Suggestions?
Hi everybody.
I’m about to get myself a pair of (home)studio monitors.
Does anyone have any suggestion of what to buy?
I’m thinking in the price range $1000 for a pair.
Regards,
Martin
You’re gonna spend $1000 and you don’t have any brand in mind?
Sweet.
Nearfield monitor basics
A thousand bucks will get you some very good monitors.
But might I suggest you save some on monitors and use the rest to treat your room?
Great monitors in a bad room will NOT improve your mixes.
Something to consider b/c of the features, but check out before you buy, obviously…A little more than 1K, but there is a rebate going on for these, and I really wanted a pair:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product…=600377
Or right at your price point:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product…=600375
Whoah. Save yourself some money with a pair of Event speakers - http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product…603273. Unless you are opening a pro studio, I wouldn’t spend $1,000 on speakers.
Quote: (Mr Soul @ Apr. 21 2008, 12:52 PM)
Whoah.
Save yourself some money with a pair of Event speakers - http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product....603273.
Unless you are opening a pro studio, I wouldn't spend $1,000 on speakers.
Yep. I agree... The TR-8's rock. Spend the rest on room treatment.
D
I concur on the Event TR-8’s. Excellent range and definition and won’t break the bank. Use the $500 saved to treat your room and upgrade your sound card.
PS. I’ve been mixing on TR-8’s for 4 years.
But two pairs at 500 each - donate one pair to the recording contest. 
Quote: (Poppa Willis @ Apr. 21 2008, 2:29 PM)
But two pairs at 500 each - donate one pair to the recording contest.
heck yeah.....then i might even enter....
just dreamin'
cliff
Thank you very much for your answers! It is very much appeciated, and I will certainly check out those Event-boxes…
Just an additional wondering: You say that it is better to put money on room treatment than buying too expencive speakers. But isn’t the whole idea with
NEAR-field monitors that they should be (rather) room insensitive?
Regrads,
Martin
“rather room sensitive” - unfortunately, there is no such thing, as far as I can tell…
Yep. What Tom said… Sound travels in wondrous ways. Near-field monitors are designed to minimize room effects but there is no physical way to completely eliminate them. Monitors that do that are called “headphones”! Headphones introduce their own special problems as well when you are trying to mix a project so that it will translate to numerous playback devices/systems.
Decent speakers in a good room will be easier to get good results on versus big buck speakers in a lousy room. Every time.
D
Y’know - I didn’t really used to believe that. I thought it was just the purists wittering on about an ideal world. Then, many years ago when I got my first “reasonable” set of speakers, my thoughts changed.
I started hearing lots of weird things.
Some were in my mixes - the new speakers just brought clarity that I didn’t have before, but by far the most annoying was a bass problem in my room.
I used a frequency sweep to find the problem frequencies then hit the theory. Sure enough, doing the height-width-length calculation predicted a problem right were I’d sound it.
The room I’m in now has the same problems, but I’m currently not in a position to do much. I’ve positioned bookcases etc where I can to minimise things and it’s better. I’ve got a very tight EQ notching out a few dBs at the real problem frequency. I DON’T RECOMMEND THAT AS A SOLUTION BUT I HAVE NO CHOICE AT PRESENT.
So, yes, buy some decent speakers and keep some money back for room treatment.
Room treatments: It doesn’t matter if the speakers are $20 or $2000. If you put them in a bathtub full of water they aren’t going to sound too good. Drain the water and cover some tile. THEN think about the speakers.
As mentioned above, near-fields dramatically reduce the effect of the room, compared to a standard stereo speaker arrangement.
But it doesn’t come close to eliminating it.
The first step, however, is a very simple one: KEEP THE DAMN MONITORS WAY THE HELL AWAY FROM ALL WALLS!
And try to minimize reflecting off your desk, as well.
I see lots of pics of folks’ home studios where they have lots of snazzy gear but the mixing desk is against the wall as are the “near field monitors”.
That totally defeats the purpose of near-field monitoring.
You might as well mix in headphones.
Keep the speakers at least as far from all walls as they are from your head.
If that isn’t possible, get as close as you can because every foot away from the walls helps a lot.
After matching the distance to your head the benefit seems to start to drop off, and at double the distance, the benefit is pretty small with each additional foot (in my experience – but it will depend on the room and also if your desk is near a node).
As far as the room mattering: sit at your desk and clap your hands once smartly.
Now imagine doing this in the middle of a field, during a soft, slow, dense snowfall.
(That’s the closest most of us get to an anechoic chamber.
Having been in such a chamber (a huge one, for automobiles, at Ford SciLab), I can say it’s close enough for rock & roll.
And that was back when I could actually hear 18kHz.
Anyway, imagine the difference: that’s the difference that your near-field monitors can’t eliminate.
In closing, though, I applaud you for focusing on a very important and often overlooked part of a studio.
I hate to think of all the time people spend fretting over soundcards, when they’re WAY down the list on where to spend a limited budget.
The low-cost ones, while definitely distinguishable from high-end ones, make a much smaller difference in the end results than do these, roughly in order of priority of where to add $:
a) instruments
b) monitors
c) mic preamps
d) mics (these would be higher, except that there are excellent mics under $200, and most mics folks on this forum have are definitely up to the task)
I saw a couple thumbs up for the Event TR8’s. Anyone have any comments on the TR6’s? The 8’s would be too big for my situation.
Hey, LearJeff, great stuff. 
Great stuff indeed. I’m going to have a serious sit-down with myself and consider just how small I can effectively make my mixing/gear scene. Right now I have this pretty huge table from some school or office. If I get minimal maybe I can get a little further into the room… might be time to move my reality up a notch!