There are a lot of pro audio products in this month’s issue. It’s December, after all, and year-end lists are one of the long-standing staples of journalism, whether it’s the “Top 10 Films of the Year,” “2024’s Best Backpacks,” or “5 Great Hikes to Try Before the End of the Year.”
We do the same at Mix, though admittedly many of the products in our pages don’t necessarily fit into a nice roundup of “8 Great Stocking Stuffers for Under $100” Over the years, we’ve discovered that it’s difficult, particularly when talking about professional audio products, to come up of a “Top 20” or “Best Of” list. It’s not because of a lack of new products; there are plenty every year, and there is evident quality in engineering design and function across the board. It’s not that some microphones aren’t “better” than others, or that one EQ plug-in doesn’t stand out above another. We could make our picks and write that kind of story.
No, it’s difficult to come up with product lists and ratings for two main reasons. First, the pro audio industry is spread across dozens of markets, each with different needs and preferences. Think about it. Music recording and mixing, film and television sound design, video game editing, concert sound, installed sound, system integration, audio education, theatrical sound design and playback, corporate presentation, special venue sound, house of worship, studio design and acoustics, audio restoration and archiving, mastering, streaming audio, consumer playback, audio wellness…the list goes on and on.
Audio, in some way, enters nearly all aspects of our lives, and each audio market is worthy of its own list. At Mix, we primarily cover high-end audio production for recording, live sound and sound for picture. It’s not entirely fair to pit a $10,000 single-channel compressor against a $79 dB meter, though each might be considered a “best” product. It’s just too much of an apples-to-oranges comparison to weigh in on.
The second reason has to do with the audio industry itself, and its unique, highly subjective relationship with both new products and new technologies. In 35 years at Mix, I’ve seen a lot of technologies come and go, and I’ve seen long-term trends that slowly build and eventually morph into, say, “immersive sound” or “artificial intelligence.” Tangentially, I’ve watched video’s jump from recording on tape and playing back on CRT to digital capture and 8K delivery. I’ve also lived in the Bay Area all that time and witnessed the multiple booms and busts as the Internet grew rapidly from web to mobile, from download to streaming. From the outside, looking in, audio is different.
There is no nostalgia or workflow integration in video for a black and white display (read: vinyl) or in Silicon Valley for 8-bit storage and emulation (read: analog re-creations). In pro audio, an 80-year-old microphone can easily sell for five figures on the used market, and if a 50-year-old console was once owned by a rock star? That would be six figures, or even seven. At industry dinners or small gatherings, when the conversation is in danger of lagging, I sometimes ask the question: “Can you think of any other industry that has such reverence for old technology?” Most often I see a lot of puzzled faces.
The audio industry has a unique relationship with technology. Many of the best-selling plug-ins today are emulations, models or re-creations of analog gear from decades ago. Amps, mics, speakers, tape machines, processors, you name it, they’re all now in software. But many engineers still have a fondness for hardware, so the industry responds with “digitally controlled analog.” Still others want the original unit, as you’ll find in this issue’s second feature story, where Reed Black in Brooklyn proudly features his Studer A800 analog tape machine, which he says is put to use “at least once a week.”
All of this has to do with the way we hear. I understand that. Biologically speaking, analog-based sound is “warmer” or “more pleasing” to the human ear, but that doesn’t negate the fact that people who like sound are highly subjective individuals when it comes to judging audio quality. Talk to an engineer about favorite microphones or preferred studio monitors, and you’ll find that out. A video editor might change display monitors once a year; an audio engineer might hold on to a pair of studio monitors for a couple of decades.
Audio professionals, I’ve found, possess a unique and elevated left-brain/right-brain interaction, one that allows them to dive into the minutiae of a software setting while at the same time writing and recording a song. They excel at what I refer to as “the interplay of technology and talent,” and they tend to hear both the forest and the trees. Each and every one of them has their own relationship with both new gear and new technologies.
That’s why instead of a year-end “Best Of” or “Top 25” list, we polled a few of our longtime Mix contributors and reviewers and asked them to select their “Must Have” products of the year. Every engineer is different and every engineer likes what they like. As it should be.
Happy Holidays to each and every one of you.
