Is it worth buying studiomonitors with my current setup?

[Spiritos]

As I'm fairly new to electronic music poduction I have a question about monitors.

Currently I have a setup of and Edirol UA-25 external soundcard routed to a Harman Kardon HK 640 (2 x 100W) amplifier with 2 Mission 753 speakers.

I use this setup mainly to play music from my PC and for that the soundquality is excellent but as I'm now using it for musicproduction I'm wondering if I should buy actual active monitors.

My pricerange is somewhere between 150 and 200 euros (for a pair) and given this financial limitation my question is if it's worth the investment?

I know in general Hifi-speakers colour the sound and that's why one would need monitors but given the fact I have an (from a consumers pov) old but pretty high-end amplifier and speakerset I wonder if I wouldn't drop in quality if I were to purchase monitors within the given pricerange.

Furthermore I only record softsynths with the occasional acoustic or electric guitar on a Win7 64x PC with Sonar X2.

[kritikon]

I use this setup mainly to play music from my PC and for that the soundquality is excellent but as I'm now using it for musicproduction I'm wondering if I should buy actual active monitors.

If you're happy with your amp and speakers, then no. Active monitors per se aren't better then passive ones - it all depends on the quality of the amp. Personally I've always had very good HiFi amps and I've found them better then the general amps in active monitors. I also actively dislike having separate volume controls on active monitors. I always thought it was a silly idea as it's almost impossible to accurately match the volumes, and sometimes for me it's very important to have exactly the same volume L=R. Others obviously manage OK but I never liked it.

My pricerange is somewhere between 150 and 200 euros (for a pair) and given this financial limitation my question is if it's worth the investment?

Probably not. At that price range, "studio monitors" are pretty much exactly the same quality as "HiFi speakers". There's a load of BS spread about muso forums about Studio monitors being something different than HiFi speakers. Decent quality in either are about accurately reproducing sound, story ends. That old myth about speakers colouring the sound is redundant above a certain quality point. In actual fact there are some HiFi speakers that are better than the price-equivalent studio monitors. Just slapping a "studio monitor" moniker on a set of speakers is an excuse to charge an extra 1 or 2 hundred. And musicians fall for it so easily. You know what bookshelf speakers are by another name? Nearfields. For sure, cheap crap is crap and always will be, but just because of the market and sales numbers, HiFi will generally cost you less for same quality.

I know in general Hifi-speakers colour the sound and that's why one would need monitors but given the fact I have an (from a consumers pov) old but pretty high-end amplifier and speakerset I wonder if I wouldn't drop in quality if I were to purchase monitors within the given pricerange.

Furthermore I only record softsynths with the occasional acoustic or electric guitar on a Win7 64x PC with Sonar X2

See above. It's usually a myth, in that studio monitors also colour the sound - especially at the price point you mention, you will not buy a pair of "flat" speakers. As to what you're recording, it's always nice to have decent monitoring whatever you record, whether that be s/w or h/w. There's a lot to be said for knowing a pair of speakers well - if you've had them for years you know how they colour the sound. If you buy a new set of cheap studio monitors you just have to go through the whole process of learning how they colour the sound, and they may be worse than the ones you already have.[/quote]

[Spiritos]

Thanks for your elaborate response.

I kinda' figured the pricerange of monitors I can afford wouldn't improve my current soundquality.
One more thing I was worried about was that I read the hifi speakers wouldn't be able the occuring sudden change in dynamics.
Maybe you could defuse that fear as well?

I did notice on occasion the sound would overdrive on levels that don't give me any troubles when playing regular audiofiles from my music collection. Or is this a matter of proper EQing in my DAW?

[BertKoor]

I did notice on occasion the sound would overdrive on levels that don't give me any troubles when playing regular audiofiles from my music collection. Or is this a matter of proper EQing in my DAW?

That sounds like you were clipping the main channel.

Your collection contains only mastered material, which is heavily compressed & limited. While producing your own tracks, there is no compression & limiting yet, so if you reach the same level then you are going passed the 0dBfs clipping level of the DAC.

It is not advisable to have a limiter on the master channel (well some people do nevertheless) but better raise the volume on the amp a bit and lower the master fader.

[soundklinik]

I have a very similar (Amp/speaker) setup to yours which I liked.
One day when my home theater amp (TV system) blew up, I hooked up an active subwoofer to my studio/PC system and it stayed.

It really improved the sound, it only takes the strain off the Lows/mids and if you adjust it subtly, it is excellent, without muffling or muddying the sound.

BTW I looked up the specs on your Mission 753s and you would need to spend a lot of money to get noticeable results.

[kritikon]

One more thing I was worried about was that I read the hifi speakers wouldn't be able the occuring sudden change in dynamics.
Maybe you could defuse that fear as well?

Pretty well ditto what Bert said. That's far more likely to be uneven levels in your mixes, not the speakers. As for HiFi speakers - I've never noticed any difference in dynamics handling between any I've had and any studio monitors I've had. There might be some spec differences in some, but probably not anything you or I would actually notice.
And I suspect some people wrongly believe drums etc can destroy their speakers - you might want to be careful if you're recording real live drums, but most electronic musicians will never have heard what real drums actually sound like recorded bare with no compression etc. I've never heard any sample sets that haven't already been strongly tamed already by comps etc. Every breakbeat you can get has already been heavily processed. And the vast majority of synths aren't going to create the kind of strong dynamics that a drum kit can give you. Of course there are exceptions - I never have my MC202 at any kind of high level until I know what I'm doing with it - turn up the res and turn down the frequency on those little buggers and you can shred a speaker. BUt for every day use, most electronic gear is reasonably safe unless you're doing something foolish. And even when you're doing something silly, you're going to blow a mixing channel or overdrive a soundcard before the speaker goes. (I've blown 2 sets of speakers, so obviously I'm no stranger to being a complete dick myself too )


One thing I'd add is the power handling of your amp - I dunno the specs, but there's certainly a case that having HiFi speakers and amp is a bit more likely to get you doing daft things like blowing cones. Not because of any inherent fault in the amp or speakers, simply because it's pretty common for people to have speakers that they think match the amp - i.e. the speakers say they'll give you 100W output or whatever, so you buy a 100W amp. Now it's unlikely you'd be playing an amp at max at that kind of level anyway, but sometimes it's nice to crank it up, and most amps will distort before they even get to number 10 on the volume knob. And there are plenty of amps that will only give you 40 or 60W. (truth be told even that is way louder than you should be monitoring for serious mixing). And distorting amps blow speakers. I was always told back in the day that your speakers should be able to take at least double what your amp can output, and never ever ever turn your amp up to full. In fact, having myself blown speakers before by turning up a low powered amp, I now never go past 2/3 volume on any amp. If you can't get your amp to play as loudly as you want, then buy a more powerful amp, don't push the weak one. Never play at max or close to it.

Supposedly active speakers have closely matched amps, so they should in theory be less likely to blow, but again I'd say it'd be a silly thing to risk it by constantly turning even active speakers up to near full.

Unless you play at silly volumes, rest easy knowing you won't destroy your speakers. Certainly not because of dynamics in your music.

[tomtoo]

I prefer to mix with small speakers couse the more base you have in your room the more the room plays a big role.

Digital clipping can kill a tweeter very fast. So mix gently on the digital side.

So imho for your budget i would stay with what i have.