Studio monitors

M

Maurerpower

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Where can i find a cmprehensive test of studio monitors? I wanna buy a pair, but dunno what to get.
I am tempted by the Alesis MK2,Tannoy Reveal, Hafler M5, and Samson Resolv 65. I really wanna get me a pair of Yamaha MSP5 monitors but they are twice the price of the others:confused:
Where can i find good objective reviews?
 
I want to say I have seen some CD's that demo things such as mics, speakers etc, but even then that is going to be subjective.

I would recommend you take a couple of well recorded CD's to a place that has different speakers and give them a test. Now you might laugh, but there are serveral CD's that are considered excellent to test with and a lot of them aren't current releases. One I know of is: "The Eagles Greatest Hits" Yeah a 70's release. Of course it wouldn't hurt to have one of your all time favorite CD's along too.

Every speaker is going to have its own character. The best thing is to find a pair you like and learn to "live with them". With that I mean get to know them very well. Mix on them and then test it on everything imaginable: Car, boom box, home theater, whatever. Then go back and make your adjustments. After a while you will be able to make a great mix.

I own a pair of Alesis speakers. Now they are far from perfect but after 3 years I know them and can dial things in fairly quickly.
 
Whichever pair of monitors you go with, keep in mind that you will need a subwoofer. No matter which genre of music you create, your low end is tricky without a dedicated sub.

The Mackie HR824 is my favorite studio monitor and for the sub, use a forward firing subwoofer in a sealed enclosure - a 12" diameter sub makes the best of both worlds, low freq' extension, as well as good blending with your main monitors' woofer diameters/crossovers. Using a bottom firing sub or a ported one will present peaks at tuning frequencies or coupling with the room that is unnatural to the source signal.

Bring some CD's to the place you will audition them, but use CD's that resemble mixes you will create. Find the pair that will sounds best to you. Even if the monitors aren't acclaimed to be "flat response" it doesn't matter. Use commercial top-of-chart songs to compare your music with. Make it close.
70's Eagles CD... would be a good test for analog-like music, but you want to test the lows on those monitors too! Rap music...
 
Ok so i will need an additional subwoofer. A 12" driver seems quite large to me. But i will see.
I have a quite limited budget. I really don't wanna spend more than €500 for the speakers. I think i will get passive ones because i want to use an amp for other stuff too. Any suggestions for a good 'budget' deal?
 
Well if you go with a 10" subwoofer or smaller, you are not getting the extended range of lows that is very problematic in most mixes. If you want to go passive, you will need to have an active crossover for the sub amp. Otherwise you'd have to use a passive crossover and they add saturation to the bass.

The best budget way to go about this is to build your own subwoofer. You can purchase a 250W plate amp from PartsExpress.com and a Shiva 12" driver. These are a great combination and yield amazing sound quality. There are many sites on the web that show you how to build great enclosures and the needed building materials.

If you absolutely cannot afford a sub, at least do yourself a favor and get the MDR-7506 headphones to monitor your bass levels. The bass is so important to get right and the 7506's do a good job of monitoring what's really there!

As far as using an amp to power the whole system, it will be tough to get the monitoring accurate as a full passive system - you would have to make sure the sub crossover components matched those of the mains. It will get complicated. I'd definitely save and get all active - it will pay off in the long run. Good monitoring translates into better mixes.
 
I was thinking of getting 2 studio monitoring speakers and a mainstream amp (sony,philips,pioneer whatever). But most of those amps are 5.1 and i dunno if thats good or bad since i will be connecting only 2 or 3 speakers (including the woofer). Maybe a stereo amp is better.
I dont think building speakers is the way to go for me. I prefer saving some more cash and getting it done properly. Unless you say its east to make good speakers.
 
I feel that most of the commercially sold subs out there are made improperly and are using cheap components. You can save so much and build amazing quality by selecting the components individually and not buying something that a company can sell anything of (cause of their name brand). An example would be Hafler... they sell a powered sub that is downfired and has an interesting ported enclosure. While it might be efficient and loud, it is designed not well to create a flat response, and brings too much of the room's acoustics into play. Alot of the subs out there are ported, and drop off response below the tuning frequency.

I'm just speaking critically, but I've made some poor mixes with some bad subs. Any sub is better than no sub though..

I like your idea about using a 5.1 receiver to power your system. There's no problem running multiple speakers off a consumer receiver like that, and I'ld say go for it, since your listeners will be using the same! As for running a sub on it... many 5.1 newer receivers may have started implementing Bass Management, which cuts the lower frequencies off the amp's channels and sends them to the sub, summed together with the LFE channel. Since there aren't sub amps on 5.1 receivers, you will need to make sure that the main channels can output the full range. You would need to also use the "direct input" RCA's on the back of the unit, and feed only a lowpass'd signal to the channels that the sub will be using. You still can't get away from using an extra active crossover if you want to run the sub as passive.

Look at PartsExpress.com and take a look at their subwoofer kits. They come with the box (MDF material), amp, and sub. They are much higher quality than so many of the powered studio subs out there! And they sound great and can be multi purpose like when listening to DVD movies. Boooooomm!

If you wanna build the sub cabinet and prevent from having to buy a premade one (AND THE HEAVY SHIPPING) it really pays off to build one. They're simple when following the subwoofer manufacturer's recommendations on airspace for that sub.
 
Why an active crossover? If i connect my woofer to the sub out port of the receiver the sub should only receive bass frequencies.
What are the pros, cons with3 way speakers vs 2 way and a woofer?
I went to partsexpress.com dut they dont have a 12 inch Shiva driver. Well i couldnt find it anyway.
I just read an article by a man that is making his own speakers for 15 years now. He says that it took him years and a lot of reading before he could make a speaker that can compete with commercial models. I dont want to start a new hobby and make my own speakers. I want a good set of speakers to connect to my computer and make thomping beats.
 
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Oh sorry I forgot that the Shiva is made by Adire Audio. There are some really nice subwoofers there at PartsExpress.com.

As far as the man that took so long to make a good sub, that's one of many people that have found otherwise. Commercial sub manufacturers sometimes use 5/8" thickness wood, poorly glued joints, improperly tuned enclosures, and a lack of knowledge into acoustics. Do a Yahoo search on something like "home theatre subwoofer project" and you'll find something. It's hard to mess up a simple sealed subwoofer design.. all you need to do is use some volume calculation and make the box the right size that the manufacturer recommends.

Pick the 12" sub first, then look at the parameters, or send them to me and I will help you.

Connecting a sub to the output of a receiver is not applicable. 5.1 receivers, or any consumer stereo reciever for that matter, don't have an amplified subwoofer out. They have an RCA line-level subwoofer (actively crossed over) output so you can hook a powered sub to it. If you aren't going to get a powered sub, and you want to just make a box with a sub in it, you are going to need to amplify it with sub frequencies only. A 5.1 receiver will either have full range speaker level outputs, or low-passed RCA outs, so you will need a dedicated amp that only amplifies low frequency input.

For a comprehensive review on some studio monitors I think are worthwhile to purchase, go here:
http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/articles/0B7FAE7ED3205D3C86256AE100044F41

One monitor pair worth mentioning again is the Hafler TRM-8. Get something good because you will never have to buy monitors again.
 
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