing issue in post with the likes of final cut?

Does this polarity issue mean the cable is faulty or just incorrect for my needs?

thanks for any extra thoughts.
Arun

[Arun Marsh]

UPDATE! Thanks to Andre noticing the phasing I just deleted the right channel and copy and pasted the left channel underneath, this solution is fine for my needs producing a video for web.

Thanks to all who replied, particularly Andre for noticing the phasing as this is was the key problem.

Arun

[Ty Ford]

Arun,

I don’t know that FCP has a polarity reverse feature for individual tracks. It may.

As previously suggested you may have a cable wired pine 3 hot and one wired pin 2 hot. Pin 2 hot is the convention, although there are a few companies who fail to recognize it.

Regards,

Ty Ford
Audio Forum Leader

Cow Audio Forum Leader
Want better production audio?: Ty Ford’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide