Speaker Advice please!

misskatiemo · Post by **misskatiemo** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 6:37 pm

I just moved house, sold my desktop, and am in SEVERE need of some good monitors/speakers.

I quickly checked the monitor advice thread a few threads down, but wanted to know if anyone else had something to add as far as home audio might go. More or less all the music I listen to has loads of bass and low tones, but as I listen to more or less everything under the sun, I'm searching for a quality setup that won't sound good for one genre, but not as great for another (ie: it plays Stravinsky just as well as NIN and just as well as any dubstep I can throw at it)

Feel free to tell me to "stfu and check the other thread" - but hell, if you have any other suggestions - i'm keen to hear them!

As far as budget goes, I'd rather invest in a quality setup than go for cheap and easy right now, but I'm not talking outrageous money either. I do have neighbors

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breakbait · Post by **breakbait** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 6:42 pm

I'm not too knowledgable about it but from what I've read Mackie Hr824s are very good monitors with good bass response. And they're active with 2 amps inside, I'm hoping to buy 1 soon and then another in a few months as they're £500 each. Hope this helps

djshiva · Post by **djshiva** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 8:11 pm

what's yer price range?

alan · Post by **alan** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 8:42 pm

i wouldn't buy active.

speaker/amp wise go into a shop with your record collection and ask to test drive some speakers/amps the ones you like best, buy.

jahtao · Post by **jahtao** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 11:43 pm

www.gearsultz.com

active is the way to go but it will leave you with one less volume knob (ie no amp)

Some speakers can produce lower bass than others, you probably want to hear low sub at home right? 20Hz is inaudibly low. But you want to hear your 50Hz - 60Hz

misskatiemo · Post by **misskatiemo** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 2:28 am

sapphic_beats wrote:what's yer price range?

that's up in the air really, in reality - anything is better than what I currently have, but I don't want to go and buy speakers that aren't going to do the music justice, that's just wasting money.

I haven't properly looked into it yet, will be a more certain price range once I start looking around.

jynx · Post by **jynx** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 2:57 pm

Why wouldn't you buy active?
I have a few volume knobs on my soundcard, audio tracks, master, so on....
Active is definately the way to go. I listened to heaps of pairs of studio monitors and the mackie hr824's seems to have a more defined midrange than any other speaker up to it's price range and a little bit more expensive. They are almost dead flat which make them a great for production and general listening. They go real low too 20Hz and will rip the shit out of any passive system for that price. You don't need a sub either. Attention to detail. But it was close call with the genelecs...
The best thing to do is to take some albums (not mixes) and listen to how they sound on different sets of monitors.
Other than that, the more i read about producers studios i see the mackie hr824's alot more than others..
Hope this helps

alan · Post by **alan** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 3:37 pm

Jynx wrote:Why wouldn't you buy active?

i dont like the fact that if anything goes wrong i cant replace it quickly and cheaply/er....IF anything goes wrong.....mayb more relvant to a soundsyterm, but still if an active speaker goes your fucked a passive goes its not the end of the world

robotic · Post by **robotic** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 1:49 pm

alan wrote:if an active speaker goes your fucked a passive goes its not the end of the world

strange logic... either way if the speaker goes, you have no (or terrible) sound! in terms of a system, with active speakers in the worst case you have mono sound - however, in a passive system with a failing amp you might have NO sound at all.

aside from that, active speakers have a native advantage for monitoring since the amps built into them are perfecly tuned and matched to the speakers themselves, whereas you can make the best passive monitors sound like crap by hooking them up to a bad amp/preamp.... or vice versa.

the mackies sound nice and warm because they are not perfectly flat/neutral, and in fact exaggerate the bass. however, this is really much nicer for casual listening and they still work great as studio monitors.

if i didn't have superflat and -accurate event 20/20bas already, i would get the mackie hr824s, or for a bit more money, the superfabulous event ASP8s.

smudge · Post by **smudge** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 2:46 pm

Yeah those Mackies are good. I use the Tannoy Reveals Active monitors. I like them because they have a very flat frequency response and don't colour the sound too much. But with just enough to keep me interested unlike something like the Yamaha NS10's which are used in a lot of pro studios but they sound so boring. The Tannoys aren't too pricey either.

insideriot · Post by **insideriot** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 12:25 pm

i'm writing on a blue sky media desk 2.1 system.
that's working out pretty nicely for all styles of music.
i was worried the sub and satellite set up wouldn't handle the bass too well, the crossover is quite high, but they're so clear & can definately manage the bass when i'm writing dubstep / dnb.

will · Post by **will** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 9:19 pm

some good information in this post thanks, im in pretty much exactly the same situation as misskatiemo

out of interest, does anyone use their monitors for djing as well? if i was to shell out on some top quality speakers i would ideally want to use them for both purposes

rebelutionary · Post by **rebelutionary** » Sun Jul 16, 2006 3:28 am

Get these: http://www.americanmusical.com/item--i- ... 05_90.html

I have a pair and I love them. Best money ever spent not to mention that they are really accurate and can get very loud.

data · Post by **data** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 1:43 am

I have Fostex PM.05 which are designed for small spaces (£250), Samson Resolv 65's for reference (£100). My mate has Behringer Truths (£180!!) and I also use a hi-fi and car stereo for reference. It's all about finding the speakers that suit you and getting used to their sound. Mackie's are the best but are very expensive. I find a lot of monitors tend to boost around 1khz -2khz, so watch your EQ's in this area.

Also remember, monitors tend to have a cut off of around 50hz, so you'll need a sub or other speakers to really check the sub correctly, if it goes deep.

- Data.

smudge · Post by **smudge** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 8:03 am

Will wrote:some good information in this post thanks, im in pretty much exactly the same situation as misskatiemo

out of interest, does anyone use their monitors for djing as well? if i was to shell out on some top quality speakers i would ideally want to use them for both purposes

Yes you can use one set of speakers for both producing and Djing. It would be ideal because you will learn how your new monitors sound by playing your favourite producers tracks through them alot. Which I thinks important especially for learning how the bottom end of tracks work. This is something I am guilty of - ie letting the bass in my tracks take up way too much headroom and it all end sounding too muddy down there!

dj silo · Post by **dj silo** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 5:08 pm

I use 'Tannoy Reveal' passives, and I love them. They don't try to give you a bias view of your un-tweaked track. When I play cd's through them, they don't have the same fidelity of my Hifi seperates set-up, but then they are supposed to be flat responsed.

If money was no problem, I would go Genelec simply on the revies I've read.

Speaker Advice please!

Speaker Advice please!

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