Studio Monitors - Passive or Active? or..?

[Decisive]

Iam looking to pick up some Studio monitors... or at least information on them...

I have no idea which are pretty good and which aren't.. and are the package deal ones ( a pair) any good?

passive or active? and if passive.. what type of amp would I need?

thankx.

^1.

 

[Deft]

I'd go active, takes all the hassle out of it.

 

[dj chex]

actives are good for the most part. Passive are great if you wanna upgrade in the future. Event has some good loudspeakers both passive and active. I would check out the tr5 or tr8 for active. For passive the 20/20 are on sale at GC for $100ea.

 

[dynagroove]

Decisive, i have to ask what you want to use studio monitors for? if you are using near field studio monitors for actually making music, go for it. if you want to use them for djing, i would look for something more geared as a pro speaker or a quality home speaker. i purchased a set of behringer truths a while back - while they are good near field reference monitors (probably the only behringer product i'd ever buy), speakers i enjoy djing with they are not. just my personal feeling on studio monitors. - jeff h

 

[meridian5i2]

the event 20/20's are excellent nearfield monitors for the money!

I've never been a big fan of active monitors. sure, it prevents having an external amp, but it also changes the cabling requirements of the speaker.

passive speakers... one simple lamp cord.

active speakers... ac power must be supplied... signal cable must be of high quality to prevent hum.

active speakers also put fairly fragile electronics in a box that shouldnt be fragile. face it, if your gonna move the speaker around, you dont want the amp built into it. speakers are heavy and tend to get thrown around.

plus, an outboard amp is multipurpose. the amp in the speaker, is only for the speaker.

generally, i've never seen the need for powered speakers. or justified the cost of them with the multiple extra amps I have laying around.

if you want some serious monitors.. mackie hr824s. powered, perfect clarity, and a flat frequency response like no other. but very expensive.

ever considering a set of mackie srm450s or c300's? (srm's are powered, c300's are not, same basic speaker otherwise) -- IMHO they are the perfect cross between a studio monitor and a pa speaker. you get the PA loudness and long throw with sound quality that rivals alot of nearfield monitors.