Here's my feelings on
the BX5's (Not the new generation.. the last gen)
https://www.futureproducers.com/for...hardware/yamaha-hs50ms-vs-maudio-bx5s-425521/
MAudio in general has a reputation to me for being more "market/sales" oriented than being engineering miracles for mixing music. Same goes w/ KRK Rokits. Please read the forums on these. The topic pops up once a week.
If you need to mix (which I personally think every producer does) in short, i'd stay away from both models and try to grab some more accurate monitors. These two are well-known to overhype certain parts of the frequency response and make it more difficult for you to accurately mix your music. They do this on purpose, it's a marketing technique and it makes professionally mixed music sound GREAT... but it also in turn makes unmixed music sound better than it truely does... and when you go to pop your CD in the car or elsewhere it doesn't sound good at all... b/c you were essentially mixing with a blindfold on. Grab monitors from a company that is more respected for mixing.... Yamaha, JBL, Event all have monitors in your budget. Utilize the used market like Obi said... eBay, craigslist or Guitar Center's used gear webpage. I got my pair of Yamaha HS50's for $200 on ebay. They sound amazing compared to my old BX5's.
As far as quality control goes... i've owned 7 pieces of MAudio gear since i've been producing: (BX5's (new), MobilePre (new), Firewire410 (used), Radium49 (used),
Oxygen 25 v2 (used), Keystation Pro (used), Uno (new). I don't know how much money that is spent on MAudio... but I have 0 of these items in service right now lol. They've been replaced with better quality equipment for the EXACT SAME PRICE. I didn't upgrade.. I side-graded. Think about that for a second. The Firewire410, Radium, Oxygen, and
Keystation Pro all had issues.
The MobilePre was trash but I got sold at the store b/c i didn't konw any better. The BX5's have been demoted to reference monitors in place of the HS50's. The Uno was the only piece of gear that I would buy again if I needed quick extra midi port to record from a midi keyboard that doesn't have USB. In retrospect, I also have the following used products: Novation SL mkii,
Presonus Faderport, Presonus HP4 headphone amp, Echo Audiofire 4 interface, Korg padKontrol, Korg Kaossilator Pro. Only the HP4 headphone amp has an issue where one of the amps has blown. everything else works fine. Well-built equipment does not normally break down.. to say the least. If you buy well-made equipment, there's a very good chance you'll be fine.
To MAudio's credit... I hear good
reviews only about
the Profire 610 and 2626. But even still.. some people complain about the drivers. I'm personally done w/ the company. I'd advise to not get sucked in to what your friends have and to read reviews on forums like this and gearslutz instead of reading reviews on just guitar center, sam ash, etc. Read from people who have experience w/ better gear and who know what their talking about. You will not find too many good reviews and either of these monitors. Just "they get the job done... but they're all i've had.. i had to learn them before i started getting decents results but i still need better monitors". That's the normal review. Anybody who's worth their salt who says they are good enough... is also going to mention that they learned their monitors through and through and have upgraded acoustics.
