Monitors and project studio size

M

M-Bass-M

New member
I'm looking to upgrade my monitors in my home studio from my Alesis MII passives to something active. I'm considering a pair of Adam A7Xs, but the cheaper A5X look more tempting. Likewise with the Mackie HR824 vs HR624.

My problem is that I probably have quite a large home studio (18' x 12' or so?), and I seem to think - wrongly or rightly - that I'll need a 8" instead of a 6" speaker.

Can anybody give any advice on the relationship between speaker size and room size? Likewise, given that I currently use Alesis MkII passives and my max budget is a pair of Adam A7Xs, any recommendations on (cheaper) alternative monitors?

Thanks!

Mark
 
I believe speaker size should be determined by how loudly you will be listening and how much low frequency you expect to hear. Naturally, it takes a larger speaker to produce more low-end content. Larger active speakers are often (but not always) higher in power which translates to more volume. (Volume capability is also dependent on speaker sensitivity/efficiency, but we'll assume they are all in the same ballpark in that regard.)

Basically it comes down to this...
If you will have several people sitting throughout the room and want them all to hear playback at high volume, get larger/louder monitors.
If you will be the only one listening, you will always be in the mix position/sweet spot, and/or you will always playback at low to moderate volume, smaller monitors will do fine.
 
This was the very same question i asked myself when i was last buying monitors. I have a smallish room (about 14' x 10') and was torn between some 8's and 6's. In the end i went for 6's for pretty much the reason RawDepth suggests; the vast majority of the time i'm the only one in the room listening in the sweet spot at low to moderate volumes. Saying that, I was still gobsmacked at the physical size of the 6's when they were in my room (they seemed smaller in the shop!)
 
to me it depends on brand & budget. bigger is better because upgrading down the road may be a more expensive option than buying wisely now.
 
Not the most scientific approach but I have Mackie HR624s and bought them because I was familiar with HR824s in a small room.
I took a punt because I loved the 824s but felt the bass over powered a small (untreated) room.

Punt paid off and I love my 624s.
 
Thanks for all the replies. I guess that as it will only be me listening to mixes in the sweet spot at relatively low volumes, then saving the extra cash and going for the 6" is probably the better plan.

I also checked the specs on my current monitors, and they're 6.5" and volume-wise they're doing just fine - another reason to stick with the 6"!

Cheers

Mark
 
I take it you mean woofer size?

The size of the speaker doesn't matter regardless of room size, but rather the design and performance and how you will use them.

My nearfields (Yorkville YSM1i) are physically slightly larger than the Alesis M1 MKII, but still have a 6.5" woofer. They could probably accommodate an 8" speaker if they wanted to design them that way, but no need since they have a frequency response of 40 Hz to 20 kHz as it is and plenty of power. I would use them the same way in a bigger room than I have now... or a smaller room... about 6 feet apart and 6 feet from me. With a bigger room you can move the speakers a bit farther away from the front wall, which may help make them more accurate.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top