Monitors - sorry to be cheap, but I need some advice

N

normington

New member
Hi,

Yes, I am aware that I'll likely be shot a few times on this thread for even mentioning the concept of holding back on how much I spend on monitors, but I'm going to ask anyway. I'm a student, I'm very, very skint, and I'm wondering where the next small amount of cash I find should go. I do have access at study places to decent Tannoy monitors, but I'd like it if I could do some more involved mixing at home.

Currently, my main set of speakers (just for multimedia) are a 5.1 set of Creative Inspire T6100's. They have a nice sound, but I'm aware that they're probably not flat enough to mix on.

I'm looking to spend sub-£100, and I know that some people will see that as a stupid thing to do, but my angle is that I can always go elsewhere to tweak my mixes following a home session, and I'm in an untreated room, and I ask myself the question - do I really need top-quality professional standard monitors in my current situation?

Now, where to go from here. Firstly, will I get any notable increase in quality/detail from sub-£100 monitors, over the Creative set that I already have?

If so, I'm currently deciding between two sets, Behringer MS40's and M-Audio Studiophile AV 40's. They're both 4" cones, 20W per side, active. Any advice as to which pair might have the edge over the other? Any other model suggestions to be made?

Thanks very much, I really appreciate your advice.

Andy
 
yeah, you could probably see an improvement over the computer speakers with sub 100 pound monitors, but I gotta repeat the mantra...

I, like you, resisted the advice about monitors. Just in the last month or so (after a couple of years of getting back into this stuff) I picked up a decent pair, and had to hit myself in the head for waiting so long.

I also wondered whether I really needed decent monitors to complement my low end set up, but after getting them, realized that was like thinking I didn't need a windshield I could see through because my car is so cheap :D

Anyway, I'm in the US and I don't know what UK prices are - a couple of years ago I picked up Edirol MA 15-D monitors new for less than the equivalent of 100 pounds - they're likely significantly better than your computer speakers, but if you can possibly do it, save up and go demo a bunch of higher end pairs and get some of those. When it comes to recording equipment, skimp just about every where else first (but don't buy very much equipment until you have the monitors, because you could be wasting money on it). Time (and possibly money) spent understanding and improving the room(s) you're using is another priority, and if you're an instrumentalist, good sounding instruments are probably the top priority (as well as musical skills, etc., of course)
 
I hear you on that - the windshield analogy is a good one, that makes a lot of sense.

I still feel like I need a stepping stone, though - I'm not ready to shell out on some higher-spec monitors yet.

I like the MA-15D's you mention (now Cakewalk branded instead of Edirol by the way), but I can't find them for any less than about £140. They seem to have about the same feature set as the Behringers. Now, I know a lot of people bash Behringer-branded equipment as cheap, and I can see where they come from, but Behringer do hit the spot from time to time - is the £50 price difference between the two brands really justified?
Also, the M-Audio's I mention are roughly the same spec, just no digital inputs, and they go for the same price as the Behringers - M-Audio are a better brand, so why the big jump in price to the Edirols - how much better can they be?
 
Well, I'd say the digital input is not a necessary feature - the only reason you'd use it is because you think the Digital to Analog (D/A) converter in your cheap monitors is better than the D/A converter in your interface, and hopefully that'll never be the case. I've never even tried to use it. I guess if you were in an extremely electromagnetically active space, it might be better to go digital than to use the unbalanced analog inputs, but again, hopefully that'll never happen either.

I know nothing about the Beri monitors. I wish I could be more helpful with regard to the M-Audio ones, but they have so many different models that it makes my head spin - I have a pair of bottom-of-the-line studiophile something or others, but never even mention them because they're really just computer speakers in my book. On the other hand, I just got a pair of Adam A7s a few weeks ago (which I think are nice for a home studio, provided you have a subwoofer), and the sales guy was pushing some other M-Audio ones that sold for the same price. I demoed them both (and some others - don't skip this important step, if you spend more) and really didn't like the M-Audio ones - to me, they weren't exposing enough detail, although they did seem to have pretty flat (albeit dull, dead-sounding - like library paste tastes) response.
 
look for used kef...b+w.. or similar... the drivers in "monitors" are the same as in hi-fi's... different design criteria but essentially the same thing... alotta US stereo is hyped and is poor for monitoring but not true of most of the brit stuff...
 
Alesis - shall I bite on this deal?

I'm being offered a pair of Alesis M1 Active 520's for a good price that I'm willing to pay. Reviews of these monitors seem promising, and I'm looking at going for them, but before I do, does anybody have any alarm bells to raise?
 
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