Walked into a studio that switched from fluorescent tubes to full-spectrum LEDs

They swapped the lights six months ago and now the mixing engineer says he can actually hear the low end without cranking it, has anyone else noticed a difference switching lighting in their control room?

2 comments

2 Comments

eric3597d ago

Not to get too nerdy about it but fluorescent tubes actually flicker at 60hz or 120hz depending on your ballast, that hum can mess with your ear's ability to hear low detail. LEDs give you a clean constant light with no frequency noise bleeding into the room's electrical system. Probably the quiet power is doing more for those low frequencies than the light spectrum itself.

josephf107d ago

Man that really hits home for me. I had the same thing happen in my room a few years back. Swapped out old buzzing fluorescents for some decent LED panels and suddenly my low end felt way more defined. It was like someone took a blanket off my monitors and I could actually hear where my kick and bass were clashing. Eric makes a solid point about the flicker too, I never thought about that 60hz hum bleeding into the power line but it makes perfect sense. That constant electrical noise probably was messing with the whole signal chain without me realizing it. Really glad to hear someone else found that same benefit from just a simple light swap.