cheap studio monitors a false economy?

[liamkingdon]

Hi, I currently have a massive hole in the quality of my home studio, in that I use hifi speakers to monitor. I haven't wanted to spend a small amount of money on something useless, and haven't got the money to spend on anything expensive! so my question is, are the lower budget studio monitors (for example budget m-audio or behringer stuff costing about £100-150) worth bothering with as a stop gap, or should I save up for a decent set? The acoustics etc. in the room I have my studio set up in seem pretty reasonable, although I haven't treated it in any way.

 

[jamest748]

I was in exactly the same situation as you a while back and the best advice I got was to save up and buy a decent pair.

Honestly, I would never have spent more than a hundred quid on monitors until someone showed me what a difference it makes to the mixing to have something decent playing it back to you. I bought a pair of Genelecs for 300 pounds each and never looked back!

Of course there are cheaper alternatives and there's not one clear brand but if you reckon your room sounds ok then a good pair of monitors might bring up something you couldn't hear before. Which is a good thing!

 

[MMensch]

I was also in a similar situation but the advice I was given was to go for it, because there are decent, useful products to be found even at these prices. The way to make an informed choice is to audition as many monitors as possible (ideally in your room, but that's usually not an option) with music that you're familiar with and that's roughly similar to the style of music you'll be making and mixing on the monitors. Then, you choose the ones that make the songs sound best to your ears. At least in the beginning, it's better to maybe sacrifice a bit of detail to have the luxury of familiar territory which will make the learning curve - because you still have to get to know your monitors well - a bit more bearable. You'll be unlikely to find very faithful monitors in this price range anyway (being a detail and treble junkie, I ended up with the Yamaha HS50ms myself) but you can make really good mixes even on Behringers - my friend produced a demo album on 2031A Truths that, at least to me, sounded fantastic (I can upload a song or two if you're interested).

 

[Supercreep]

Fact: You can learn your way around any speakers except headphones.

Yes, some speakers are flattering and some are sterile. The reality is that in time and with some decent control situations (i.e. your car, your mp3 player etc.) you can mix fairly accurately with any speakers.

I have a pair of KRK V8 speakers I think aren't that much more special than the B2031As they are replacing at five times the cost.

 

[kcearl]

i was reading some producers interview in future music....loads of top equipment and synths then a pair of old tannoys...he says hes had them so long he's just gotten used to them and knows their quirks and how music should sound on them..

makes a good point

 

[Moseph]

Fact: You can learn your way around any speakers except headphones.

Wait, what? Why couldn't you learn a pair of headphones as well as conventional monitors? Let's assume that the frequency response isn't horribly deficient somehow (though that can be true of a lot of "studio quality" monitors on the low end as well). What makes headphones special so that you can't learn how they sound and use them effectively?

 

[undrgrnd studio]

Wait, what? Why couldn't you learn a pair of headphones as well as conventional monitors? Let's assume that the frequency response isn't horribly deficient somehow (though that can be true of a lot of "studio quality" monitors on the low end as well). What makes headphones special so that you can't learn how they sound and use them effectively?

Headphones are placed directly on your ears, so the separation between the speakers is total. The separation on actual speakers is completely different, because the sound mixes in the room and enters your ears differently.

 

[Moseph]

Headphones are placed directly on your ears, so the separation between the speakers is total. The separation on actual speakers is completely different, because the sound mixes in the room and enters your ears differently.

Right, but why does that imply that you can't "learn" the headphones and how they sound? Why isn't that just a variation on stereo speaker placement. You can have similarly problematic results placing speakers in a bad configuration in the room.

 

[Chibi Nappa]

Right, but why does that imply that you can't "learn" the headphones and how they sound? Why isn't that just a variation on stereo speaker placement. You can have similarly problematic results placing speakers in a bad configuration in the room.

Headphones can never show the effects of the air from the left speaker hitting the air from the right speaker. The two speakers "colliding" will happen in every single stereo speaker configuration you can dream up.

This effect is significant.


Headphone mixes can sound really screwed up played back over speakers.




And I wouldn't go as far as to say you can learn ANY speaker. Those systems with small cubes plus a "sub woofer" would be pretty much impossible due to almost no midrange to listen to.

 

[Moseph]

Headphones can never show the effects of the air from the left speaker hitting the air from the right speaker. The two speakers "colliding" will happen in every single stereo speaker configuration you can dream up.

This effect is significant.


Headphone mixes can sound really screwed up played back over speakers.

I'll concede that the effect is important when listening to speakers, but I think I'd still contend that it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with figuring out how much something "should sound" on headphones. You can also work to replicate speakers using cross-talk algorithms, mono sums and plain old multi-system playback checks. It might not be a perfect solution, but you'd need to have each ear in a particular room sweetspot to get that "perfect" crosstalk naturally anyway. I still contend that good work can be done with headphones as the primary monitoring source, just like good work can be done in a lousy-sounding room or with less-than-excellent monitors. The key is to know how things are "supposed" to sound and knowing to make things sound that way.

And I wouldn't go as far as to say you can learn ANY speaker. Those systems with small cubes plus a "sub woofer" would be pretty much impossible due to almost no midrange to listen to.

Well, that kind of skirts the issue a little. My issue of contention was that if you can "learn" one playback system, then you should be able to "learn" any playback system. Granted, I agree with you here, since you'd need a relatively accurate frequency response to hear what's actually happening at all, but proper speaker interaction isn't necessarily a given either I guess.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I wouldn't be so ultimate as to say that it's impossible to make good mixes in a decent pair of headphones, people have been known to do it. But it most definitely is not what most people would recommend, because it does make what is already a hard job for many just that much harder.

I liken it to learning how to write by watching yourself write in a mirror. Is it impossible? No, not impossible, but it's very hard - certainly much harder for most people than simply looking down at the paper (which is hard enough), and not a method anyone would recommend.

G.

 

[miroslav]

Fact: You can learn your way around any speakers.....

The only way to do that is to constantly compare your mixes off the cheap/crappy monitors....on someone else’s' better, more accurate monitors...and after awhile you could(??) learn how to make for your monitor's shortfalls.

But what's the point?
You might as well just get better monitors for yourself.

Checking mixes from your crappy/cheap monitors on other crappy cheap monitors (car speakers, iPods, computer speakers) will not help you really learn anything about your monitors.

 

[bozmillar]

I think you can make good mixes on any studio monitor once you know how it sounds. Perfectly flat frequency response isn't that important considering how much it changes by moving your head a centimeter. I have the krk rokit 5's, and while they aren't perfect, I know what they sound like and I think it will be a long time before I feel the need to upgrade. Is it possible I'm missing out on a world of audio bliss that I'm completely ignorant of? yeah, but I'm somewhat happy with the way my mixes sound, so I don't really care all that much.