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studio equipment that makes it into home hifi

In recent years I have begun to take more notice of professional/studio hifi gear. Really ever since i got the Yamaha NS1000 my attention turned. Amongst other well known studio products that have managed to cross over into home audio is the Technics Sp-10 turntable rogers ls3/5a, revox equipment, etc. And hey a lot of these ended up being classics!

What's more they often seem to cost a lot less than home audio and sound very accurate and neutral. For example I picked up the Yamaha P3200 power amp for $150. Built like a tank, I was not expecting much from this warhorse. What the hell at 500w per channel they were only to be used to drive subwoofers. I put it into my smaller second home rig replacing the Jadis DA7 and driven by a valve preamp. Was I in for a surprise. It was subtle fast had good transparency and soundstaging and equal detail to the Jadis. Its bottom end as you would imagine was wonderfully taut deep and powerful. I was very pleasantly surprised. Only let down was a raggedness at the top end and it missed the last few ounces of tonal purity. BUT in no way did it sound cold sterile or hard, quite the opposite it was emotionally very engaging.

Has anyone any other studio products that can be used in home hifi systems even high end systems and look good???
audiojoy4
musicslug
430 posts
 
mackie SA1521 powered speakers. heavy wood cabinets (not plastic, like the popular SRM450s). 2-way: 15" driver and a very un-horn-sounding horn. top-to-bottom, natural, powerful (these will go LOUD) sound. you can get them used for about $800 each. the downsides would be that they aren't pretty furniture and they're not good for near-field listening, having been designed for live events. if you don't need phono, you could get an older Mackie mixer for a pre-amp ($150 used) - absolutely clean and neutral sound, and, of course, a perfect match for the speakers.
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,467 posts
 
ATC, PMC, Harbeth, JBL, Dynaudio, NHT in speakers
Bryston, Crown, Chord, Manley, Meitner in amps
Meitner, Apogee, Alesis, Denon, Marantz in sources
Behringer ( popular low cost choice in PEQ for room modes )
Seinnheiser, AKG in Headphones
Monster, Shunyata, Van den Hull, Mogami, MIT in cables

...to name just a few.
cwlondon
1,210 posts
 
I agree, and I have been delighted using both ATC speakers and Behringer gear.

At some point, however, this thread will no doubt prompt a rash of complaints disclosing reliability issues, ear bleeding distortion, fire hazards, and the ruin of the US economy.

In the meantime, I have had no complaints or problems despite daily use at home and in my office.
audiojoy4 OP
98 posts
 
Shadorne in the Uk most of the professional studio engineers would apart from the first four speakers and the bryston and the behringer probably wouldn't have a clue what the other makes were! A lot of them dont even know much about the Linn sondek let alone about the fact that cables have actual makers names on them.

Also i was thinking in terms of equipment purely designed for studio use and not tweaked for home use. Do a lot of the makers you mention actually build to differing standards for home use or studio use - different designers etc?
chadeffect
586 posts
 
The thing to remember is just like domestic hifi studio gear comes in a different price levels.

Just to say studio engineers use this or that can be misleading. A studio engineer in a project or budget studio uses this or that, but would much rather be using XXX if the studio could afford it!

The famous Yamaha NS10 studio monitors and 100m monitors were used at the time (late 80s & 90s) by everyone because it was a sound everyone knew. It was rubbish, and everyone hated them, but if you could get a mix to sound good on them it usually meant it would sound good on anything else. They were impossible to judge low bass on though. You still see them everywhere but not many people use them as a first choice now.
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