Studio Monitors?, Low budget!! Options

[Hamish]

I am on a very low budget approx £300 and I need monitors. What can anyone recommend? Active, or an Amp and monitors. Please help!

[kemikal]

i bought some event 20/20 monitors (passive for just under $300 ), added a carver amp to it.. and have unbelievably flat and pristine sound...check them out, the active ones have won many awards, but they cost $700 powered..
good luck

[holli]

BM5's BM5's!! Check 'em out, about £350 I think now.

[JackC]

If you can stretch your budget or hold off 'til you have a bit more cash; check out the Quested F11 active. To my ears; the best nearfield monitors. You'll never want to upgrade them.
Remember... great studio monitors are for life... not just for Christmas .

[holli]

Also.. almost all monitors work best when the amp is massively overpowered over the recommended power rating (especially at low levels) though this isn't so true of valve amps but I figure you're not intending to use one. Just remember to drive carefully!

[Presto]

Holli, could you explain that a bit better?

I remember pushing valve amps on stage further than I should have. I rather liked it and it didn't seem to harm anything, but I don't want to hurt my nice BM6As.

BMs are great

[holli]

I can try! I have BM5 nearfields driven with a Smartlight amp chucking out 300 W RMS per side. Smartlight are a British company and I stumbled on them quite by accident, very impressed but had never heard of them before. I've also heard BM's running on about 5 other systems with the standard 50-100W per side arrangement (you know, alesis type things that get bundled with BM5's quite often, hifi amps and better like Hafler, Yamaha).
Observations? Well I felt the overpowered setup produces a very, very much tighter controlled sound, particularly focused bottom end well suited to the Dynaudio driver across their range of monitors (M1's also work amazingly this way). More broadly speaking and to the point, I love the dynamic range. Words like effortless and unstrained spring to mind . Most people visiting my studio stroke their chin in an approving way and look slightly quizzically at the amp! I guess that's good?

My crtl room pot on the desk rarely makes it past 11o'clock, levels on the amp wound to max -why introduce any more stages of attenuation than neccessary to the signal path.

Bm6 'A' s are unfamiliar to me I'm afraid. I just have a gut feeling that it would be more expensive to put more power than 'neccessary' into a unit such as this and therefore an unlikely costing to be factored into the design process. I've no doubt these sound lovely given what dynaudio are capable of and have certainly been carefully tailored to the BM6, I just like the big amp thing .

In general, I believe it is less healthy to push a low powered amp run close to it's output limit for long periods of time through a monitor, than running a more than double spec'd amp at half it's output capability. Closer to the headroom of the amp's maximum output, it's more likely for continuous clipping to occur at this stage in the signal chain -especially with seriously compressed audio. Bye Bye tweeters!

As for valve amps, don't know how to eloquently explain the techy aspect with any concision The power ratings are always spec'd lower -but drive much harder, and sound better in terms of dynamics at lower powers. I know a few hifi buffs who have confirmed my thoughts regarding transistor amps sounding best when overpowered and underdriven. Check the links for some blurb that may go some way to explaining this.

http://sound.westhost.com/hfr_be.htm and a teaser quote below...

Class A push-pull output stages are inherently distortion-cancelling and each amplifying device, be it valve or transistor, operates in a complementary electrical sense at all times. Deviations of performance from the ideal of either device are compensated by the other. But with so-called Class B stages, one transistor of a pair is constantly switching in and out of operation, handing over to the other transistor during its period of no operation. An obvious difficulty here is to achieve a smooth changeover or 'crossover' (not to be confused with loudspeaker dividing networks), and the main reason for the 'transistor sound' of most early (and unfortunately some present-day) transistorised amplifiers is/was poor crossover performance (where the switch from one transistor to another failed to give perfect signal continuity) leading to a spiky distortion most evident at low Output levels and high frequencies. Many transistor amplifiers actually had better performance at high output levels, quite the reverse of most good quality valved amps.

http://www.whise.com.au/zero_delta.html

Monitoring is a pretty subjective experience at the end of the day. Valves may be sweeter with a detailed top end (though expensive for one worth having), transistor amps perhaps more neutral/less 'warm'? Certainly much, much cheaper and easier to maintain for similar 'build quality' of product.
The tonality is a matter of taste. Slightly overdriven (-not sure about this for monitoring accurately?)/valvey-smooth, or neutral (as far as is theoretically possible for any speaker) depending on what you like and how other well known programme is produced and compares..

..but the reproduction of dynamics is critical for me at least and is fortunately a fairly well understood problem for transistors and valves alike.

Hope this helps (someone! ) xxx

[Presto]

Thanks Holli for your very interesting analysis. You meant a too-many-watt amp sounds better as long as you don't turn it up too much and kill your speakers.

Well, if Hamish goes over budget and gets good speakers such as BM5s, he still has to find more cash for a good amp. Perhaps he could use a cheaper amp until he finds some more cash.

I personally think that speakers are usually the weak link in the listening chain. Although I'm no expert, I would tend to think that cheap speakers and an expensive amp are not as good as good speakers and an average amp.

Anyway, Hamish, whatever you get will be better than what you had before, and you may have to get some good mics which are usually the weak link in the recording chain.

If you start eating only potatoes and spaghetti, you'll still find you should spend more than you can afford on your gear.

I was able to spend 3 times your budget on my active speakers but as I will get a pro sound engineer to tidy up my recordings using his expensive equipment and experienced ears, it was more for my pleasure than an absolute necessity. I have a sneaky feeling I should have given more priority to the mics, but my ears are veeeeeeeery happy.

Although shops don't often have the best listening environment, you should go and compare what they have using your ears.

If you get active speakers, they will be balanced. The amps will be adapted to the speakers (or vice versa), but you may find a separate amp is more versatile - lots of inputs and only one on/off switch. I find it annoying having to walk round and switch off my active speakers to avoid spikes when switching other stuff off then on again later. In fact I often forget and cringe when I hear the spikes.

[holli]

BM5's and 6's even sound good with a standard hifi amp, 25-30 w RMS per side. Just better with more juice. I know many people who have run these in the short term, again just drive VERY carefully -even with a small amp such as the above, push to the max of what it can handle with hot programme and it's likely the tweeters will start smokin' Most hifi amps don't have an auto shoutoff to prevent major overloads.
Just to explain my thinking in the advice, Bm5's are now only £50 over Hamish's budget. He'd have to go alot further in price to get something comprable, Quested (nice!) Genelec, K roks. They can be made to perform like something twice the recommended price by adding fat amp later on, but why not start out with a hifi amp. I remember Alesis monitors being quite friendly as well, I had some on loan for a week or so. Very sweet but much more like a nice hifi! I think these would be in the price bracket.

[ryosode]

I use a pair of M-Audio SP-5B. I think it's below $300 (USD) and probably the only monitor I know that's well known at the price. It gets the job done and since these are active monitors, you won't have to worry about an amplifier. Just a thought...

[ryosode]

I meant well known "active" monitors at below $300. =P

[add9]

I'll join this thread

I've been on Genelec 1029A cause they are cheap and small (don't have much space) but I am not satiesfied. The mixes I have done on those are way to "sharp". It seems like I have been fooled by the sound. It seems like I think I hear enough low frequences but when I play it on my stereo I hear that it is not "pushing" the way I want to.
I am now thinking of spending money on BM6A's in hope of getting a "cleaner" sound.

Do you think that it is a right investment for me to spend more money and buy Dynaudio?
Are there someone who is satiesfied with those small Genelec?

[lepetitmartien]

Add9 if you run the 1029 without the sub you're missing a lot of things. the monitors due to their size can't go down a lot and it's a problem for a lot of type of music. If you have the sub, then either the sub is not well placed/tuned or these genelecs don't suit for your ears.

[bjkiwi]

before u buy some different monitors, consider the effect of the room on what u are hearing. the acoustics of the room could be leading u 2 'hear' more low end than is actually there. without going into a detailed diatribe about room acoustics and monitor placement, I feel the most important task of monitors is 2 act as a benchmark for your judgement. so make up a collection of tracks u know well (lots of variety...rock, solo piano, vocal etc.) and listen to them in your space 2 become aware of the monitor/room's interence and then use them as comparisons and references to your work.
the vast majority of us are working and mixing in far less than ideal acoustic spaces and the better your awareness of the deficiences of your space the better equipped u are 2 make informed mixing decisions.

[Presto]

add9 - try borrowing a sub and see what happens before you spend money. You never know, you might be able to get a favour from a shop, if you can't find a mixer friend nearby

[lepetitmartien]

On monitor placement, the site of Genelec as a learning part worth reading.

Genelec's tutorials

[add9]

Again, thank you guys!
This is the only place I know that I can get serious feedback on things that really matters for me that is .
I have considered a sub, but that will cost some...so... I have decided to go for Dynaudio.
I think they suit my ears better, and that IS important.

I get, because I am one of a few women in music tech., a very nice discount on stash
Therefore I can afford the BM 6A. I tried them here for just a few days....Wow! Nice


Very interesting reading about monitor placement, lepetitmartien!

[Presto]

Yeah!!!!!! BM6As Join the club!

I don't think you'll need anything else for yeeeeears.

I had a fright the other day - the barn attic roof leaked. Where? Only in one place. Exactly on one of my luvly monitors - not the back fortunately. Oof

[lepetitmartien]

BM6A are rock solid (can't compare with other monitors not enough experience and it was not the place for close moitoring) but we feed them with huge modulars synths at last Frankfurt Musikmesse, and only once did we managed to clip in a week.
And we were very very bad with them.

If they are leakproof too…

btw add9 you can call me LPM for short

Also, the Genelec tutorial (they changed it and I don't have had a look to the new version) was extensive onto placement, DO try, there's theory and there's your room, begin with a theory placement then mess a bit around. Sometimes a few inches make huge differences, I had the exemple in the home studio a guy I know. 4-8" were the difference between mud and emphasys on bass and something much more clear and usable.

(beware, Presto is a BM6A fanatic

[Levon River]

add9, since the rarified air of philosophy on pristine studio monitors has been filled to a specific density equating to lead in this thread, I am loathe to introduce something so mundane and pedestrian, but I'd like to suggest that after you settle on the pair of crowning glories for yer studio, you locate yourself a ratty used pair of Ford standard-issue auto speakers, mount them with a few loose screws in plywood boxes, and hook them into a speaker A-B switch so you can listen with those to all your mixes--because *that* is what much of the world will hear your music on.

[add9]

What are you trying to tell me, River...

When I have been spending 14 hours mixing, without eating, going to the restroom or talking to anyone,.... When my ears are soo tired and I feel I am the most shitty mixer in the whole world...,
I put on a pair of shitty headphones of an unknown Asian brand. Then I get confidense and feel good about myself again....for a few seconds....

Actually...When I want to hear what the rest of the world hear, f.i.my mp3's on my website, I just listen to them directly from my Mac. That does NOT sound very good...

[Levon River]

When I have been spending 14 hours mixing, without eating, going to the restroom or talking to anyone,.... When my ears are soo tired and I feel I am the most shitty mixer in the whole world...,
I put on a pair of shitty headphones of an unknown Asian brand. Then I get confidense and feel good about myself again....for a few seconds....

LMAO!

You are definitely a pro, add9. You have paid yer dues in full. Go to the head of the class.

[Presto]

I've started caving. I'd like to see what the BMs sound like for the run of the mill ancient ancestor, and I know they don't mind spikes too much

Damn, the roof's been fixed so I won't continue prior wet-testing.

Ah yes! How do they work in your environment, Levon River?

Ce message a été modifié par Presto - jeu. 9 janv. 2003, 18:43.

[tacoboy]

I will now boast the fact that I have a pair of Genelec 1030's. Thankyou - thankyou - thankyou.

1030's are the best nearfield monitors (I think) in the free world. A little out of your price range however.

Before my 1030's i had a pair of tannoy reveals and yes they sound beautiful. For your amount of money I wold get these in active or get some Yorkvilles. I dont know what there called but they rock and their newish. The problem with the less expensive monitors is that you may not be getting a true representation of the sound. Sure the tannoys sounded amazing (mabee even better than my Gennelec's) but when I play my tracks on another pair of spaekers it sounds well.... SHIT!

Good sounding speakers may not be the answer. Flat sounding speakers are! Now that I think about it for your price range actually try picking up a pair of Yamaha NS-10's. They would probably have to be second hand by now but they are found in top recording studios throughout the world!

[-spike-]

1030's are the best nearfield monitors (I think) in the free world.

I absolutely agree, I had worked in a studio before that has 5 of these babies for 5.1 sorround mixing and they blew me away.
I personally use event 20/20 powered at home, I think value and quality wise they are great.

I would also recommend alesis m1 actives for a powered monitor soulution. Before I wouldn't believe that these things sound great but when I tried them myself they certianly give out a really flat response that has to be heard to be believed, mixes here would translate well to other systems and for just under $400 a pair it's a good deal.

A hint of warning though never buy them second hand and never buy them online because they have to be shipped, although the amazing performance they give out, they are poorly built and easily damaged internally with just a few bumps, so if your considering in buying one, go to store a check out a good pair yourself some people get a bad pair due to damages in shipping but if you get a good pair their absolutely a great value.

I can't believe no one mentioned mackie in this thread...MMmmm...I wonder why??

[Angelgob]

well, I'm joining this discussion a little late, but here's my quest: I have some event 20/20s and am very happy with them, except for the bass, it is too prominent and when I listen to my mixes on a conventional stereo, there is hardly any bass. What kind of speakers could you recommend to compensate for this?

[kevindetroit]

M-Audio BX5's $300 USD out the door at Guitar Center in US. I love them. They are active, sheilded and small enough but loud enough for a good project studio. My old roomate had the Mackie HR824's which are defiantly one of the best, but cost $1,400 a powered pair. Again really impressed with the BX5's and to my ears don't seem to color the music.

[dmrkh]

Is it too late to bring up a tangent, as in, (self)powered monitors?
Sorry, but I do like to check out Carvin's website and I can't help but notice they're still offering the blessed things.
One of my all time bass heroes, Anthony Jackson, swears by tube preamps running into powered speaker cabinets.
Now here I am, putting my bass down long enough to try making music with a keyboard after all, I recognize this is in contrast to the notion of overpowering your speakers.

Oh, Kevin, I live here in the 313 myself. Don't forget, Gtr Ctr can be cool, but it's the indie shops that are owned and operated by people just like the helpful ones here in MacMusic :-).