Nick’s Home Studio is an emulation of the home studio belonging to a dSONIQ team member. It represents a typical living space without acoustic treatment, equipped with compact Neumann KH80 monitors and a JBL Go 3 Bluetooth speaker.

A few adjustments to the furniture and monitor placement helped achieve optimal sound in an untreated room.

However, due to the lack of acoustic treatment and limited low-frequency response starting at 61 Hz, this monitoring setup cannot be considered reference quality.

Room acoustics always influence the sound, and it’s nearly impossible to achieve a flat frequency response in a home setting, as seen in manufacturer measurements.

According to our users’ feedback, this emulation is helpful for those who want to recreate a familiar acoustic environment of a home studio in headphones. It can help users adapt to the Realphones professional studio emulations, which might sound too dry and unfamiliar to new users accustomed to the pronounced reflections typically found in untreated home studios.

Bluetooth emulates a popular compact Bluetooth speaker. Some sound engineers call them the “Auratones of the 21st century.”

While small home audio systems were once the standard for everyday listening, Bluetooth speakers have now taken their place, making it crucial to test your mix on such devices.

This emulation not only limits the low frequencies but also “pushes back” the sound, blurring details. It’s an excellent stress test for the midrange frequencies, which are the key to mix translation. Vocals and the main elements of the arrangement reside in this range. If the midrange isn’t sufficiently focused, the mix loses clarity, and listeners won’t experience it as intended.

The Bluetooth emulation helps ensure that essential elements are not lost when transitioning from studio conditions to real-world listening.

Mix is an emulation of the mixing engineer’s workspace, set up according to studio guidelines for monitor placement. A common practice in many home studios is to position speakers as far apart as possible, aiming for a wider and more impressive sound. However, for better detail, it’s important to remain within the critical distance — where direct sound energy exceeds reflected energy. These recommendations are followed in Nick’s Home Studio, so the sound may feel less wide compared to other home studios.

Although the acoustic system sounds neutral, reflections from the desk and furniture add a resonant character in the 2–4.5 kHz and 14–18 kHz ranges.

If you tend to boost vocals and high frequencies too much, use this emulation to double-check for excessive elements in these areas.

Far is an emulation of the same speaker system but from a distant listening point, located significantly away from the mixing engineer’s workspace. This adds a multimedia and consumer-like character to the sound, revealing how the mix will be perceived in an untreated room at high volumes.

Far offers a zoomed-out perspective on the mix, emphasizing the room’s influence, particularly in the low-frequency range. This mode is ideal for testing your mix under real-world listening scenarios where untreated room acoustics heavily impact the sound.

The Nick’s Home Studio emulation set is not a professional reference monitoring tool. However, it offers several valuable features.

For those accustomed to working in home studios, it provides an opportunity to recreate a familiar acoustic environment and adapt to working with Realphones in headphones.

Additionally, it’s a great tool for testing mixes under different listening scenarios in a living space.

The dSONIQ team and the emulations they create are not affiliated, endorsed, or licensed by Neumann and JBL.