Monitor searching is like getting lost in the woods...

[Ufdah]

Man I'm running in circles here... First Wharfedales are the greatest undiscovered sub $500 monitor then Bleyrad has to stir the pot and before you know it many are saying the York's are better. As if I'm not having a hard enough time I read this:

Have a set of Yorville YSM -1 (non powered) and a set of Behringer Truths B2301A's. After a year of using both I like the Truths way better, but would not sell my Yorkvilles.

But then I come back to the fact that many say the Warf's are superior to the Bery's. But wait, I thought the Yorks were better than the Warfs...

This is really confusing for the uninitiated like myself. I live in a podunk city in Alaska and there are no music stores that sell recording gear within 3 hours of my place, and if I decided to dedicate a day to try to go hear monitors I know the selection in the stores we do have is really poor. So here I am trying to make an educated purchase to kick off my fledgling recording efforts and I'm getting run in circles.

Currently the only thing I have are some Klipsch KSB1.1 speakers setup for 7.1 in my HT room. ( can't forget the two 15" Infinate Baffle subs... ) They're decent speakers but I know that I should have something a little better, plus they're stuck on the walls of the HT... not in my "studio" a 10'x12' room with 10' ceilings.

If you have any advice for someone like myself I'd love to hear it.

 

[noisewreck]

This is really confusing for the uninitiated like myself.

That goes to show ya that monitor selection is a highly subjective matter. It depends on many factors, such as the acoustics of the room, the condition of your ears the type of music you do, blah, blah, blah...

In fact, most likely listening to them at a music store, while will give you some general idea, is still not ideal, as I guarantee they will sound different in your room.

I got a set of Mackies and at the time I compared to them to KRKs, JBLs and whatnot. I totally hated the KRKs, but then there are people that swear by them and can't stand the Mackies. Go figure

It kinda sucks that you can't go to a music store and at least listen to them, but really, that's the only way to go.

What I suggest is, contact those online retailers and check their return policy. Order them, test them out, return and get another set, and see which ones you like the best. This kind of sucks from the manufacturer's point of view, but in your case, I really can't think of any other way.

 

[jeffree]

What I suggest is, contact those online retailers and check their return policy. Order them, test them out, return and get another set, and see which ones you like the best.

Yeah, that's what I did to compare my top three choices. Just hearing them in my space (they sounded quite different) made the extra bucks in postage very worthwhile. And by the way, I believe that you really can't go wrong if you pick up a generally well reviewed set. The bigger issue will be taking plenty of time to learn their sound before attempting any serious mixing.

Good luck,

J.

 

[CoolCat]

monitors and more monitors and ears

yeah, i agree two...contact the retailer on return policy, and float some monitors to your place.
and you have three brands you've already mentioned to try out..

I agree three... also that your reading can help shorten the list, as there's too many monitors to try all of them...and new ones coming out every week it seems. I came up with a extremely similar 3 or 5...

then its your turn, you can post your inputs and confuse the next gearhead searching for monitors...hehe

I got yorks and like them very much. good enough to quite shopping. others I tried would have worked fine too, in hindsight.

good luck.....

 

[Lambo]

Picking three different sets of monitors and trying them out in your listening environment is very sound advice. For the cost of postage, even though it can be expensive due to the weight of the monitors, you gain the piece of mind that you were able to select the best sounding monitor in your environment. This is especially true for the lower end monitors. Now, if you were to spring for a set of Mackie 824's and didn't like the way they sounded then you'd have to find the offending component in your listening environment because to my ears, the Mackie 824's are an awesome sounding monitor.
I brought a set home and was blown away by them. Unfortunately, reality set in forcing me to return them and instead I purchased the Tapco S8's made by Mackie at about a third the price of the 824's. Do they sound like the 824's? No way, but for the price I'm a happy camper. Someday though.....

 

[travelin travis]

Man I'm running in circles here... First Wharfedales are the greatest undiscovered sub $500 monitor then Bleyrad has to stir the pot and before you know it many are saying the York's are better. As if I'm not having a hard enough time I read this:


But then I come back to the fact that many say the Warf's are superior to the Bery's. But wait, I thought the Yorks were better than the Warfs...

This is really confusing for the uninitiated like myself. I live in a podunk city in Alaska and there are no music stores that sell recording gear within 3 hours of my place, and if I decided to dedicate a day to try to go hear monitors I know the selection in the stores we do have is really poor. So here I am trying to make an educated purchase to kick off my fledgling recording efforts and I'm getting run in circles.

Currently the only thing I have are some Klipsch KSB1.1 speakers setup for 7.1 in my HT room. ( can't forget the two 15" Infinate Baffle subs... ) They're decent speakers but I know that I should have something a little better, plus they're stuck on the walls of the HT... not in my "studio" a 10'x12' room with 10' ceilings.

If you have any advice for someone like myself I'd love to hear it.

I currently own the Wharf's and Art's (York's). Out of the two, I think the Art's translate much better and are the best bang for buck. Maybe the B's kick the crap out of both of them. Reliability is pretty important to me so I passed on those.

I have two big issues with the wharf's. #1, a false sense of vocal mid presence. The wharf's put your vocals on a pedestal but take the mix to a different system and that pedestal is kicked out from under you. #2, sloppy bass with no low extension. Sometimes i like to use a big round kick drum sound but I can't hear it all thru the wharf's. What I can hear is unfocused, kind of smeared.

The only issue I have with the Art's is the tweeter can be a little fizzy on some things. I don't like it but it's not a huge deal. Also, I should mention that I initially loved the Art's bass response. I now think it's good for the money but not terrific. It's certainly better than the Wharf's bass response and that's probably why I was so impressed in the beginning. Don't get me wrong, the bass is damn decent for $200 speakers.

Here's a few questions you could ask owners of monitors that you're considering:

What's the low, mid, high frequency response like? How deep do the low's get? Are the mid's strong, anemic, or just right? How high do the high's get? Is bass punchy, round, tight, loose, flabby, boomy? Are high's smooth or piercing?

Have you ever noticed a piece of music that sounds unnatural thru these speakers? Fizzy highs, nasaly mids, or bottomed out bass?

What's the stereo imaging like? Can you pick out instruments in the stereo field with ease? Can you close your eyes and almost imagine the speakers disappearing?

Have you ever had any reliability issues with these monitors? Have you used the warranty or customer service? How did that go? How long were you without monitors waiting for a repair?

What other monitors have you owned? What differences do you notice in these monitors and others that you've owned? How long have you owned these monitors? How long have you owned other monitors? Have you spent alot of listening time with your monitors?

If passive, what amp's have you tried with these monitors? What did you notice when using different amps? Any issues with amps?

How well do these monitors translate? Do you currently use more than one set of monitors? Why? What type of music do you mix? Can I here something you've mixed?

What's your mixing room like? Is it acoustically treated? With what? How do you have your monitors setup? Distance from walls, floor, from each other, from mixing position? Speaker angle? Is your room noisy or quiet?

................just trying to help you get out of the woods.

I think that if you get more active in asking questions about specific monitors, you'll be better informed on which monitors are likely or unlikely to meet your needs.......something that I should have done to begin with. Don't listen to anyone that just says something like "The York's kick ass and are better than anything in their price range". Ask for details. Some times the product hyping around here snowball's without any real evidence to back it up.

 

[jeffree]

Good questions, Travis. And to emphasize the importance of actually trying monitors in your space... one of the sets I tried was the Alesis Monitor One(active), which I'd read some good reviews of at the time. I know that some folks here use and endorse them, and I'm sure they're competent speakers. But I had no luck at all in my own small, quirky studio space. The bass completely overwhelmed me. I tried stuffing socks in the bass ports and re-positioning the monitors but never could produce balanced sound in my room--without changing the room itself, which was not an option in my case. Yeah, try them at home if you can, even if you focus on just two models to limit the cost. You may use these babies for many years to come, after the few extra shipping bucks are long forgotten.

J.

 

[LemonTree]

take some commercial CDs you are familiar with and go listen to the ones on your short list. Everyone's ears are different. I went with the wharfedales a little over a year ago after trying everything else in the shop. I must add that to my ears, the bheiri truths were the most hyped and unatural sounding.

Would you buy a car without test driving it?