Flattest studio monitor for mixing and mastering

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YunG Clyde

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I had just been to the local music store today as I had made my mind up on buying a pair of Yamaha HS80m's after doing some research online. Mostly people say they are the flattest sounding monitor speakers you can get out there. To me a good pair of monitor speakers are the ones which'll give you the flattest response without coloring the frequencies at all (whether highs, lows or mids). This fits to the phrase "What you hear is what you get." And this in turn means that the mixe's translation will be at-least 95% perfect if not a 100%. What I mean is the final track out will sound exactly the same on at-least 95 systems out of 100 if not on all the 100 systems. Now I have 3 contenders : Yamaha HS80m's, KRK VXT8's, the Mackie HR824mk2's and the Adam AX8's. From the online research I did for almost a month I came to the conclusion that the HS80m's were the flattest of these. But when I went down to the music store today the guy there told me to wait for another week as they didn't have the HS80m's in stock (now this is a sign it sells out really fast) and then he went on to advice me about my purchase. He said that Mackies were the best and the flattest and would give me translations better than the HS80m's or KRK's. He also recommended the brands like Adam's and Genelec. Now money is not really the issue here. The issue is I don't want to purchase something and then sit and cry about it later. Frankly speaking I'm no expert at this. I know there's allot of people on this forum who own studios locally and overseas, who are mastering engineers, professional beat producers and many more talented and experienced folk. So its obvious ya'll have oceans and oceans of audio knowledge and I'd be thankful if you share it with me so I can at-least get an idea if I'm doing the right thing. Do the Yahamas really translate that well? In a battle between Yamaha HS80m's, KRK VXT8's, Adam AX8's and Mackie HR824mk2's who'd win? And why? Also if ya'll know any monitors which are better then please mention the brand name and the model. I usually do rap and hip hop music and also R&B. I do country music sometimes but that's rare. The genre shouldn't matter because whatever I do on it should translate well on other systems. Any suggestions? All help will be appreciated.

Regards,
Clyde Yung D'souza.
 
I have Mackie 824 monitors...the original version. They are quite flat, and I liked them a little better than the Yamaha.

Though now, I would maybe like to have the Adam AX8 monitors if I moved on from the Mackies.
 
I had just been to the local music store today as I had made my mind up on buying a pair of Yamaha HS80m's after doing some research online. Mostly people say they are the flattest sounding monitor speakers you can get out there. To me a good pair of monitor speakers are the ones which'll give you the flattest response without coloring the frequencies at all (whether highs, lows or mids). This fits to the phrase "What you hear is what you get." And this in turn means that the mixe's translation will be at-least 95% perfect if not a 100%. What I mean is the final track out will sound exactly the same on at-least 95 systems out of 100 if not on all the 100 systems. Now I have 3 contenders : Yamaha HS80m's, KRK VXT8's, the Mackie HR824mk2's and the Adam AX8's. From the online research I did for almost a month I came to the conclusion that the HS80m's were the flattest of these. But when I went down to the music store today the guy there told me to wait for another week as they didn't have the HS80m's in stock (now this is a sign it sells out really fast) and then he went on to advice me about my purchase. He said that Mackies were the best and the flattest and would give me translations better than the HS80m's or KRK's. He also recommended the brands like Adam's and Genelec. Now money is not really the issue here. The issue is I don't want to purchase something and then sit and cry about it later. Frankly speaking I'm no expert at this. I know there's allot of people on this forum who own studios locally and overseas, who are mastering engineers, professional beat producers and many more talented and experienced folk. So its obvious ya'll have oceans and oceans of audio knowledge and I'd be thankful if you share it with me so I can at-least get an idea if I'm doing the right thing. Do the Yahamas really translate that well? In a battle between Yamaha HS80m's, KRK VXT8's, Adam AX8's and Mackie HR824mk2's who'd win? And why? Also if ya'll know any monitors which are better then please mention the brand name and the model. I usually do rap and hip hop music and also R&B. I do country music sometimes but that's rare. The genre shouldn't matter because whatever I do on it should translate well on other systems. Any suggestions? All help will be appreciated.

Regards,
Clyde Yung D'souza.
 
flat is only really relevant to your room treatment.
 
Relying on reviews and opinions is tricky business because it's so subjective.

I bought mackies because two studios I worked at and my college had them.
I found I could work on them quite happily so that made the decision for me, really.

If possible, audition monitors somewhere. Whether at the store or at local studios.
Of course they will sound different in your room, but you should still be able to get an idea of what does it for you.

Setting them up well in your room will make a world of difference to any monitor you choose!

Having said that, the record in my sig was mixed on old wharfedale hifi speakers that I know pretty well.
Now, it's no masterpiece, but I do feel that knowing your speakers (monitors) can go a hell of a long way.
Make sure you spend time listening to familiar commercial mixes on your monitors, no matter what ones you buy.
 
Steenamaroo said:
I bought mackies because two studios I worked at and my college had them. I found I could work on them quite happily so that made the decision for me, really.
Click to expand...

Yes, and Mackies are arguably the flattest "affordable" speakers out there.

One problem with assessing speakers by ear alone is that pleasing is not necessarily accurate. Lots of speakers sound pleasing because they have a 2-5 dB dip in the "harshness" range around 2 to 4 KHz. But you don't want that when making mix decisions! You want a speaker that's brutally honesty. Otherwise your mixes will be overly harsh because you didn't hear that harshness from your speakers.

--Ethan
 
Ethan Winer said:
Yes, and Mackies are arguably the flattest "affordable" speakers out there.
Click to expand...
Oh? That's pretty good to know.

Ethan Winer said:
Lots of speakers sound pleasing because they have a 2-5 dB dip in the "harshness" range around 2 to 4 KHz. But you don't want that when making mix decisions! You want a speaker that's brutally honesty.
Click to expand...

I meant to mention, if you do test out some monitors be sure to bring copies of music that you know very very well.
Commercial stuff that is known to sound great!

That way you can judge better.
 
Soon to be the flattest monitors! :D

flattest monitors.webp
 
One word Solo 6be's closing things (I SAID Closest thing) to a mixing & mastering monitor i one (in reality there is no such thing) but this is what your looking for. There are some mastering that use the solo's The famous David Kutch did master Alicia Keys album with these monitors
 
You stated both mixing and mastering as your requirements. The Mackies may be good for mixing but aren't suitable for mastering - the tweeters aren't good enough. To master you need to be able to differentiate the different kinds of highs (particularly the brightness and the air). I did a side-by-side comparison with the Mackies and the KRK Rokit 8s. The KRK tweeters were giving me all sorts of high frequency information and detail that the Mackie tweeters were mashing into a sizzle. That knocked the Mackies off my shortlist. Don't get me wrong, the Mackies sound great but I couldn't master on them with any confidence.

The salesman is missing the point on translatable mixes. There's more to translatable mixes than flat speakers. Flat speakers help but the room is a big factor as is frequent checking of your mixes against reference mixes (adjusted down to the loudness of your mix of course) to counteract ear fatigue and the fact that your ears adjust to lumpy sound in the way your eyes see colours whether under tungsten, fluorescent, or LED lighting. You also need to check your mixes on limited bandwidth speakers that lack highs and lows. With nice monitors it's easy to EQ things so that the low end and/or high end sound great but vanish as soon as you're playing back on speakers with reduced frequency range. A similar problem happens if your mix is middly but you then listen to it on some hyped speakers that have the mids scooped out and all of a sudden that nice warm vocal isn't where you had it in the mix. And on top of that there is the listening level - your mix has to work as well as (if not better) when played back quietly rather than being pumped out. So, no speaker can guarantee translatable mixes by itself.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Oh? That's pretty good to know.
Click to expand...

Some years ago a fellow I know measured ten popular monitors using a very accurate method, and the Mackie 824s were flatter than all the others including some pretty expensive models.

if you do test out some monitors be sure to bring copies of music that you know very very well.
Commercial stuff that is known to sound great!
Click to expand...

One problem with listening tests is the key of the music interacts with the LF response of the room. A loudspeaker that's perfectly flat might sound boomy, or thin, due entirely to the room. If you add "listen in a properly treated room" I'll agree completely. :D

--Ethan
 
How many stores that you know that sell reference monitors have a well-treated listening room for them? I think of the old days when I worked at a 'stereo store' where the speakers were placed, and the A/B switches set up, to be able to sell the speakers we made the most money on. :rolleyes:
 
Ethan Winer said:
One problem with listening tests is the key of the music interacts with the LF response of the room. A loudspeaker that's perfectly flat might sound boomy, or thin, due entirely to the room. If you add "listen in a properly treated room" I'll agree completely. :D

--Ethan
Click to expand...

Well, I did mean at a local music store or studio. I mean, you take what you can get.
In an ideal world though, of course I agree with your point.

My paint point in saying that was that it's a bad idea to bring your own music.
I suppose the temptation would be to see how your own mixes sound on mackies or KRKs or whatever, but it's probably the worst way to evaluate speakers.
 
mix monitors, and monitors for mastering....
those are two completely different animals, or at least in a perfect world, should be.
 
GONZO-X said:
mix monitors, and monitors for mastering....
those are two completely different animals, or at least in a perfect world, should be.
Click to expand...

What are the differences? As one who tries to get by doing both, is there a sweet spot that covers both for me?
 
WhiteStrat said:
What are the differences? As one who tries to get by doing both, is there a sweet spot that covers both for me?
Click to expand...

There is only one sweet spot to even closely get both in one world Focal 6be a lot of mastering engineers use the focal 6be's for mastering. David kutch actually use them to master Alicia Keys album IT IS NOT THE SAME WORLD but it is the closest to both worlds IMVHO. Now i know every top mastering eng (Massive & Waltz) and the rest of the world is going to disagree with me on this and I disagree with my self as well but I just trying to help the OP out here trying to find the closest to best of both worlds.

First of all mastering monitors are MADE for mastering. The build the cones twitters speakers are design as LOUD! speakers not near field mixing monitors. I guess you haven't seen most mastering monitors are taller and weigh more than you! Thats one difference another difference is high quality mastering monitors are full range meaning their freq range goes fffffaarrrr beyond what you top mixing monitors can provide (yes even the Focals). The accuracy and detail of the sound frequency are next to none. The right D/A monitoring converter and right Amp with cables and you have basically have a state of the art mini movie theater with superb sonic accuracy. Mastering monitors are NOT! to even be put in the same conversation as mixing monitors. Dunlavy/B&W/Tyler/PMC/Wilson vs umm... what ? Rokits/Yamaha/Focals/Adams/Genelec's......Yeah! Right :drunk:
 
You can have the flattest monitors in the world but if your monitoring environment is screwed up, you might as well be listening through a phonograph horn.

You'd be surprised how good even average monitors are in a well tuned room.

My 2c (ZAR).

Cheers :)
 
I'm getting deja vu on this posting so I'll just repeat a short version.

The one problem I have with the Mackies is the tweeters. They mush the highs together. I could mix on them but wouldn't consider mastering on them. In a direct comparison I found the KRK tweeters far superior because I could hear the difference between the brightness and the air and listening to my standard reference CD the harsh tracks were harsh, the smooth tracks were smooth, and the detailed tracks were detailed. You can't master properly if you can't hear the highs clearly and the Mackies weren't good enough. They're great speakers but not for mastering.

+1 to Mo Facta's comment on the listening space.
 
You're getting deja vu because there are two identical threads. :facepalm:
 
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