The Monitor Thread™

[nowaysj]

My wife walked by and was like what are you reading? She starts reading, is like, "That's stupid." I'm like, no the opposite. So she keeps reading and is like, "You're a nerd." Walks away. You're lowering my stock, SL.

[SunkLo]

Classic reverse psychology. She's just trying to slight you to keep you coming back for more because she's starting to feel inferior. Keep the leash taut my friend.

[bouncingfish]

bouncingfish - you should listen to the F5s. Not that I've heard them (I have the old Adam A7s), but knowing the science they will have a better midrange (due to the smaller cone) than the F7s at the expense of losing some low end 'meat' and lower maximum SPL. The amps are smaller, so might actually have a lower noise floor at low volumes. Might be perfect for your room for nearfield listening.

Thanks! I dont know if theres a place here where I can listen to them. Arent the highs alot different from the F7s though (I listened to the f7s and loved them)?

Speaker character has as much to do with second and third harmonic distortion, intermodulation distortion, cone break-up modes, time domain response, the integration of the speakers around the crossover point with respect to off axis cancellations, the dispersion etc. etc.

People pay far too much attention to on-axis frequency response being 'flat', whereas in reality the other qualities can have far more effect on the quality a real listener in a real listening position perceives in a non-anechoic chamber (i.e. any normal room).

This is what the store guy said pretty much. He talked about harmonic distortion, something with the adam tweeters and harmonic distortion.
So who's right? Darkmatter or Lo?
I suppose both are great monitors but Im really interested in hearing the answer to this, hm.
Can monitors have different 'characters' without having a different freq response?

[SunkLo]

I'm right in theory, Darkmatter's right in practice. An ideal speaker is supposed to be perfectly linear but there are factors such as distortion that skew this linearity. In a high end speaker you can write off non-linearities as they should be negligible but a budget speaker will obviously be a bit worse in that regard.

A monitor can have a different character due to non-linearities but that also kind of throws the frequency response out the window as an accurate measurement of the speaker's behaviour. The frequency response would change depending on factors such as gain or some lack of time invariance. In that case, two monitors may have similar frequency responses under certain conditions but sound different in other conditions.

[bouncingfish]

That sounds very logical, lo. Thanks for taking your time with this man, much appreciated.

**UPDATE**
I was at another store today, tried some more monitors! These guys seemed much 'smarter' than the guys at the other store, people here talked about 'what they used to mix', how well it worked and what headphones they had used to complement their monitors over the last 10 years.
Experienced people, at least that's what it seemed like.
I listened to:
-Presonus Eris
-Yamaha HS 5 (Not hs50m, they are different)
-Some Fluid Audio monitors, dont remember which ones but they were 5"

HS 5's sounded flattest to my untrained inexperienced ears, but the store guy confirmed what I thought I'd heard - the Presonus Eris E5's had a lot of bass. Not as much as the rokits ofc, he said that even though so many people bought them he'd stopped selling them because they were too untrue to be sold as monitors, in his opinion.
Anyway, the HS 5's were way over my expectations. Actually the low end that was there sounded pretty good, to my ears, and they weren't that overly bright.
I told him they sounded bright and he said that there was alot of treble, but not as much as in the HS50's he used for mixing at home - they were "really really sharp". He told me that the HS 5's were the flattest out of the ones I listened to there, which is what I thought, but that it would be good if I got a flat pair of headphones to check mixes on - especially to mix the really low end and to make sure that the highs were right.
He personally used, and had used for 10 years, a pair of Beyer DT 250 (250? never heard of, he said the don't make them anymore but he liked them), to accompany his HS50's(not 5's).

So far I the HS 5's feel the most tempting (except for the fucking D5's which cost insanely much here like I said before).
I really really want to hear the new tannoy reveal 502's next to all of these, as they seem great too.
No one has heard anything about them yet I assume? Heard one person say they were great and way better than the 501's, that's all I've heard.

Tannoy Reveal 502, Yamaha HS5, maybe Adam F5.

Also, I found a pair of ADAM A7's for only about 600 bucks, used.
DAMN.
My room is untreated + really small tho, might not work in here?
Still, should be great monitors right? And for a price that I can almost afford. Shit.

What do you guys think about all this?
I love dsf, and some of the people here know so damn much, any reply is really really appreciated.

[LUNCHPADDLE]

Kevlar just makes shit way more badass for some reason. Used to play high tension marching snare with kevlar heads in a drumline. Ooooh dat crack. Maybe that explains my affinity for high tuned snares. Nothing worse than a flabby rock snare that's like "doooooosh"

its not kevlar, its glass/aramid composite..

[SunkLo]

I don't know whether you're talking about the Presonous monitors or the snare heads but either way, it is Kevlar.
http://www.presonus.com/products/Eris/techspecs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevlar

[+]

[nowaysj]

There is only way to prove this. Gonna have to shoot my krk with a 9. I'll report back.

[LUNCHPADDLE]

I don't know whether you're talking about the Presonous monitors or the snare heads but either way, it is Kevlar.
http://www.presonus.com/products/Eris/techspecs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevlar

[+]

it was in response to your comment regarding the material used for the cones on the KRK rokits..

[LUNCHPADDLE]

There is only way to prove this. Gonna have to shoot my krk with a 9. I'll report back.

*click* - loads gun..

[nowaysj]

So, I'm in the San Jo downtown jail. If anybody local has some bail money. I'll pay you back 2x.

[LUNCHPADDLE]

hahaha

[SunkLo]

That comment was referencing the Presonous monitors in the OP. Biggups on the attempted correction though. Reminds me of when my iPod corrects "its" to "it's" when I'm using a possessive pronoun.

[bouncingfish]

Thanks.
Lo, maybe you said this already but what budget monitors have your heard/owned?
Would like to see what you thought of them

[SunkLo]

The usual suspects in the shop. Never actually taken any home for clinical listening though. That's why you never see me actually offering opinions on specific monitors. Unless you've heard them in a nearly ideal environment as well as many other monitors to reference against, all you're doing is projecting a biased perspective.

That said, you can choose statistically based on anecdotes from people that seem to know what they're doing. A lot of the highly recommended monitors here are echoed on Gearslutz and other places.

As for the gear I own, I'm a headphone guy. I'm one of those people who believe on a limited budget, a headphone setup will be more accurate than budget monitors in an untreated room.

I've got the Schiit Modi/Magni DAC/amp stack, Sennheiser HD 595, Audio Technica ATH M50, and Sony XB500. They all provide a different perspective, the Senns for delicacy, depth and dynamics; the M50s for their rock'n'roll frequency response, to hear if anything's jumping out too much, or too muddy in the low mids; and the Sonys for pretty flat, deep, phase-coherent bass at the expense of HF definition and inaccuracy in the mids. With the 3 of them I can triangulate to figure out how something actually sounds objectively. I managed to acquire all of that for under 400 by sheer luck and patience. Even still, if I had to build a monitoring chain for around 5-600 I'd probably get the Schiit stack and a used set of HD600s. There isn't even really a combo of monitors/interface/room treatment available at that price, let alone one that would rival in terms of accuracy.

[nowaysj]

Have you ever tried the beyerdynamic 770's 0r 990's?

Definitely the most translatable mix out of the 770's for me.

I honestly think you need one main listening system. You can't constantly be checking on all three. There are millions of little sound decisions that are made along the way. You can't multiply that number by three. You can check the mix every now and again on other systems, but you can't really work that way, imo, at least. Just one system that is real and true enough.

[SunkLo]

The Senns are my main gal, the ATs and Sonys are just reference mistresses.

Never messed with Beyers although I've heard the 880s are the most neutral of the bunch. For that money though I'd be buying Focal Spirit Pros or Sony 7520s. That'll be my next monitoring related purchase. Might go with something more workflow oriented like a controller before that though, there's a point of diminishing returns where it's not worth 400 bucks to improve your listening chain 2%.

[bouncingfish]

Bigups Lo!
Hey you got a soundcloud or anything? Wanna hear what you did with that setup!
Also, 595's look cool. Relatively cheap as well, not like the Hd600s!
Maybe getting those, akg k240s (no bass tho?) or the senn hd380 to complement the monitors.
What you said is true, but I love speakers and I know I WILL mix on them even if the room is untreated so I might as well get a pair of monitors.
Thanks.
You or anyone have any other tips?

[bluberblubb]

curious if anyone uses them for dubstep and other bass music. We used to have them for our metal project and sounded absolutely amazing. I want to buy them for my home though, curious if anyone uses them and how they like them for electronic music? I plan on getting the apogee soundcard. thanks homies!!

[zosomagik]

Haven't used them, but good monitors are good monitors. If you used them for making making metal music and they were good, and you liked how the mixes turned out (they were uncolored) then they should be fine for electronic music