Who uses which monitor speakers?

[nuffink]

Every body seems to be happy with his monitors...

I'm using a pair of Alesis Monitor Two's at the mo. Not for much longer though. They're shit.

Did you find them to be too bass heavy as well? I went with the Monitor One's instead.

Devon

Boom and tizz machines. The (undamped) cabinets put out more energy than the drivers. The crossover's designed to integrate the (cheap and nasty) drivers at about 2000 miles and the port's tuned far too low.
Not too impressed with the monitor ones either.

[arrakeen]

Blue Sky System One 2.1 here.

http://www.abluesky.com

There are some baby blues coming real soon... might have suited me better in my ickle room! Might suit you? $600 retail for 2.1 system - full range monitoring guaranteed.

Don't do much music these days, making sound effects all day long. Ozric Tentacles new album sounds the dogs on the System One though. Super neat bass.

[DevonB]

Every body seems to be happy with his monitors...

I'm using a pair of Alesis Monitor Two's at the mo. Not for much longer though. They're shit.

Did you find them to be too bass heavy as well? I went with the Monitor One's instead.

Devon

Boom and tizz machines. The (undamped) cabinets put out more energy than the drivers. The crossover's designed to integrate the (cheap and nasty) drivers at about 2000 miles and the port's tuned far too low.
Not too impressed with the monitor ones either.

But why did you go with mid fields instead of near fields though?

Love the Monitor One's still. Never had any complaints about mixes being out of balance of what I expected.

Devon

[nuffink]

But why did you go with mid fields instead of near fields though?

My kid (or one of her pals) drove something pointy through one of the ribbons of the apogees I was using because some heinous c**t broke in an knicked my beloved home made near fields and a mate loaned me the alesis's while I completed my latest pair of near fields which I never did because I decided they weren't what I wanted and I've only just got the dosh together to build what I do want and haven't yet got the courage together to tell Alison that I'm about to embark on another speaker building oddyssey.

Gasp.

[DevonB]

I do want and haven't yet got the courage together to tell Alison that I'm about to embark on another speaker building oddyssey.

Gasp.

I wish her luck!

Devon

[Marc JX8P]

Wow, thanks for all the replies! This will help me tremendously, especially all of your descriptions of how you like your monitors!

[Aleatoric]

M-Audio BX8's. Love them.

[Lady J]

I use 3 different monitor pairs. Genelec 1029As are my main ones, Alesis M1 Actives which aren't bad for the price and Realistic Minimus 7's to give a mix that small speaker test.

[xander]

But why did you go with mid fields instead of near fields though?

My kid (or one of her pals) drove something pointy through one of the ribbons of the apogees I was using because some heinous c**t broke in an knicked my beloved home made near fields and a mate loaned me the alesis's while I completed my latest pair of near fields which I never did because I decided they weren't what I wanted and I've only just got the dosh together to build what I do want and haven't yet got the courage together to tell Alison that I'm about to embark on another speaker building oddyssey.

Gasp.

Oh man - pretty sad. Now if someone comes along and shoots your dog you could write a country song....

[xander]

excellent advice. I always start my 'mastering' by setting up a noise floor of injected pink noise, and making sure that each instrument is barely audible over it, this is the easiest way I've found to make sure the mean level of everything is right. Then it's easier to make your highightted instruments stand out a bit with some more volume.

Agreed - Also excellent advice about setting up a reference noise floor.

But I think many people go out and buy new and expensive monitor speakers without thinking about the other components enough.

Some stuff to think about before buying new speakers:

NEVER buy anything called 'Multi Media' speakers! Then you need to take a good hard look at your sound card.

It's not just monitor speakers alone that people should think about- go get a studio quality soundcard from Teratec or M-Audio. These types of 24bit soundcards really do deliver professional studio quality.

Interestingly, even the quailty of a basic 'SBLive' sound card provides a 'Digital to Analogue Conversion' quality better than HiFi equivalents priced over 4X higher.

Also, be careful about using EQ and knowing when to use it. At low volumes our perception of treble and bass is reduced, due mainly to the non-linear way our ears respond. Middle frequencies like speech are not effected in the same way. It is now that we want to use EQ on everything as a kind of 'psychological correction tool', correcting the natural difficiencies of our ears. However - premature EQ on everything can over amplify the level of certain bands when the master volume levels are increased.

Linear Response is one of the main factors in the design of a good monitor speaker, of course. The ideal is to accurately reproduce every frequency at the same volume - which good, pro-quality speakers try to do.

With a good audio setup and good quality pro-type monitors, frequency equalization should not be required. Frequency equalization should ideally only be used as a final option when mastering.

I think it's also important for musicians who use a lot of synths and synth sounds with a large square wave component (most electronica composers) to remember that big square waves can approach pretty massive levels of 'near-DC', which makes certain speakers want to vomit sheer horrible crap. I have seen a pure square wave melt speaker voice coils. So as well as linear freq response, you need to make sure your speakers can handle major DC pulses, which the good quality ones do well (via coil cooling, etc.) This is also true for headphones.

[Muff Wiggler]

Agreed - Also excellent advice about setting up a reference noise floor.

i gotta credit Craig Anderton for that mixing with pink noise tip

it's a really good one, people should try it out

[BDead]

Offcourse monitors are important but it doesn't matter if you have the best monitors in the world if your acoustics are generally bad, try to lower the feedbacks bÿ using carpets, eggcartons in the roof and wooden walls or carpets on the walls.. The time which the feedback uses (Rt60) should be as low as 0,2-0,3 seconds..

Also with proper nearfield monitors you can decrease the amount of feedback that reaches your ears, the setup of the monitors are vital to get a clean sound without feedbacks reachig your ears.

The angle between the engineer and the monitors should be around 60-75 degrees and 5-15 degrees upwards from the engineers position. This will not only suite the ears right but it will minimum the feedbacks from your walls, floor and mixingconsole. Als, you should have at least 3-4 feet empty space from the back walls to the back of the monitors. This will also ensure that you won't get any feedbacks from the mixingconsole itself which is a hard surface. So don't exceed the 5-15 degrees upward degree..

For the monitors I have a couple of excellent Fostex nearfield bi-amped monitors, These monitors aren't big but I chose them i mind of my acoustic environment. It could also be wise to pick up a subwoofer to place under the desk if you choose a pair of small monitors to make up for the low frequncies loss...

Hope this helps

[xander]

This is one of those 'Learn a lot' threads I like. Some good info...

[Marc JX8P]

Okay - getting closer to my goal but it's still pretty difficult to pick a winner on specs alone... currenly I'm thinking of either:

Tapco S5
Behringer 2031A
Event TR5/6/8

I found the Tapco one quite inspiring but I'm a bit afraid about the bass end being insufficient. In the past I've often ended up with quite 'muffled' sounding mixes which was due to my speakers having not enough bass in my view, so I'd like to avoid that. The Tapco's have a low end of around 64 Hz, the others around 50 Hz. Do you guys have experience with these speakers or, more generally, how much bass end you really need in a monitor? (This will be my first set so I've got no real reference).

Again, much thanks for all info - this has turned out to be very interesting if a bit overwhelming for choices.

Maybe I should also add that I'm mixing in a relatively small room close to a wall and a corner.

[Morris]

Maybe look at the Tapco S8. I couldn't find any review