Buying my first pair of studio monitors!

steffeeH

New member
Intro
Finally I have the money to buy my first pair of studio monitors.
I produce some kind of Electro, House, Minimal House, Deep House, Prog. House, etc that I'm too lazy to care to exactly specify, but i hope this helps with what speakers i should choose in your opinion.
With these speakers I'm planning on buying a Focusrite 2i4 audio interface.
In the end I'll go to a music store and try the speakers out myself, but your input is still very helpful.

My room
My room is roughly 4x6 meter in area, and probably 2,5 meters in hight. What's a little different now is that the walls are tilted (the roof) on the sides as I live on the second floor, with some flat space in the top that is the room's roof. The walls on the shortsides of the room has regular walls, though they're occupied with windows and doors etc, so not much space to place room treatment.
Right now i have no acoustic treatment in my room, though this is something that I'll look into the future when I have cash for it, I'll probably build some bass traps and buy some pieces.
When I have my new speakers set up I'll have my desk facing the windows on one of the shortsides since I believe I'll hear less phasing then than if I were to keep my desk in front of one of the tilted walls as I do right now. This means that I have 2 windows behind my desk, which makes it difficult for placing room treatment behind the speakers. Though I'll have the speakers on speaker stands a little bit away for the wall/windows.
But... I might move to a new place within a year, so don't rely too much on this info.

How I will use my speakers
I work as a sounddesigner, so the speakers will be used for fine sample editing and preset creation.
More than this I make my own music (in FL Studio 12 if that helps), that I mix and master myself as well.
Lastly, I'll use these speakers in my spare time when I just relax and listen to music, sometimes loud.

What I look for in the speakers
I'm not too concerned with speakers that has some tonal oddities, like if they are muddy in the midrange, or too bassy, too sharp, or too tinny in the highend. Because I'm well used to speaker correction EQing and I know what I'm doing in this area.
What I more look for is how accurate and naked the speakers produces the sound so I easily can find issues to correct, as well as how deep down in the frequency spectrum they reach in a treated room, as I sometimes need to work with really low bass (sometimes all the way down to 30 Hz).
I really really really want 8 inch bass cones, not 6 inch. I find 8-inch speakers mostly respond more even and natural in the lowend compared with 6-inch speakers, just my experience.

The contestants
- KRK Rokit RP8 G3
- Yamaha HS8
- JBL LSR308
- Pioneer S-DJ80X
- Tannoy Reveal 802
- Behringer B3031A


The Rokits seem to be speakers that you either love or hate. Some people seem to love their sound and think they're very accurate, while other complain that they seem to be unaccurate and even fall apart as time goes (is this true?).
The Yamahas I've heard in action before myself, and they sound sooo smooth, like silk - but... almost too smooth, as if they color the sound. On the other hand I've read that people like how low they reach frequencywise.
Then we have the Behringer, they seem to have less deep frequecy response, yet they have bigger cones?

I can't go higher in price range than this.
Hope you have all the info you need :)
 
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None of those 8" speakers will go down to 30Hz, so you better think about a sub woofer - specially with the type of music you are contemplating.
Speaker correction EQing defeats the purpose of having good speakers in an acoustically treated room - how do you know how your mixes will translate to other systems?
 
All of those models should be in your local GC. (Although you don't mention where you're from.) That way you can go and hear them all in the same environment. Bring along your most familiar stuff and try them all. You'll get many opinions here as well........so get ready. Your statement about being ok with EQing is troubling because your next statement about getting a revealing monitor contradicts the first. But I think I know what you're trying to say. Trust me..........you do want the most revealing / flat monitor. As for the candidates you listed.........the Rokits really do color too much. It's my belief that if it weren't for yellow cones and low pricing.........they would have never been so popular. I've not heard the Pioneers so I won't comment on them...........but the JBL's will likely get more accurately lower than the Yamahas but the Yamahas really do "reveal". In any case.....as has been mentioned.........you'll need a sub to get to 30k so with that in mind.........I think I'd advise you get the Yamahas. Just my 2 cents.
 
As for the 30 Hz thing, I don't expect my monitors to go THAT low, I'm more just clarifying how important it is that I get an as good frequency response for the pricing as possible.

As for the EQing thing, I've made threads about it on numerous forums, and I know what I'm doing - people have agreed on it and said that then it shouldn't be any problem. A copy of the thread should have been posted here as well. I won't go into that topic here though, since it's such a massive topic (it's way more than just boosting here and cutting there to even out oddities). Just... trust me.

Anyway, thanks for your inputs :)
 
This is a hell of a lot of talk about speakers. Makes my head fucking hurt. Just buy what you like and learn their characteristics.
 
Those Behri's were actually #1 on my list when I tried all the monitors last year at GC. Take an SPL meter and go with a test disc and see what looks good for flat. Then take another test disc to see what sounds good for listening. Put some diverse music on the second disc and see what happens.

Well, that was my system. They set me up 12 different pairs in the vault and I walked away with the M3-8s (after a few weeks deliberation of my notes) although they were my #2 pick because I have near fields and needed mids....The Behringers are really clean, good SPL and fairly flat down to about 42Hz. And they get LOUD. Decent stuff.
 
Those Behri's were actually #1 on my list when I tried all the monitors last year at GC. Take an SPL meter and go with a test disc and see what looks good for flat. Then take another test disc to see what sounds good for listening. Put some diverse music on the second disc and see what happens.

Well, that was my system. They set me up 12 different pairs in the vault and I walked away with the M3-8s (after a few weeks deliberation of my notes) although they were my #2 pick because I have near fields and needed mids....The Behringers are really clean, good SPL and fairly flat down to about 42Hz. And they get LOUD. Decent stuff.

Yep . . . another great Behringer product that slipped by almost unnoticed. I used a pair for many years. I still have them. I now use Neumann KA310 monitors.
 
How is the frequency response on the Behringer monitors? It says 50 Hz down, but that seems odd as the speakers are almost 9 inches (!).
 
The bottom was something that was not great on those. My notes...had to find it...said -3 was around 55hz, -6 was 52.
My M3-8s won there at -3 @ 47hz. But I've got them running in my well treated room down to 39 now.
The tests were run like I said above. Test tones from 20Hz in 1 sec intervals up to 59. Then a 30 second sweep from 40-20K. Not probably the best environment in the vault. Once home they did better, so the Behri's might get down further. They (Behringer) did, however have a flatter curve than most.
 
I have the KRK's, but now want the Yamaha HS8's.

A buddy of mine has them and I just love the sound.

They seem a lot less coloured than the KRK's. They're also reminiscent of the NS10's, which are legendary, although I've heard they're quite a bit bassier than the NS10's.
 
I'm a big fan of the Tannoy Reveals with the KRKs a fairly close second. I like the Reveals, not because they sound "good" but because they give me the unvarnished truth about what's on my tracks...and that's what I'm after in a monitor.
 
I can vouch for the Yamaha HS8, although I have nothing to compare them against. I think that they're solid and honest. But the matching subwoofer (the HS8S) is pricey and never seems to go on sale...I've been waiting for almost 2 years to find a good deal on one of those things.

Don't EQ your monitors, treat your room instead. It's gonna take quite a bit of bass trapping to flatten the low end in a small room. And once you introduce a subwoofer into the equation, those low-end issues will be even more complicated. Lots of bass trapping, and lots of time to properly place the sub will be the key. Leave the EQ out of the monitoring chain.
 
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