KRK or M-audio?

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chamelious

www.thesunexplodes.com
Im buying some monitors both the BX-8's and the KRK 5"'s are in my price range, KRK seems to be a more respected brand in this area, is the 3" of speaker and loss of bass that comes with it made for in quality?

After much searching i've decided im getting a behringer minimon800 to controll them with. It doesn't seem any manufacturer has been smart enough to make a decent volume controlso i'll have to settle. (Im not spending £100 for a big knob or control station. I know they do more things, i dont need the other things.)

Any thoughts?
 
I am partial to the KRK RP-5s, they give a fairly well-balanced sound, although they can lack just a tad in the lower-end. Haven't used the others, so yea, its a slightly biased opinion :)

As for the behringer thingee, what are you hooking your monitors to that you need some sort of switching station? I'd think the Behringer would add unwanted degradation to the signal that you just don't want - but behringer is hit-or-miss - that thing might not do a damn thing to your overall sound, and it also may very well destroy it. Just something to look out for. Happy hunting!
 
Thinking i might try and give it the extra and get the rp-6's.

I dont need a switching station, i just need one volume control, not two that are stuck round the back of speakers. Not one that i have to dive into software for, which may have crashed.
 
I have the KRK rp5's and I'm very happy with them. They do lack in the bass, but for the money they are amazing, and you get used to the low end response enough to compensate after a few mixes.
 
i don't like the way the m-audio BX8's (any version of em) sound. the highs are strident and the bass seems overinflated. haven't really listened to the KRKs, but they seem to get some good reviews around these parts.

i mixed on m-audio SP5B's for years......they sounded great, but with 5in woofers you end up making a lot of guesses about everything below 150Hz or so. that's just a matter of physics.


cheers,
wade
 
I recently bought new monitors but only after a few months of test driving at the local music store. For my tests I picked some very expensive and nice sounding monitors that I couldn't possibly afford and then referenced everything I could afford to them. These were the Event ASP6 and ASP8. I loved the sound on these units. The monitors I then compared are the following:

KRK RP6
KRK V6II
KRK V8II
Yamaha HS50M
Yamaha HS80M

The RP6 Sounded like OEM car stereo speakers compared to the Event ASP6. Compared to the other KRKs they were pretty weak. The V6 is a big improvement to the RP. Much more detail and range with a better spread.
RP6 and V6 compared poorly to the HS50 in detail but had slightly more lower end. Mind you, NONE of these little guys had any thump to speak of.
HS50 had a HUGE stereo spread and really nice detail in the highs and upper mids. Highs on the V6 were kinda harsh compared to the HS50.

Testing the 8" models was different. With the 6" the V6 and the HS50 were the best and even though they sounded different from each other in significant ways I think the overall sound quality was pretty close. But with the 8" the HS80 just outshined the V8 in everything by a much wider margin it was almost no contest.

I saved up for another two months and got the HS80s. The M-Audio models the store carried were all out of stock during this test so I couldn't compare them. The sales guy said it was hard to keep them on the shelves.

Those Event ASPs are some bad muthas though. I'd love to own them. None of the other speakers sounded as good but the HS80s came the closest.

The music styles I used for testing were soft Jazz, Reggae, Dance, Hip Hop, Rock and my own stuff.
 
Hmm thats a lot of expensive monitors. I still dont think i fully understand the point in buying expensive speakers that "reproduce bass under 150hz". Whos going to be listening to those freuquencies except the few studio owners with speakers good enough for that?

The monitors you're talking about are at least £500+ for 2, i only have half that to spend. Is it even worth buying some?
 
it's worth it i'd imagine.. the more you can hear everything in a mix the better your mixes will be.. as soon as I have enough cash i'm buying some high end monitors.. for now i have to do it the el cheapo route and just compensate/reference a whole lot
 
Somnium7 said:
Those Event ASPs are some bad muthas though. I'd love to own them.
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i love mine! :D that's what i upgraded to from the maudio SP5B's. i figured i'd do it once and do it right. the quality of my mixes increased dramatically and overall mixing time really decreased when i got em. no comparison to any of the "budget" monitors.

the only complaint i have with them is that they're almost TOO loud. they're probably closer to midfield monitors than nearfield. huge sweetspot.

i spend many a night just listening to music on them, hearing inside the productions and sounds. far more nights than i actually spend RECORDING. ;)

chamelious said:
"reproduce bass under 150hz". Whos going to be listening to those freuquencies except the few studio owners with speakers good enough for that?
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ummmmmm.....150 is NOT that low. 110 is the low A note on a bass guitar and 220 is the low A on an electric guitar, so you're talking about everything inbetween. 150Hz comes across just fine even on laptop speakers.

it's the stuff from about 60Hz on down that you're thinking about.


cheers,
wade
 
eeb said:
for now i have to do it the el cheapo route and just compensate/reference a whole lot
Click to expand...
ya know, i bet that if you combined the cost of all the wasted reference cds i burned with all the time i spent tweaking, burning, listening in the car, retweaking, frustrations, retweaking, reburning, relistening, etc., it would take about a year to cover the added cost of the ASP8's overtop of the "usual budget suspects".

i wish i'd known then what i know now.......i would've spent a whole lot less time fighting the mixing process.


cheers,
wade
 
Fair enough my bad- Question still stand with 60hz replacing 150!
 
yes yes.. all fair and well.. but i'm wasting way more with my shitty stereo speakers (one of the tweaters on my actual studio monitors blew) when i say temporary i mean I'm gonna buy something i can afford now then maybe by the end of the summer/fall I'll have enough to get new ones.. but i need something now not in 2 months from now.. it's necessity the way i look at it
 
chamelious said:
Fair enough my bad- Question still stand with 60hz replacing 150!
Click to expand...
well, while most of the 8in monitors will go down to the 40Hz range (the ASP8's go to 38Hz, IIRC), unless you're mixing hiphop or something like that with lots of sub-sonic information, you either just don't worry about it or you roll it off. i can't think of any time i've ever had to worry about anything under ~60Hz.

in order to reproduce stuff that low the "listener" is going to need a subwoofer anyway. and you'd need a sub in order to mix it too.

it's the stuff in the 60Hz-150Hz range that most of the 5in monitors have a hard time reproducing accurately. this is a very valid range of tones in just about any mix.


cheers,
wade
 
If we go by the initial question of KRK vs. M-Audio, I'd have to say KRK. Something to think about here... What kind of products does KRK make, and what kind of products does M-Audio make???

KRK = Monitors and nothing else.
M-Audio - Broad Range of Equipment, lots of it for computer-based recording.

What are the speakers made out of??? The KRKs are made out of a material very very similar to Kevlar which is what is in most bullet proof vests. Take that how you will.
 
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