I've been shopping for a set of monitors for the past couple months and thought I'd share my experience.
I wanted to keep the cost under $1k. I auditioned everything I could find in that range. I even got to look at some Mackie 824s for that price, as the Mars store in my area is liquidating and had a pair for $850. At the liquidation price, the 824s were the best thing I could find under $1k.
Before making a final decision, though, I browsed through this board for any other suggestions. I saw some posts by barefoot expressing his view that some of the DIY speaker kits on the market would outperform similarly priced monitors. Coincidentally, I had built a pair of DIY speakers from a kit a year and a half ago. (No, this is not a sales pitch, and I have no affiliation with any company having anything to do with speakers or monitors.) The kit had come out quite well (so well, in fact that I immediately upgraded to another kit, leaving the first completed kit unused in my garage). After reading barefoot's posts, I figured I would try the unused kit speakers in my recording setup and see whether I really needed the Mackies.
I am very pleased with the results I'm getting from the kit, and I have decided to stick with it. The kit speakers were more accurate than anything I had auditioned, including the 824s. Also, they had a significantly lower low-frequency cut-off than the monitors I had auditioned. (This surprised me a bit, because my kit speakers have an F-3 rolloff at about 55Hz, while the 824s' spec sheet says their F-3 is 37Hz. I listened to the 824s again the other day when I was at Guitar Center, and I'm havin' a real tough time figuring how they claim that their 3dB drop-off is at 37 Hz. Methinks the folks at Mackie may be doing some of that "new math" . . . .
)
I'm not looking to start a debate here about the use of hi-fi speakers in place of monitors. To me, it is without question that 99.99% of consumer-oriented hi-fi speakers lack the linearity that is desirable in monitors. But there are some DIY companies out there putting together kits that are designed to achieve that linearity. Building a set of monitors is not for everyone, but my experience is that you can get a significantly higher quality pair of monitors for the money, provided you have (1) the ability to solder, and (2) the willingness to spend a weekend or two putting them together.
For those interested, the kit I used was the "Aria 5R." It uses two 5" Focal woofers and a Raven R-1 ribbon tweeter. I picked it up from a DIY company called Zalytron for about $650 a year ago; they are running about $700 now. (These prices were for the drivers and the electronics, and did not include the boxes, which I built myself.) I am amplifying them through a Hafler TA1600.
I wanted to keep the cost under $1k. I auditioned everything I could find in that range. I even got to look at some Mackie 824s for that price, as the Mars store in my area is liquidating and had a pair for $850. At the liquidation price, the 824s were the best thing I could find under $1k.
Before making a final decision, though, I browsed through this board for any other suggestions. I saw some posts by barefoot expressing his view that some of the DIY speaker kits on the market would outperform similarly priced monitors. Coincidentally, I had built a pair of DIY speakers from a kit a year and a half ago. (No, this is not a sales pitch, and I have no affiliation with any company having anything to do with speakers or monitors.) The kit had come out quite well (so well, in fact that I immediately upgraded to another kit, leaving the first completed kit unused in my garage). After reading barefoot's posts, I figured I would try the unused kit speakers in my recording setup and see whether I really needed the Mackies.
I am very pleased with the results I'm getting from the kit, and I have decided to stick with it. The kit speakers were more accurate than anything I had auditioned, including the 824s. Also, they had a significantly lower low-frequency cut-off than the monitors I had auditioned. (This surprised me a bit, because my kit speakers have an F-3 rolloff at about 55Hz, while the 824s' spec sheet says their F-3 is 37Hz. I listened to the 824s again the other day when I was at Guitar Center, and I'm havin' a real tough time figuring how they claim that their 3dB drop-off is at 37 Hz. Methinks the folks at Mackie may be doing some of that "new math" . . . .
)I'm not looking to start a debate here about the use of hi-fi speakers in place of monitors. To me, it is without question that 99.99% of consumer-oriented hi-fi speakers lack the linearity that is desirable in monitors. But there are some DIY companies out there putting together kits that are designed to achieve that linearity. Building a set of monitors is not for everyone, but my experience is that you can get a significantly higher quality pair of monitors for the money, provided you have (1) the ability to solder, and (2) the willingness to spend a weekend or two putting them together.
For those interested, the kit I used was the "Aria 5R." It uses two 5" Focal woofers and a Raven R-1 ribbon tweeter. I picked it up from a DIY company called Zalytron for about $650 a year ago; they are running about $700 now. (These prices were for the drivers and the electronics, and did not include the boxes, which I built myself.) I am amplifying them through a Hafler TA1600.
