Category Archives: Music

M-Audio BX8a vs Yamaha HS80m

I just spent the afternoon comparing a pair of BX8a’s versus HS80m’s and the conclusion was simple: I now own a pair of Yamahas.

This is as unpaid as a review gets, by the way 🙁

Simply put, the Yamahas are better.

The boxes are roughly equal in the bass end in terms of frequency response and woofer flappage (there’s some on both if you push them right). But since the Yamahas have a variable low cut filter switch, they win in the low end.

Its in the higher mids and high end that the Yamahas really showed their superiority. Comparing the two sets side by side with a Korg SV-1, it sounded like the M-Audio’s were playing through a thick cloth or as though my ears were full of wax. By contrast, the Yamahas were clear, revealing all kinds of detail that was completely invisible on the BX8a’s.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I tried out a lot of other monitors in the price range and the BX8a’s were still preferable to many others (like smaller Yamahas, Dynaudio, Behringer, Yorkville, KRK).  But comparing 8″ boxes side by side, the price difference for me completely disappeared once I heard them both in action.

If you’re considering getting a pair of BX8a’s, I’d recommend that you spend some time comparing these side by side too. Monitor selection on a budget is more art than science, but I’d say that you owe it to yourself to compare 8″ apples to apples before taking the cheaper BX8a’s home.

M-Audio BX8a Pros:

  • Price
  • Decent sound

Yamaha HS80m Pros:

  • Better sound
  • What else matters?

A Really Good Question

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.00 each.
This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:
If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing some of the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

Musician’s Mind

This is a test to see if the musician’s mind works in a similar fashion when analyzing regular language as it does when analyzing complex wave patterns, performing hyper-speedy logarithmic calculations, collapsing a mess of vibrations via Fourier analysis / Shenkerian reductionism on-the-fly, all while also in the midst of complex synchronous compression-wave generation (all together, commonly known as “being musical.”)

To test your own mental predisposition, quickly read through the follow text and see what message you come up with.  Do you think like a musician or not?

—-
The phaonmneal pweor of a msuicains mnid, aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.
The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae a muiscain’s mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
—-
It’s pretty interesting – I’ve showed this to musicians and everyone gets it immediately.  In contrast, non-musicians have trouble at first, but eventually get it.