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I've had my monitors no longer than a year, and one of the bastards tweeters has died on me, producing a very hissy distortion noise when playing sounds containing frequencies above around 2000Hz. Really angered me.
I can sort of seeing it as being understandable... Like a fool I've been opening massive and bashing out some completely dirty sounds at high volume without adding any compression or turning it down first
But sometimes I just want to get a sound made nice and quickly without having to worry about turning the interface output down or adding a compressor or anything...

Does anybody know of some hardy active monitors that don't mind taking a beating (music-wise - they won't be leaving the studio at all) and last a nice amount of time before dying?

If you're operating at a level where sounds below 0dB physically blow your monitor speakers, you're doing it wrong.
Having said that, if you insist on destroying your gear, and your ears, a pair of Genelec 8030A will stand up to a decent battering (not that I'd suggest you batter them ) and, since they're so expensive, they might convince you to be more careful

ben h wrote:If you're operating at a level where sounds below 0dB physically blow your monitor speakers, you're doing it wrong.

Very true... The fact is though, the sounds aren't always below 0dB lol. As soon as you open Massive and press a note it's already on the verge if peaking, if not doing so... I am aware I should turn it down before I start modelling my synth sounds, but sometimes I forget to and need reminding how silly I can be by a nice hard shunt of horrible sound into my eardrums...

Another problem I have is where I'm mixing tracks at a lower level, and then going on to listen to commercially mastered tracks, I often forget to turn down my monitors first so they play stupidly loud...

Yeah if you're monitoring at that sort of level you may as well go all the way and invest in a rig

lowpass wrote:Yeah if you're monitoring at that sort of level you may as well go all the way and invest in a rig

Haha, you miss my point people... I'm not monitoring or mixing at a high level, I know what I'm doing I just accidently forget to turn the speakers down sometimes, either them or Massive! I've got it turned down in my template now so even if I do forget, I'm safe... Problem is, I've already ruined my monitors They must be quite fragile as I haven't been THAT tough on them!

My Alesis have done that recently, but that was after I had to send them back due to some electrical fault. Wasn't happy, it's so fekking annoying.

I too would like to know some solid monitors which won't go tits up.

Adam A7s if you are on a budget or the Adam P22a(s) or the Dynaudios AIR15s, genelecs are over rated, ear fatigue happens quite easily and they are bit colored on the low mid freq and the low freqs....


thats my opinion.

if you don't have some sort of hardware control in reach to control your levels and rely on software driver settings, you might want to think of investing in tc electronics level pilot desktop control

deadly habit wrote:if you don't have some sort of hardware control in reach to control your levels and rely on software driver settings, you might want to think of investing in tc electronics level pilot desktop control

I do have my audio interface, but it's quite a reach from my hand (lazy fat tnuc lmao). I like the look of this dude, nice one!

why not invest in a limiter for your speakers?

means that you will be protecting your ears as well as your speakers, surely thats worth the extra cash?

btw, a rig for testing tunes out is a sound investment imo

Shit happens to me, when I'm obeying "Macc's Law" and mixing to say -12b (and consequently have my monitors quite loud to hear the damn mix), then I check a track in winamp or "YOUR VIRUS DATABASE HAS JUST BEEN UPDATED" will come blasting out. Yeah, my virus database has been updated, but who's gonna change my underwear?

Wat monitors do (did)you have now? Just replace the tweeter holmes.

Q about this - does anyone use a limiter in the studio on their out from their audio interface? Seems like an entirely responsible kind of thing to do that I will never do...

nowaysj wrote:Shit happens to me, when I'm obeying "Macc's Law" and mixing to say -12b (and consequently have my monitors quite loud to hear the damn mix), then I check a track in winamp or "YOUR VIRUS DATABASE HAS JUST BEEN UPDATED" will come blasting out. Yeah, my virus database has been updated, but who's gonna change my underwear?

Wat monitors do (did)you have now? Just replace the tweeter holmes.

Q about this - does anyone use a limiter in the studio on their out from their audio interface? Seems like an entirely responsible kind of thing to do that I will never do...

Lol yeh this is my point exactly dude... The whole quiet to loud scenario has probably played a part in destroying my tweeters! I've got some Fostex PM 0,5 MKII's.... Rather than pay to replace the tweeters, I may have to invest in some more expensive/better monitors anyway...

Put enough watts(heat), distortion (ultrasonic distortion artifacts) or even moderate power very deep sub (mechanical overload) can
destroy speakers.

There is no need for it and ANY speakers can and will blow.

Simply control your monitoring (maybe buy a passive attenuator) and have it
next to your mouse.

nowaysj wrote:Yeah, my virus database has been updated, but who's gonna change my underwear?

LOL

Why don't you disable system sounds? Standard bizzle! Once you set Winamp right it stays where it is too, no? Does here...

I have all sound aside from my main set to mute... that doesn't help when you open a browser window and get ear-raped with "CONGRATULATIONS... YOU WON!"

krk v8s have a limiter built into them incase you ever get that loud....i havent yet, thankfully

knobgoblin wrote:krk v8s have a limiter built into them incase you ever get that loud....i havent yet, thankfully

Is it just the V8's do you know, or do the smaller nearfields also have them? I have been reading into getting some RP5's but I haven't read about a limiter anywhere, that would be heavy!

rp5s dont have an inbuilt limiter i'm afraid.

You should buy another pair of speakers, and look after them. This practise may work for you, but its an awful way to go about things. Man, if you came round my studio and started doing that on my speakers, bad things would happen. Would you rather monitor at stupidly high levels, or have a nice pair of expensive, good sounding monitors that are acctually going to last. You should probably take all this into account.

-hk

I do my best not to fuck them up with crazy ass sounds at annoying db's but...

I bought a pair of event 20/20's in 1998 and they are still the only monitors I have

I batter them through dj'ing through them weekly as well as the daily production sessions

and you might want to get some kind of physical volume control in case you mouse over those talking smiley pop up windows

OMG... NO WAYYYYY