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How Picky Are You About Monitor Speakers?


Anderton

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Back in the day, my opinion was that all speakers sucked (at least, ones I could afford) so it hardly mattered what I used as long as I "learned" them. This wasn't too hard to do because I'd get material I'd worked on mastered professionally in really good mastering suites, so I knew what the music was supposed to sound like and I could compensate to some degree...

 

But I'm hearing more and more speakers that are actually quite good, to the point where I now have definite favorite speakers and ones I don't really feel I need to "learn" to the same degree. I attribute a lot of this to powered monitors being able to really tailor the transducer and electronics to work as a pair.

 

When people look back at the "home recording revolution," a lot of people think computers, ADAT, Mackie Mixers, etc. But I think decent mics at reasonable cost and steady advances in powered monitors are a part of the picture as well. What's your current attitude about monitor speakers?

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Back in the day, my opinion was that all speakers sucked (at least, ones I could afford) so it hardly mattered what I used as long as I "learned" them. This wasn't too hard to do because I'd get material I'd worked on mastered professionally in really good mastering suites, so I knew what the music was supposed to sound like and I could compensate to some degree...

 

But I'm hearing more and more speakers that are actually quite good, to the point where I now have definite favorite speakers and ones I don't really feel I need to "learn" to the same degree. I attribute a lot of this to powered monitors being able to really tailor the transducer and electronics to work as a pair.

 

When people look back at the "home recording revolution," a lot of people think computers, ADAT, Mackie Mixers, etc. But I think decent mics at reasonable cost and steady advances in powered monitors are a part of the picture as well. What's your current attitude about monitor speakers?

 

I am very skeptical of the translatability of so-called 'accurate monitors' to the reality of ear-buds, cheap cans, hi-def TV infotainment fortresses and an infinite variety of computer speakers.

 

That's how I think about monitors. I own them, use them and hope they somehow translate. But I don't understand why they would.

 

So I back them up w/2 good sets of headphones.

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I wish I could afford to be more picky, but I'm not complaining. For many years I couldn't afford to buy great factory made speakers so I learned to build my own. Along with that came learning all the acoustic technology involved in tuning cabs and buying the right components. I suppose If I took all the time and investment and just saved that money I'd have much better gear today, but I wouldn't have learned what I have in that process. Nor would I have had to work as hard as I did working around those flaws to get the best results possible, so maybe the path I chose wasn't so bad after all.

 

I use 6 different sets of monitors for mixing now. Two are active, and two are powered by a studio reference power head, one is powered by a high end Hi Fi Head and I use a stereo PA system for the high powered testing. I even have Triaxial Car speakers in cabs to mimic an auto response. I can switch any set on with a push of a button solo or in combinations. I find this technique gives me the least amount of compatibility issues playing back mixes on other systems.

 

I don't do allot of work for other artists. I did maybe a half dozen projects last year for local bands. This is fine for me because it keeps me in touch with what's going on. The rest of the time I spend with my own work. I don't need nor desire to have things classy looking. They just need to be efficient and do their job well, Some of my cabs are raw unfinished wood. For some reason I prefer not to finish the exteriors. That rawness is more earthy and basic to me. I focus more on what they do vs. how they look and as a result hope they would produce results as good as they look.

 

I'll likely continue to use this mix of this gear. I'd say the only thing I cant compensate for is the years of abuse to my ears having played with loud bands for so many years. I know one ear doesn't hear as well as the other so I flip the left and right sides allot when I have the mix close to being completed. I also use some Visual software like HarBal to detect and correct frequency issues my ears might miss. Maybe I have learned to compensate for those hearing losses because I don't even need to use that much any more.

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I don't have the money to be picky. The old passive Tannoy Reveal 5's that I use are not too bad at all, considering what they're worth. Did some mastering work (which, for me, still involves checking on various consumer systems) earlier in the year for a friend, and he used mine, ahead of test masters sent back by a well-known mastering house in the UK. Go figure...

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Speakers are definitely getting better. I worked with JBL 4311s for several years, and when I refurbished my remote truck with the idea in mind that it would be used by other engineers, I picked out a set of speakers that would work well both with the kind of music that the truck was equipped to record best (acoustic). On the recommendation of a few NPR engineers who had worked with me in the past, I ended up choosing a hi-fi speaker, the KEF 103.2. Everyone who worked in the truck, including me, was pleased with how well they worked. "Translation" was important since a lot of the work we did was live performances mixed straight to stereo.

 

I've retired the truck, but I still have, and use those speakers in the "laboratory studio." Every now and then I think about buying some new speakers, but I haven't convinced myself that I need them. But don't bring me any electronic dance music projects. I don't have anything appropriate for that.

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I would agree with you about decent mics at a reasonable price being a big part of the project studio revolution. When I first started recording back in the 70s a decent large diaphragm condenser mic was a high dollar item; you just didn't have anything remotely close to the selection of LDC's we have today.

 

Monitors have also gotten much better, and we have more choices than we once did.

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I want whatever I do to translate, so I've tried to do this with good monitors. But good monitors are only half of it. The whole tuned room thing really helps, and I've heard the change firsthand. But I still don't really have a very well-tuned room, and dialing the bottom end can sometimes be a little challenging, so I still listen to my mix on multiple speakers (headphones, car stereo, boombox, and another set of monitors) to be absolutely sure. But with my monitors, Adam A7s and Yorkville YSM1 passives, I feel like I am nailing the midrange and top end pretty well.

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I've got Mackie HR824s which, as Ken says with his Adam A7s and Yorkvilles, I feel like I've got a handle on the mids and top range pretty well.

 

I have a tiny studio - about 9' x 10'. I built some absorption panels from the specs on Ethan Winer's great website, and they help tremendously, but I really need a lot more bass absorption - corner traps - 'cause these Mackies do get down to about 35hz, but the room has to be just so or the bass definition is poor.

 

I'm working through Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio by MIke Senior, and he's got me provisionally convinced that, in addition to fixing the room for bass, I should probably try supplementing my mixes by listening to a modern version of the old Auratone speakers. BTW - this book of Senior's is just super IMHO.

 

Monitors matter to me not just for mixing, but also just for listening for pleasure and education. I don't care about tweaking out the speakers to some tiny percentages of perfection, I just want to hear and feel all that is there and know when a mix is particularly outstanding.

 

Headphones and monitors are two different worlds to me. I do mix for and listen to headphones and love that, but I know the mix won't translate to regular speakers. I still instinctively think of regular external speakers as the baseline, but that's not very realistic any more is it? But you can't really mix for all the various situations equally well - external hifi, car speakers, ear buds, good headphones, restaurant speakers, club monitors, laptop speakers, etc etc etc.

 

Maybe part of the reason mixes are so compressed and hyped and over-louded is 'cause such mixes cut through no matter what. That is, people are mixing just to be heard in any setting, forget about how it sounds as longs as it can penetrate the roaring ambience. There's no baseline any more other than just being heard.

 

nat whilk ii

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basic answer? every set we have had needed to be "learned"

 

you take the mix everywhere to see what you have, the truck, the car, the home system, the club

 

Some bass heavy but thin on the test systems, some thick and bassy as a mofo

 

Our current mixers are very able to handle deep deep bottom end and we learned that we need to back off of those freqs a bit to distribute to "normal" systems

 

last monitors had a depth thingie that was full pan killer on mix down but had a hallow spot about 3 oclock and 3 feet deep - we didn't find this until the new monitors

 

buy what you can afford and learn them on every system that you can play back on to dial them, and more important, you, in

 

just my 2 pennies

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I use the same Yamaha NS-10's I've had for a couple of decades now. I did most of my recording in headphones, then would listen back on the NS-10's, and mix on them. Then I'd a-b with a couple of Quadraflex cabinets I did upgrades on the speakers and crossovers with to get a feel for what my drivel would sound like coming out of common stereos and car systems. The NS-10's lack bass, so I setup another amp to pump through the Quadraflex's during the process at a lower volume just to add some bass. It's a rigged up kinda deal...But it'd what I got. Those NS-10's remain one of the best investments I ever made.

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It depends on the purpose. For keyboard stage monitors, I like good ones. For stage vocal monitors, they just have to not suck.

 

For studio monitors, well, you can't mix what you can't hear. When people are talking about spending lots of money on an expensive soundcard for their first home studio, I routinely advice to get an inexpensive soundcard and add the savings to the budget for monitors (and/or mics, mic preamps, and best of all, instruments!) For folks using softsynths or live plugins where really low latency is important, a more expensive card can be much better (or just get firewire ...) But for recording, latency isn't important, and the sound difference between decent and best converters is barely audible to golden ears. Meanwhile, the difference for just one step up in price on monitors can make a huge difference.

 

Above someone mentioned that what you hear on perfect monitors won't translate to cheaper speakers. Well, that's why we have comparison monitors! Even without comparison monitors, a good mix done on great monitors will sound much better than the best mix you can do on crappy monitors, played through a high-end system, where all the flaws you couldn't hear are glaringly obvious.

 

Go cheap on soundcard. Even the cheap ones are far more transparent than most of what we could afford back in the bad ol' days of analog.

 

Go cheap on mics: great mikes are great, but there are a lot of really good inexpensive mics that have made a lot of hit records, and if they can do it, you should be able to as well.

 

Spend a buck or two on a decent mic preamp or two -- that'll help those inexpensive dynamic mikes sound a lot better, and they're useful for lots of things.

 

But don't cheap out on the monitors. That's the last place (other than instruments) to cut corners.

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I took some favorite rock recordings to Guitar Center and listened to all the monitors they had. I ended up buying a pair of M-Audio BX8s because I thought they sounded best for the kind of music I mostly listen to. They sounded better to me than some that cost three times as much. Of course if I had I taken a different set of CDs (like jazz or classical) I may have ended up buying a different pair.

 

One thing about monitors is I think there is probably a point of diminishing returns when it comes to cost. I haven't looked lately but I think for about $800 or $900 you could get a pretty decent pair. I've never heard $10,000 monitors but I can't imagine that they would be ten times better sounding than a $1000 pair.

 

I have old stereo speakers and headphones that I listen to too and of course I always check the mix in the car as well.

 

It's alway useful to have source material that you know really well when your trying to judge monitors.

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What's your current attitude about monitor speakers?

 

I`ve been using Equator D5s since 2011. They took around 2 weeks to break in but when they did, they were keepers. I used Mackie`s 8 inch monitors since 1999 and I was never satisfied with them from a mixing standpoint but they sounded good for listening. My mixes were always very loose sounding and did not lock in in the low end, it was frustrating.

 

Eventually with the new monitors now being considerably cheaper, I became curious. Equator had a 60 day money back guarantee so it made sense to try them out. The transients were incredible and considering their size, the bottom end really came together for me as well.

 

Expensive monitors don`t make much sense anymore because most hobbyists such as myself have minimally treated rooms and I mix 50% of the time on headphones anyway. Considering the 2-3 people who actually listen to my stuff are probably listening on headphones too, it makes little sense to spend too much $$$ on monitors, or any gear for that matter.

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Part of the key is how quickly those monitors let you identify and correct mix problems. Back before I had good monitors I spent more time fixing things I couldn't hear properly. Tweaking frequency response was a torturous process and I'd often get burnt out trying to get that mix to sound right, and having a low percentage of successes. Now because I often use the studio monitors to track parts, I target the ideal tones from the beginning.

 

I use much less EQ, which is one of the things I believe lead to allot of poor mixes, and minimal processing for other uses. My vocals still need the most work, and I suspect its because I use headphones to track. My voice isn't great to begin with and using phones in a studio is unavoidable, but it screws up my vocal technique using proximity to get both tones and dynamics.

 

Mixing I use different sets of monitors to inspect different parts of the mix. The near field's are for checking overall results. I do like a strong bass and they don't do very well revealing how strong the sub lows are. I use the car speakers I keep under the console as sub monitors for tweaking the bass level. I can easily find the edge where those speakers begin to crater then back off a bit and the strength of the bass is just right in most mixes. I may also tweak the peaks needed to match the drums.

 

For guitars, I have a high end set of Harmon Kardon computer monitors consisting of two small towers and a sub. When I turn these on, I can instantly hear how well the guitar balance and frequency range is. The speaker in the towers are aluminum domed speakers and reveal the mids exceptionally well. The sub helps ensure the mids mix well with the bass. I'll often kick these on when tracking guitar parts. I've learned that if the guitars are too loud you don't hear the rest of the mix well, and they help me round off the sharp edges you commonly get recording guitars direct. The snare and cymbals are also revealed.

 

The full sized Hi Fi type cabs have a passive 3 way crossover and I have all three sets of elements set with a DB meter for equal outputs. I chose the drivers so their frequency responses are fairly flat and don't have any major hills or valleys using a reference mic when scan the frequencies with a test tone generator set for -6db and the levels set to around 90db. I mainly use these for tracking bass. I can crank the mix and bass through these when tracking and not have the speakers fart out. I rarely have to use much EQ on bass tracks any more because I tweak the response using a modeling preamp.

 

I have another set of near fields set very wide, about 10' apart. I use these as boundary monitors for checking how wide the stereo mix is. They don't produce allot of bass but do sound flat when the mix is near completion. Then I have the 5000w PA that have a s' stack on either side of the room I can crank up and feel how well the music is. I have to stand in the center of the room to hear these properly. Its pretty much like listening to a live band and it will reveal how well the drums fit in a mix, bass kick etc.

 

I also have to EQ's with LED level meters I keep connected to the DAW and use them as a quick visual display, not to EQ the signals. I calibrated the meters so they have a flat response using a Tone generator using white noise on one, and pink noise on the other. I mostly use them for tracking and getting a quick ball park range and level detection. Often times when I finish up a mix, it may be fairly loud. When I start tracking a new project I often have to tweak those monitors down to get the right level for tracking. The Meters help get those tracking levels set right off the bat so my tracks will be recorded at the best levels. From there I can pretty much ignore them.

 

I usually end up on my best set of monitors at the end mastering the music. I'd say I only have to go back and remix maybe one out of 8 or 10 now which isn't bad considering how hard I used to have to work to get a decent balance. Doesn't take that long either. I love mixing but getting good results without having to compensate for issues you cant immediately hear sure makes live better.

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Craig's path has some parallels to my own. I mucked around trying to make semi-crappy consumer speakers work for me (actually not bad for the money -- $50 a piece, although fairly veiled, a bit gauzy. As I was starting to get more pieces into place I allowed myself to buy some new NS10m's just before they disco'd them. (This was just before the me-too crowd decided they HAD to have NS10s, perhaps not coincidentally. Happy to get the pair for around $230 before tax, IIRC. New, factory sealed boxes, did I mention?)

 

They were OK for rock but they had rolled off bass under around 80 Hz if you ran them flat. As I moved more into club music in the late 90s (seems like a million years ago now and yet when I listen to top ten stuff, it's mostly a rehash of that sort of music updated with grinding highs and hard-tuned vocals [dudes, hard-tuning is SO 00's]), I found that all kinds of synth bass was sneaking into my mixes without me hearing it.

 

I then augmented the NS10's with some original Event 20/20bas -- not perfect speakers but, for me, a good complement to the Yamahas. My primary complaints about the Events are that they are wildly overpowered for my needs [200 w bi-amped per channel!] and have some noticeable self-noise, even with the trims all the way in. It's not bad -- and, for me, an easy tradeoff to get the bass and smoother high end that makes general listening (not to mention mixing) so much more enjoyable. The other ding to the 20/20bas is that, being bass reflex like most affordable NFM's, they have weaker damping than the closed box, air suspension NS10's, resulting in a bit of resonance. It's not unpleasant, but the Yammies feel tighter/dryer. (And they do 'take' EQ better at the bottom -- unlike reflex speakers with their 'bump-and-dump' resonance hump and rapid drop off, acoustic/air suspension speakers tend to roll off gradually. Some folks feel that's more natural -- however the NS10's roll off starts so high that they always feel bass-deficient at the bottom, even with enough EQ dialed in to warm them up down there.

 

Anyone have any AR-3s?

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I took some favorite rock recordings to Guitar Center and listened to all the monitors they had. I ended up buying a pair of M-Audio BX8s because I thought they sounded best for the kind of music I mostly listen to. They sounded better to me than some that cost three times as much. Of course if I had I taken a different set of CDs (like jazz or classical) I may have ended up buying a different pair.

 

I don't know if it's a good strategy to buy monitor speakers that sound good for particular types of music if you're planning to mix. For example someone might think a speaker has a "clean, airy" high end without realizing the speaker has a bit of a high-end lift.

 

One thing about monitors is I think there is probably a point of diminishing returns when it comes to cost. I haven't looked lately but I think for about $800 or $900 you could get a pretty decent pair. I've never heard $10,000 monitors but I can't imagine that they would be ten times better sounding than a $1000 pair.

 

Absolutely. You can get a pair of accurate monitor speakers for under a grand. More money gets you more "detail," but nothing that would make a huge difference when mixing.

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I`ve been using Equator D5s since 2011. They took around 2 weeks to break in but when they did, they were keepers. I used Mackie`s 8 inch monitors since 1999 and I was never satisfied with them from a mixing standpoint but they sounded good for listening. My mixes were always very loose sounding and did not lock in in the low end, it was frustrating.

 

Eventually with the new monitors now being considerably cheaper, I became curious. Equator had a 60 day money back guarantee so it made sense to try them out. The transients were incredible and considering their size, the bottom end really came together for me as well.

 

 

I have been using the D5's as well. Nice speakers at relatively low volumes. When cranked, the low end causes a disturbing vibration of the tweeter. Since I am a tracking on location studio, I like the portability of them. I have the carrying bag, foam isolation pads and the cables that Equator offers.

 

I was using the grey JBL speakers that were about $300 a piece that I got in 2010. I can't remember the model number. They were OK, but I was never sure of the translational accuracy with them.

 

I just replaced them with the new JBL 308s. The difference is astounding. The new ones are remarkable. Sound stage is clear and easy to balance, especially with the ASC attack wall that I use. I feel much more confident with my mixes. With Studio One V2.6 from Presonus, I am able to use them for mastering as well. I use a sub-woofer with them to make sure the bass is translating well.

 

I will switch back and forth between the two speaker sets while mixing to try and find the sweet spot for lead vocal level. I try to set the level between the two as a compromise and that seems to work well in the final mix. It seems that vocals on the D5s have a louder level than the JBLs.

 

Interestingly, my final analysis of my mixes is done on the Sony audio system in my Ford C-Max. It is the finest sound system I have encountered in a car to date. If it sounds good in that car, it will sound good everywhere.

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Interestingly, my final analysis of my mixes is done on the Sony audio system in my Ford C-Max. It is the finest sound system I have encountered in a car to date. If it sounds good in that car, it will sound good everywhere.

 

I have a theory about why that's so...rather than repeat it here, I'll link to the article that describes it.

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I have been using the D5's as well. Nice speakers at relatively low volumes. When cranked' date=' the low end causes a disturbing vibration of the tweeter. Since I am a tracking on location studio, I like the portability of them. I have the carrying bag, foam isolation pads and the cables that Equator offers.[/quote']

 

I don`t crank the D5s. I mix at low levels, speaking volume and I alternate with the ATH-M50s. For $300, I think they`re a steal.

 

It seems that vocals on the D5s have a louder level than the JBLs.

Yes, the D5s tend to accentuate the mid range a bit. I like that about them, it forces me to round out the sound with a bit more low end and lay off the mids.

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