Monitor Speakers on a budget?

F

Fretwiz

New member
Hey, I would like to ask your guys opinion on monitor speakers. I am currently recording and mixing on headphones at the moment (i know this is heavily frowned upon in the recording world) but ive had a serious lack of funds for the past few years now.

I am now looking to buy some monitor speakers for my set up, but i am far from having money to burn. So with that said, are there any speakers out there that are just phenomenal for their price or does it get to the point where you might aswell have no speakers rather than cheap speakers?

Any help with this will be greatly appreciated as this will be my first venture into the speaker world!

Thanks :D
 
i also realise this post might be in the wrong section, apologies for that! I couldnt find a section for speakers so thought id stick it in here!
 
Fretwiz said:
Any help with this will be greatly appreciated as this will be my first venture into the speaker world!

Thanks :D
Click to expand...

Hi, and welcome.

I think that point definitely exists. Where it is depends on what you hope to achieve and personal opinion.
It's about personal limitations too. If you can't hear the difference, don't pay for it! lol.

Plenty of guys will tell you behringer truths or similar completely changed their mixing experience;
Others will tell you to forget anything below $X000 dollars.

I use Mackie HR 624s and have found them to be fanstastic.
Any previous cheap monitors I had (samson resolvs and alesis m1active mk2) I'd trade any day for decent 'hifi' speakers.
They just weren't worth buying.

A while back I had to mix a CD and a lot of my gear was in storage.
I had the choice between samson resolvs and Wharfedale Dovedale IIs. (google that. :p).
I chose the Dovedales and I'm so glad I did.

Fretwiz said:
Any help with this will be greatly appreciated as this will be my first venture into the speaker world!

Thanks :D
Click to expand...

If it's your first venture, try to make it your only venture.
Spend plenty of time reading up, not only on monitors, but on placement, height, room acoustic treatment etc.
I know I'm only getting about 50% benefit from the mackies because my room isn't treated.
Many would (quite rightly) argue that there's little point having one without the other.

Hope that's been useful.
 
Yamaha HS80Ms are touted as being great speakers for mixing on a budget quite often. I have quite a few friends with a pair, some as their main monitors and others just for mix reference. It might be more helpful to post your budget and what type of music you generally work on...and do you do more recording or mixing?

And I agree with the poster above. Monitors may vary by a small amount (1-3dB) at certain frequencies, but room response generally varies from being +/-10dB to +/-25dB when they are untreated. The room usually makes a larger difference than the type of speaker, so I would seriously consider room treatments in your budget of your monitors.
 
Thanks for the useful input guys. Ive done a bit more research into it and im currently looking at the "KRK Rokit 5 G2". The yamaha HS80's are slightly too expensive for my budget really (so as you can tell, i dont have alot of money lol)

GIK - I am more of a recorder at the moment, I have been recording for MANY years but never really taken the whole mixing thing seriously. The music i record is "Metal" but a bit more drawn back, with prog elements. Im not expecting to get "studio" quality mixes from this venture, but i want a more advanced sound to mix with rather than my headphones!

When people say acoustically treated room, would a few bits of foam placed correctly on the walls be massively more beneficial than having nothing?

Thanks
 
FOAM is not the the mixer's best friend.
Foam is the 2000's equiv. of egg cartons on the walls.
Head over to studio building & display for more on acoustic treatment.
If buying monitors, get what you can afford on the understanding that you will want to upgrade when you hear better once your room is managed.
You'll do far better than with h/phones if you set yourself up reasonably well.
Seriously, an old stereo with speakers you know will improve things IF you can reconcile them with the influence your room has on the sound.
I have a dud room but have learnt to compensate for it in various ways - INCLUDING - knowing how my room affects the sound - I did a set of tests with and SPL metre and test tones etc & added large, very full, bookshleves etc. knowing that once I had some money aside I could beging to treat my room and improve the sound overall.
 
I would try to push your budget or wait if possible. Read "Mixing Secrets" and get some insight on how ported speakers can create issues because of resonances. Unported speakers in that price range are pretty much non-existent, though, so you have to make trade offs. Something like a pair of JBL LSR2325P (about $200 each) might be a push, and you're going to have *less* bass, but maybe something to consider along those lines.

Bass traps and angled panels probably more helpful than foam, though you can certainly try to use the foam and see if it helps once you identify some issues. Might as well start budgeting for acoustic panels next, though...
 
Back to the question: In my recent search for monitors I looked at all the usual suspects KRK, Yamaha, Alesis, etc. etc. etc. and settled on Tascam monitors. I heard better sounding monitors but nothing as revealing and truthful as the Tascams. If you want the TRUTH about your audio and not just the monitor of the day try the Tascams. Im not talking good sound Im talking revelation and detail here. Do yourself and your music a favor and check them out. And they are not the most expensive of the monitors available, rather on the low end price wise.
 
Hey everyone i'm new to this forum and i want to ask someone more experienced than me. What would you recommend me ? I need some cheap speakers(not necessarily monitors) for home. I will be mastering my songs somewhere else so i need a pair of good sounding speakers basically for writing, composing and arranging tracks. What do you think is the best solution. Thanks in advance
 
Hey dude...
welcome to the fold man.

You'll probably get some better response by posting your own thread.
 
I was in the same boat as you a few months ago and bought used yamaha hs50's for $250 for the pair!! They're great!
 
Steenamaroo said:
If it's your first venture, try to make it your only venture.
Spend plenty of time reading up, not only on monitors, but on placement, height, room acoustic treatment etc.
I know I'm only getting about 50% benefit from the mackies because my room isn't treated.
Many would (quite rightly) argue that there's little point having one without the other.

Hope that's been useful.
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Steen - renowned for speaking words of wisdom :thumbs up:

i was in a similar boat when setting up my home studio space. For ages i just mixed on headphones (i didn't have a space to have any kind of speakers), and then moved into a house with a little room and started using some old hi-fi speakers as monitors (which made a notable improvement in my mixes) and then started the hunt for proper monitor speakers at the end of last year to help improve my setup. Where i work we have a pair of Adam P22a's, a pair of Mackies (damn, i can never remember the model number. they're 6 inch drivers, from the early 2000's..... *shrugg*) and some older passive alesis boxes. the thing was, it gave me an idea of how they sound in those spaces but little real idea of what they would sound like at home so i still felt fairly clueless when looking. i spent the better half of 8 months in the end reading, listening, and trying every monitor i could think of/find under £400 and ended up with a pair of RCF Ayra 6's. out of the ones i tried (usual suspects; KRK Rokits, Yamaha HSM's, Behringer truths with the ribbon tweeters, Alesis, Mackie) and read stuff on they seemed the most revealing and natural sounding. Saying that, i did also spend £75 on desktop speaker stands (mainly because foam speaker pads wouldn't get the monitors up to ear level, but boy howdy were the stands worth every penny!!! :) ) and have spent alot of time and effort prior to all of this treating my space.

I was pleasantly surprised by the Behring Truth 3031a's but went with the RCF's purely because they sounded more neutral to my ears.

As others have suggested, try/read as much as you can and, if you've not already, get your space sorted acoustically first so as to really make the most of whatever monitors you end up with.
 
Justsomeguy said:
i spent the better half of 8 months in the end reading, listening, and trying every monitor i could think of/find under £400 and ended up with a pair of RCF Ayra 6's.
Click to expand...

Do they require a subwoofer? A 6" driver doesn't seem like enough to give true bass...
 
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