The Art and Evolution of Studio Monitoring
My journey as a sound engineer
By Frans de Rond, engineer Sound Liaison
When I began my career as a recording engineer in the early 1990s, I was trained with a clear principle: a studio monitor should not color the sound. It should reproduce music with as flat and accurate a frequency response as possible. The idea was simple, if you mix on a neutral system, your recordings will translate well to any playback environment.
Back then, active studio monitors were becoming increasingly popular. They were compact, had built-in amplifiers, and often came with EQ adjustments to compensate for less-than-ideal placement, whether on stands behind the mixing desk or even perched on the meter bridge.
The Genelec Era
In the early part of my professional journey, Genelec monitors dominated the studio landscape. Their distinctive cast-aluminum, curved enclosures around the tweeter and midrange drivers were unmistakable. Many engineers used them, and so I did too. I mixed on Genelecs for years, and they served me well.
But then came a turning point.
Discovering the world of High-End Audio
In the late ’90s, I visited Rhapsody (High End Audio Shop) in Hilversum to purchase a pair of “better” hi-fi speakers for personal listening. That’s where I met Harry van Dalen and Michael van Polen. Harry, the owner and a passionate advocate for high-end audio, challenged my entire belief system about studio monitoring. He argued that most studio monitors were fundamentally limited in their ability to reproduce music in a truly lifelike way.
At that time, I dismissed it. I had never experienced truly high-end listening, so I couldn’t understand what I was supposedly missing. What you don’t know, you don’t miss, yet.
Years later, I found myself back at Rhapsody, and this time Harry’s words resonated differently. Harry invited me to start listening differently. He fine-tunes high-end audio systems with deep technical expertise and an extraordinary ear for detail. His work extracts not only the best possible sound but also the full emotional impact of music. What he achieves in home setups is often far beyond what you hear in the average studio. He challenged me to listen in a more audiophile way, to recognize that there is so much more. That was something I had to literally learn to hear. He played me many records to illustrate what he was talking about. The seed was planted.
A new dimension in the studio
A few years later, the first speakers that arrived in my studio was a set of Grimm LS1. For the first time in my studio life, I was not only aware of left, center, and right, I now also became aware of depth. A three-dimensional stage unfolded in front of me.
This was my first true step into high-end monitoring. Later, I added two subwoofers to the system. The increased detail, depth, and musicality were transformative.
During this period, my friendship with Harry and Michael from Rhapsody deepened. We spent countless hours listening to recordings, discussing sound, emotional impact, mix balance, and the use of reverb. I began to understand how home listeners experience a recording, not just technically, but also emotionally. I slowly integrated these insights into my own recording and mixing work.
More than 2 dimensions
Becoming aware of depth in sound reproduction has had a profound influence on my work as a sound engineer. Once I began to truly hear not just left and right, but the front-to-back dimension of a recording, I started approaching my recordings and mixes differently. It changed how I think about microphone placement, balance, and the use of space in a mix.
This awareness also played a major role in my exploration of the one-mic recording technique, where capturing depth is always at the heart of the process. With only a single stereo microphone, there is no place to hide: the balance, the acoustics, and the sense of space must be captured as they truly are. It is both a challenge and an inspiration, and it has become a cornerstone of my philosophy in recording.
For the music listener, depth in the soundstage is not a luxury; it’s essential. A well-recorded piece of music should present not only width, left and right, but also a clearly defined sense of front and back. This depth allows the ear to separate instruments naturally, as if they occupy their own space in the room. It translates the music into a more lifelike and emotionally engaging experience. Without it, the sound can feel flat, congested, or artificial.
A clearly defined soundstage is what transforms listening from hearing a recording to experiencing a performance. The listener can sense where the singer is positioned, how far back the piano sits and how the added reverb shapes the space around the instruments. When the stage is precise and layered, the music becomes more than sound, it becomes an environment you can step into.
For me as an engineer, creating this depth is one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of recording. For the audiophile listener, it is often the difference between “good sound” and a truly moving, immersive musical experience.
The move to MCO – TAD Compact Evolution One
When I relocated to Studio 2 at MCO, I had the chance to work with TAD Compact Evolution One speakers. These monitors pushed my listening skills further. They revealed micro-details and imaging precision that made it possible to evaluate both the technical and musical aspects of a mix simultaneously.
This phase marked an important shift in my approach: I started making smaller, more deliberate change, especially with microphone placement, to shape the sound before it ever hit the mixing desk.
The Linkwitz LX521 – A new level of 3D imaging
This year, Frank Brenner, the owner of Linkwitz, gave me the opportunity to add LX521 dipole speakers to my monitoring setup alongside the TAD's. Dipole speakers have an extraordinary ability to create a three-dimensional soundstage. Through them, instruments gain an almost touchable realism. Adjusting the tone of a recording feels more like reshaping the instrument itself than tweaking EQ.
The level of realism is so compelling that it changes how I interact with the music during recording and mixing. It’s not just a technical process anymore, it’s a deeply creative and emotional experience.
Lessons learned from a lifetime of listening
My journey through the evolution of studio monitoring has taught me that great recordings are about more than just frequency response charts and distortion measurements. They’re about connecting the listener to the performance in the most direct and authentic way possible.
Working with high-end speakers like Grimm LS1, TAD Compact Evolution One and the Linkwitz LX521, has expanded my understanding of what is possible in recording, mixing, and mastering. It has made me more sensitive to the emotional cues in music and more deliberate in how I capture and present them.
The ongoing journey
Studio monitoring is not a static science; it’s an evolving art. The more I listen, the more I refine my process. Every upgrade, every listening session, every discussion with fellow audio enthusiasts brings me a step closer to creating recordings that not only sound accurate, but feel alive.
At Sound Liaison, we strive to deliver that experience to our listeners: recordings where the technical precision of the studio meets the emotional truth of the performance.
After all, in the end, it’s not about the speakers. It’s about the music.
www.soundliaison.com