rca is not a problem. . .
rca outs are fine, just get an rca to 1/4" cable, you won't have a "balanced" connection capable of running 30 feet away or more, but as long as the cable is under 15 feet you'll be fine - we had unbalanced connections to the Mackies at work, and they worked fine, now hum or anything. The important thing is that the outs are main outs or control room outs, outputting a complete mix, effects and all, not just part of the mix (I'm pretty sure that a unit with only rca outs is gonna have just main outs, so you should be ok).
You can't really go straight out from your soundcard to the monitors, cause there is no volume control on most self-powered monitors (save for the yamaha mp5 whatevers)- so your computer could fire up and make some horrible noise during booting and blow your ears out (not to mentions speakers don't like that kind of stuff). you just can't count on a software slider when you're dealing with monitors greater than 15 watts a piece (which all these are) - it's just nuts - it's extremely dangerous, you would have to buy a micro mixer to control the volume (or some kind of volume control, but you might as well just get a micro mixer, which you'll eventually want anyway if you're doing rock).
Great bass extention is not that critical in most rock music (stones, beatles, any freedomrock, glamrock, or grunge band), unless heavy use of a five-string bass is involved. Most of the bass and punch from drums and bass guitar resides in the low mids which go down to 80hz - any decent monitor can get down to 80hz, most down to 65hz - which would be fine for that kind of stuff in my opinion - sure you might feel a bit more bass in your chest in a system that could get down to
35hz, but it wouldn't be as critical to mixing the music accurately. I mean, once you get past 60hz, we're talking about some pretty low bass - the kind of bass you would get from the bass drum of a vintage drum machine or the lowest note of one of those giant church organs - the kind of bass skywalker sound uses when a star destroyer is supposedly flying over the audiences' head. If you're doing dance music, this kind of bass is important, if you're doing music from guitar, bass, and drums, it's not nearly as critical. I read a review from a guy who demoed a bunch of monitors with a temple of the dog cd and ended up with alesis point sevens pleasing him the most, some of the most notoriously low-bass-weak speakers out there (no offense to any point seven owners) - cause even those little guys could handle most of what Jeff Ament could throw at them. Now, if you were doing a 5 string bass-soloist record, then it might be more important. . . . . . . . but otherwise, don't worry about the looow bass, the punch is in the (approx.) 60 to 100hz range (don't quote me on that), not the 20 to 40hz range.
Tannoy Reveals are probably better than yorkville ysm-1's for rock music (but they're $120 more), they have better mid-field definition (almost too much from what I've heard) read all the reviews at the address below, there's a guy in a rock band who has both. . .
http://www.audioreview.com/reviews/Speaker/product_8657.shtml
The reveals are also availibel as an active for a little more than $600 (the passives are $300). But
the ps6's have much better bass for $570 shipping/tax included at 8thstreet.com - a little over your budget, but go demo them, you'll see why their worth it if any of the stuff I've heard about them is true - they seem to have no weaknesses. Alway remember to factor in shipping and tax when looking at prices, a number means nothing till you've calculated the "out the door" price. Alot of online discounters chop down the prices, then gouge you for shipping when you check out - so free shipping will usually save you at least $30.
I do alot of sound fx and experimental electronic music (where sometimes I'm using sound that are purely 30hz or purely 20hz, so I need something accurate across the whole spectrum - thus the ysm1's instead of the reveals). Also, I owe mastercard $1000 - so $79 per monitor sounds pretty good right now.
The M1's have an equal amount of worshipers and detractors, some think them unrefined, some like the great bass extension - you'ld have to try them, the certainly have a nice price.
Again, the tria used to sell for $750 to $900 last year, and even then is seemed worth it, but if you haven't seen a set in person, you'll be surprised - that LF thing is huge, the satelite speakers are about the size of average PC speakers though - it's like the pro version of the average $200 home multimedia PC speaker system. So make sure you can set the sub back far enough to where you don't kick it, but not so far back that the bass is muffled by your desk - - which can be tricky - now you know why it's been discontinued. . . . well, it was also discontinued because it failed to get a serious review by any of the major recording magazines - really strange. . . .everybody reviewed the 20/20's, I wonder why event kept the tria hidden from the media?
O.k., hope this helps - let me know if you have any more questions.
patrick out.
