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What to look for in Monitors

I've done a bit of reading and have a list ready to check out at the local store. I want to know what exactly I am supposed to be listening for when I am checking these out. If they are to reveal how a sound "truly" sounds then I shouldn't be buying the one that sounds "best." Technically, the best monitors reveal the impurities in a mix, so what exactly am I looking for? I don't want to drop a grand on a pair that are too forgiving and have my mixes suffer as a result. Help from the audiophiles out there?

Just in case you are wondering, my list, as of now is:
- Yamaha HS80M (have heard they hiss)
- Mackie HR824 (have yet to hear a bad thing about them)
- Mackie HR624 (almost same price as 8s, will prolly not buy)
- Event Asp8
- Adam A7 (can't find a dealer in the US, but heard they are excellent)
- M-audio Bx8a (seem sort of "budget" and have heard they are overbright)

I have the Event TR 6's and the M-Audio BX8a's, and Ive found that the monitors dont really matter as much as the room that you are producing in. The room will give you a much different perception of sound than the monitors will. I like both of the sets of monitors I have. Ive heard Adam monitors are great though....Hope that helps....

you should add dynaudio and genelec to your list..

From your list i would consider the ADAM A7 & the EVENT ASP8, also as suggested i would add Dynaudio BM5A and/or BM6A to the list..

Just take some music that you've written and some of your favorite cd's that have 'that sound' that you would like to achieve..Then take your time & listen to how everything sounds through the monitors..Listen to the highs, the low & the mids..At the end of the day choose the one's that sound truest to you & that reveal the most flaws in your mixes..Its up for your to decide what monitors will be the best for your needs as you will be the one spending hours in front of them everyday..

Personally, on that list, I would go for ASP8s or Adam A7s. The ASP line are amazingly well engineered, and pretty much everything Adam make kicks ass.

Lets get one thing out of the way... Cheap 8" speakers will always have a dip in the midrange. This is because, generally speaking, the larger the woofer is, the more low it will produce (less higher frequencies). Cheap 6" speakers deliver good mids, but you need to couple them with a sub to get a full sound range (PROVIDED YOU HAVE ACOUSTIC TREATMENT FFS). This is why KRK RP8s suck dick. IMO, ASP8 upward is where this dip becomes less apparent. In general, you will find Event monitors have a cleaner midrange than other similarly priced brands. Mackies do have this dip... but it is manageable.

Now, do you go for the 8" Events or the 6" Adams? Two things come in to play here... First, you need to decide if you like the sound of Adam ribbon tweeters. 99% of the speakers in the world DON'T use ribbon tweeters, and they do have their own unique sound. You need to be aware of this. That said, when done properly, ribbon tweeters are much more revealing than typical domes. Second, listening environment... If you're in a small room with no accoustic treatment, throwing 8" monitors in will do more harm than good. In such cases, you are best of getting a set of 6" speakers and have a sub on a foot pedal IF YOU NEED IT occasionally. Using a sub gives you a bit more control over how you tune your lower end to your room.

You should add Genelec and Dynaudio to your list too, like cyrus said.

Thanks for the responses

quote:

Originally posted by s-cube From your list i would consider the ADAM A7 & the EVENT ASP8, also as suggested i would add Dynaudio BM5A and/or BM6A to the list..

I've heard very good things about the BM5a but I am pressed on using 8inch speakers because of their extended bass response. Trance is not all that I will be producing and I am very scared to get a sub because of all the positioning and acoustic treatment required. The A7s have had so much acclaim but i cannot find a single showroom in this country that will have them for me to listen to Anyhow, am I wrong in going for 8 inchers for their ability to provide deeper low end output? I definitely will be working with 65Hz and lower frequencies for my other projects... Heck, even trance will have some of these low frequencies in there, after all, it IS club music.

quote:

Originally posted by Topher Jones Ive found that the monitors dont really matter as much as the room that you are producing in.

I was afraid someone was going to say that eventually. I definitely agree with you because I just moved out of a wood-floored apartment and everything was bouncing around the place and I couldn't hear anything right. I've been told that buying the padding and treatment foam isn't necessary as long as you have a lot of "stuff" in your room to absorb the sound. So, even in a carpetted room with lots of junk, would I still need to acoustically treat if I used proper monitor placement (away from walls etc).

I use 'Tannoy Pecision 6D's' awesome monitors imho, they have fallen a lot in price too since i got mine

quote:

Originally posted by EtherealSL I was afraid someone was going to say that eventually. I definitely agree with you because I just moved out of a wood-floored apartment and everything was bouncing around the place and I couldn't hear anything right. I've been told that buying the padding and treatment foam isn't necessary as long as you have a lot of "stuff" in your room to absorb the sound. So, even in a carpetted room with lots of junk, would I still need to acoustically treat if I used proper monitor placement (away from walls etc).

As long as you get used to the room where you are producing and are pleased with the mixdowns and EQ'ing you do, then you will be fine. I just graduated from school so everything sounds so much different than the room I lived in at school. I just built a studio room in my house because everywhere else in the house, the music sounds terrible. I guess just get used to the room where you are producing and you should be alright.

quote:

Originally posted by Topher Jones As long as you get used to the room where you are producing and are pleased with the mixdowns and EQ'ing you do, then you will be fine. I just graduated from school so everything sounds so much different than the room I lived in at school. I just built a studio room in my house because everywhere else in the house, the music sounds terrible. I guess just get used to the room where you are producing and you should be alright.

That's what I'm hoping will happen because acoustic treatment is very impractical given my situation.




I've done a bit of reading on the BM5a and have read nothing but stellar reviews. However, the bass extension on these seem limited. Doing club-oriented music will be so tough on speakers that can't extend down the levels that club music reaches. At this point, I am wondering if a sub would be worth considering... but again comes issue of acoustic treatment. So the easy fix seems to be in 8 inch monitors. I wonder what dubstep producers use.

Any advice?

quote:

Originally posted by EtherealSL would I still need to acoustically treat if I used proper monitor placement (away from walls etc).

Probably... It depends on what is in your room and the kind of monitors you've got. Generally speaking, 8" monitors will need to have accoustics sorted out in a small room, or you'll get standing waves.

For example, accoustic treatment in my current room would provide minimal gains, as I have a large room with a (full) book case + cupboard covering the entire back wall. Ive also got two little clothes drawers in the front corners, which would probably take a bit of bass out. I'm also only using 6" monitors so there isn't enough bass to do a massive ammount of harm.

Easiest way to "treat" your room is to buy a big ass bookshelf from Ikea and put it on the back wall. Make sure you fill it up with books and stuff. Next, get really thick (like a quilt) drapes and hang them over windows. Glass windows will let a lot of bass "pass through", but will reflect highs like crazy - the drapes stop this. Next, put acoustic pads behind your monitors and either side of the listening position. Doing this should fix things up to a level acceptible for home producing.

event tr8's for the win,
solid monitors for a good price.

An empty room has lots of echo and once filled with furniture it cuts down on most of the echo.

Treament of a room is to stop the echo so you get an accurate picture of what your music really sounds like.

A simple test for your room is this, clap your hands and if you hear an echo then your room needs treament.

I read about that on a site once :-)

I know a guy that once that covered all his walls in his studio with thick fabric and that cut down a lot on the echo and his mixes sounded a 100% better.

It dosent matter what type of monitors you get your room will always effect the sound becouse of lack of room treatmemnt and acoustics.

Pro studios spend thousands making sure the room acoustics are perfect.

The larger the room the larger the echo the smaller the room the smaller the echo but it's still an echo.

Even when you listen to monitors in a room thats been sound proofed they are not going to sound the same at home.

Read lots of reviews on the differnt types of monitors and find out what weakness they have and then decide wich monitors are right for you.

quote:

Originally posted by tranceinjection It dosent matter what type of monitors you get your room will always effect the sound becouse of lack of room treatmemnt and acoustics.

wrong. it does matter.

if a set of speakers are only putting out 100hz+, youre going to get a lot less significant standing waves than if theyre putting out 40hz...

So Bob katz dosent know what he's talkign about then?
And why do pro studio's use treament if it dosent't matter?

quote:

Originally posted by tranceinjection So Bob katz dosent know what he's talkign about then? And why do pro studio's use treament if it dosent't matter?

Thats not what you said. You said it doesn't matter what kind of monitors you buy "because the room will always affect them". Thats just retarded. Putting rear ported monitors into the wrong type of room = fuckup. Putting monitors with too deep bass into the wrong type of room = fuckups. Accoustic treatment will only help so much dude...

Go learn about room modes.

quote:

I don't want to drop a grand on a pair that are too forgiving and have my mixes suffer as a result.

If you drop a grand and your mixes still suffer, i dont think you should blame the monitors...

mackies are not all they are cracked up to be. the 8" lack bass depth and control. and also suffer from the mid range problems larger drivers tend to suffer from. as long as your room isnt too big/small then you will not have any problems with the majority of speakers in your price range - you just need to follow advise on placement.

acoustically treating is a load of balls imo. as long as the room isnt empty or with loads of shiny surfaces/no curtains then you are fine.

quote:

Originally posted by richg101 acoustically treating is a load of balls imo.

lol, so it looks like there is not gonna be a consensus in this topic of conversation.

it's surprising to hear you say that about the mackies... i've read that their bass response is very deep and can often put out frequencies below many other 8inchers in that class. I guess I will never know until I actually listen to them in person.


Cheers all, thanks for the comments, I will post back in this topic to let you know how my listening session goes and what monitor I will choose

Wow. Like, WOW.

1. Speakers and the room are one and the same. They are both part of an accoustically coupled environment. Your room sucks, no matter what speakers you put in, it will still suck. Your speakers suck but the room is great, you'll hear how shitty the speakers are.

2. Accoutic treatment is part art, part science. What's appropriate for one room is most likely completely wrong for the next. Egg crates on the walls are in most cases pointless. Draps may be wrong too. Many of the "Studio Foam" tiles on the wall are pointless. They're simply HF Dampers and sold on the snake oil concept that they're used in thousands of studios. Yea, they are, but APPROPRIATELY with accoustic design in mind.

3. "Sound Proofing" and accoustic treament are not the same. Not even close.

4. Bass traping is key. Most audio problems are in the LF part of the spectrum, tthough there are lots of common HF problems too.

5. Uncorrelated ratios of Width height and length of your room are best. Certain mathematically unrelated ratios work better than others, Google is your friend. This helps reduce standing waves, and make the room modes more manageable. the corralry to this is.. Drum Roll..

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PERFECT ROOM.

They're all compromises in one diection or another, it's just that some compromises work better than others. Without construction you can attempt to modify room dimensions with as was sugested book cases (Also act as traps), thick (and I mean REALLY thick drape hung away from the wall (how far depends on too many factors to go into here, and each room is different.

6. Standing waves are not the be all and end all of accoustic problems, there are also model nulls, harmonic over tones, resonances (All very closely related) and uneven spectrum absorption (Bright rooms, dark rooms and just plain funky sounding rooms are usually due to this last one).

7. A room may be great if you and the speakers are in one position but utterly crap if you move even a couple of inches, or toe you speakers in by just a few degrees differently. Also what's REALLY important is an even absorption curve. Ie HF is absorbed by the room proportionally to LF. Try things out and experiment, it's important that YOU understand the strengths and weaknesses of your room.

7. Never forget to buy SOLID speaker stands, it makes a MASSIVE difference to the sound field. Budget at least 25% the cost of your speakers for appropriate stands. Really.

8. There are many free and not so free tools to help you get the best out of your purchase. I used CaraCAD when I built my room. I'm in a strange position, I have lots of bass trapping by the way my room is constructed, so I needed to add HF absorption to even things out. Ya, the Foam Eggcrate I just dissed in most cases.. This is the OPPOSITE of how most rooms are.

9. The BBC (Yes, that BBC) has a ton of white papers and documentation on how to get the most out of your room, and where ideals are.

10. One man's High end car car is another man's Ricer, it's down to what you know and how you set things up. Speakers are a major part of the equation, but DO NOT discount treatment or positioning. It's equally important. Monitor Speakers and your whole environment is one thing tht you HAVE to get absolutely right, or at least understand where it's not spot on and compensate (Tough to do). If your room and speakers lie to you you will never have your mixes translate (Sound as good as they do at home).

11. If you can hear the deficiencies in your monitors, room and mixes then it's time to upgrade. That said, spending ZERO cash and moving stuff around and LISTENING will almost certainly improve things for you by at least 20-30%. decent stands (NOT WALLMOUNTS!) will add another 10-20% clarit too, all wihout changing Monitors or any heavy construction. No kidding.

12. Finally from your list I'd pick the Adams as they're the most neutral and open of the listed speakers. They also sound different to many other speakers so you have to understand them. Dynaudio are rocking, Events are good as are SOME Tannoys, ATCs & PMCs are better than them all but out of your price range.

Bugger I had a nerve hit there. those that say you room is irrelevant have no business proffering advice. Mind you you don't know me from Adam (ouch bad pun!), so as ever take what you read on teh internetz with a grain of salt and use your ears... :-0

By the sounds of what you're saying you'll pull through though. :-)

One more thing to add...

< = STFU Diginerd>

I mix on ATC SCM-50as in a tuned room, but I EQUALLY mix on a pair of 30 year old Auratone Cubes. In mono.

They're also affectionately known as Horrortones.

The ATCs are beasts, they have no sound color or tone. None. They just are. They have an insane dynamic range and incredable depth and a clarity I've never seen matched at any price.

The problem is you can easily wind up leading yourself up the garden path on them, as they will handle things that would shred other speakers.

The Auratones are awful, and I mean awful speakers. All mid range, cheap radio sounding, tinny, and all around are about as far from Hi Fi as you can imagine.

What they have though is magic. If you can make something sound decent (In MONO!) on these shitty little speakers, invaiably it will sound awesome on "real" speakers.

So the way I work is tune EQ, Compression and all that good stuff on the ATCs, and get my levels on the Auratones.

It's strange. When I'm on the ATC's I'm playing with 0.1db differences an can hear them. With the Auratones it might be 8-10 dB swings I put in from the ATCs. When I swap back though the mix is clearer..

As ever with most things in life and music it's all about balance..

Peace..

don't look

listen

quote:

Originally posted by Diginerd Wow. Like, WOW. 1. Speakers and the room are one and the same. They are both part of an accoustically coupled environment. Your room sucks, no matter what speakers you put in, it will still suck. Your speakers suck but the room is great, you'll hear how shitty the speakers are. 2. Accoutic treatment is part art, part science. What's appropriate for one room is most likely completely wrong for the next. Egg crates on the walls are in most cases pointless. Draps may be wrong too. Many of the "Studio Foam" tiles on the wall are pointless. They're simply HF Dampers and sold on the snake oil concept that they're used in thousands of studios. Yea, they are, but APPROPRIATELY with accoustic design in mind. 3. "Sound Proofing" and accoustic treament are not the same. Not even close. 4. Bass traping is key. Most audio problems are in the LF part of the spectrum, tthough there are lots of common HF problems too. 5. Uncorrelated ratios of Width height and length of your room are best. Certain mathematically unrelated ratios work better than others, Google is your friend. This helps reduce standing waves, and make the room modes more manageable. the corralry to this is.. Drum Roll.. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PERFECT ROOM. They're all compromises in one diection or another, it's just that some compromises work better than others. Without construction you can attempt to modify room dimensions with as was sugested book cases (Also act as traps), thick (and I mean REALLY thick drape hung away from the wall (how far depends on too many factors to go into here, and each room is different. 6. Standing waves are not the be all and end all of accoustic problems, there are also model nulls, harmonic over tones, resonances (All very closely related) and uneven spectrum absorption (Bright rooms, dark rooms and just plain funky sounding rooms are usually due to this last one). 7. A room may be great if you and the speakers are in one position but utterly crap if you move even a couple of inches, or toe you speakers in by just a few degrees differently. Also what's REALLY important is an even absorption curve. Ie HF is absorbed by the room proportionally to LF. Try things out and experiment, it's important that YOU understand the strengths and weaknesses of your room. 7. Never forget to buy SOLID speaker stands, it makes a MASSIVE difference to the sound field. Budget at least 25% the cost of your speakers for appropriate stands. Really. 8. There are many free and not so free tools to help you get the best out of your purchase. I used CaraCAD when I built my room. I'm in a strange position, I have lots of bass trapping by the way my room is constructed, so I needed to add HF absorption to even things out. Ya, the Foam Eggcrate I just dissed in most cases.. This is the OPPOSITE of how most rooms are. 9. The BBC (Yes, that BBC) has a ton of white papers and documentation on how to get the most out of your room, and where ideals are. 10. One man's High end car car is another man's Ricer, it's down to what you know and how you set things up. Speakers are a major part of the equation, but DO NOT discount treatment or positioning. It's equally important. Monitor Speakers and your whole environment is one thing tht you HAVE to get absolutely right, or at least understand where it's not spot on and compensate (Tough to do). If your room and speakers lie to you you will never have your mixes translate (Sound as good as they do at home). 11. If you can hear the deficiencies in your monitors, room and mixes then it's time to upgrade. That said, spending ZERO cash and moving stuff around and LISTENING will almost certainly improve things for you by at least 20-30%. decent stands (NOT WALLMOUNTS!) will add another 10-20% clarit too, all wihout changing Monitors or any heavy construction. No kidding. 12. Finally from your list I'd pick the Adams as they're the most neutral and open of the listed speakers. They also sound different to many other speakers so you have to understand them. Dynaudio are rocking, Events are good as are SOME Tannoys, ATCs & PMCs are better than them all but out of your price range. Bugger I had a nerve hit there. those that say you room is irrelevant have no business proffering advice. Mind you you don't know me from Adam (ouch bad pun!), so as ever take what you read on teh internetz with a grain of salt and use your ears... :-0 By the sounds of what you're saying you'll pull through though. :-)

What a post, much appreciated! I am surprised to hear that stands play that big of a role. I was planning on keeping the monitors on my desk (as i have a fairly wide desk and will be able to create a pretty good triangle on them). Is it the fact that they will vibrate on the desk or the chance that they will not be at earlevel? I can always elevate the monitors off of my desk or angle them can't I? (I would elevate before I angle)

Let's start with speakers on the table.. By putting speakers on the table the table acts like the soundboard of a guitar resonating from the direct physical coupling with the speaker.

At other frequencies it acts as an accoustic mirror and will reflect sound waves from its surface. These will then interact and produce comb filtering and a whole host of other effects.

The underside of the table flexes too and prodces some odd effects radating between the table and the floor underneath.

In short, it's one of the worst things you can do to your sound. If you're spending $1k on a pair of speakers you owe it to yourself to set them up properly.

Back to stands.

Solid stands support the speaker in free space. This cuts out all the above effects. If the stands are very dense (Often filled with lead, sand or even concrete!) then they have a high mass and therefore a lot of inertia.

This prevents the stand from resonating in the same manner as the table. It also helps avoid them being knocked over with a speaker on top. Something that is especially important if you have kids in the house, and as in my case each speaker weighs over 50Kg and are rather expensive.

I certainly don't want them coming off the stands!

After rigidity and plain old mass you need to look at the interface between the speaker and the stand, and the stand at the floor. The traditional line of thinking is to use spikes for this purpose. This allows for the smallest area of coupling between the stand and the floor, and the stand and the speaker, as well asmaking the whole interconnected setup behave as one immovable object.

I have no qualms about using spikes into the floor, but into the speaker I personally use 3 small blobs of BluTak. Spikes going into the expensive finish on my cabinets isn't something that would make me happy. It's a compromise, but one I am happy with..

Finaly positioning of the above setup is just as vital. Another topic..

quote:

Originally posted by Diginerd Finaly positioning of the above setup is just as vital. Another topic..

Which is what I was just thinking about... would I be placing the stands behind my table (because it is so wide) or is it okay to place them to the sides... wouldn't that widen the stereo effect of the sound? That's something that would really taint the sound.

As for stands, do you recommend a brand or type of stand in particular? How much should I be expecting to spend on them? 25% of my budget... so 250 bucks? That would make my compromise the quality of the monitors I would be going for... forcing me to give up on the BM5As or those Adams.


Many thanks


P.S. thought I might just throw this clip in here for fun... it's a very rough and unfinished track but it provides a good example of the kind of bass extension I'm looking for. I want to be able to clearly hear the LFs that dip down fairly low. Essential for music meant to be hear on club speakers. click here

If I was you, I'd get the better monitors and get stands later. You can always compromise now and stack up some large concrete blocks (as used to build a garage!) with a flagsone at the bottom and top. Cheap, ugly but effective. They're rigid and massive, so will not act as accoustic springs. Your HF clarity and soundstage depends on your speakers not moving.

Alternately get some cheap stands for now and know you'll upgrade later.

You will regret compromising on the actual speakers right now...

As for positioning, can you supply the dimensions of the room including height, window & door locations? Some photos might help too. If you can describe the wall and ceiling construction that's important data too. Ie studding with sheetrock, brick, concrete, wooden logs, etcm is the room carpeted, bare concrete or wooden?

With all that info I'll model it in caracad for you so you can get some visuals of what to expect, and some pretty decent positiong information. That will also let me give you some specific advice as to what room treatments will give the best improvement for least cash.

There are however a bunch of things you can do without fancy computer tools...

As decent starting point your monitors should be equidistant from each other and your primary listening position to form an equalateral triangle. They should also be equidistant from the side and back walls and at head height.

Finally, start with the fronts of the speakers parallel to the back wall and start toeing them in slowly until after a couple of iterations they're at 60 degrees to the back wall (ie now face on to you at the listening position if you turn you head to look at one or the other). Listen to a couple of pieces of music you know really well at each position.

At some point during the above exercise you'll find that the sound field is much more cohesive than at any of the other angles. Set the speakers back to that position and you will have gone a long way to improving your mix experience.

LF extension is tricky, and room accoustics play a large part, but there are some things you can experiment with to get better results.

The closer your speakers are to the back wall the greater the emphasis of LF, this can be both a blessing and a curse. Too close, and bass becomes boomy and pronounced at certain resonant frequencies, too far and bass can get light. There will be a spot where you have the best balance of tightness verses extension.

Start about 3" from the back wall and work forward an inch or too at a time until you're about 2 ft away, or the bass drops off too much. You may need to come further into the room as well. Experiment and again listen at each step to a well produced couple of tracks.

I'd say with all of the above you might spend 2-3 hours, longer if you're moving bricks, but the payoff is definately worth the time investment.

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