monitors and headphones

R

recorder

New member
I went looking for powered monitors today. I have about a 14x13 room and I have a full stack, a combo amp and all sorts of other gear in there and space is a major issue.

I just bought an adat system and want some suggestions/advice on some powered monitors. I am shying away from passives due to space limitations for a poweramp and also more$. My budget is around $300 for both monitors. I went to Guitar Center today and found that most of those powered m's are expensive! I really liked the way the yamaha msp5's sounded. Very clear and punchy. They were going for 225/each. The sales guy told me that he recommended the event ps6 or ps5's. They were powered but started at like $250/each.

I also heard some very great sounding fostex headphones but really didn't have the time to compare against others. They were $100. That is about the amount I have budgeted for headphones.

Any suggestions on any of this. I know alot of this is suggestive but I really would appreciate any feedback as to what you guys are using and happy with...bad experiences etc.
 
I've been happy with the passive Event 20/20s ($300/pr.) powered by a $149 SONY receiver with 60W/channel. It doubles as a patchbay of sorts for monitoring several souces like my CD player, phono in, and another tape input. I'll be even happier (my neighbors won't) when I get a nice power amp to insert in my chain in place of the SONY.
But it works fine for now.
For headphones I like the SONY MDR-7506 (~$99). They're really clean but get an extra boost by being very efficient.
Most headphone feed circuits sound significantly quieter when not pushed to the brink on the volume.
 
i am going to go in and listen/compare the yamaha's and the event this weekend. Any others that you suggest i check out. Of course I am on a budget here. Im looking at around $600 and less. I am most interested in powered monitors.
 
i did it...mo $ mo$ mo$

I convinced my wife that i could not live without some monitors. I went to gc and i listened to the ps5,ps6, and ps8. I also heard the 2020 bas and the yamaha's.

I must say the yamahas were very punchy and tight. I liked them alot for the price of 224@. I also liked the 20/20's but my space is very limited and the monitors are rather huge. Sounded great though. I thought the yamaha's were a little colored with a bump in eq in the low frequencies. Any thoughts? That is what i heard anyway.

I bought the ps5's for 200 bucks a piece. I thought that was a fairly good deal. What do you guys out there think...Ok deal? Anyway. I just hooked them babies up and wow. They sound very rich and clean. I was very worried about finding quality monitors that were small but I believe I did. I can't wait till i do my first mix.

Thanks for your response drstawl. I appreciate your comments. Any thoughts on the hafler's anyone. I was about to buy them just because they were priced very nicely but I was sold on the event's flat,clean sound.
 
Hee Hee Hee: Here we go again.

Yo Recorder:

I won't speak about monitors; there are so many out there that you ears and wallet have to decide.

However, as for cans, CANS, I SAY, try the Beyer 250's, at least get one pair. They are just great cans. You can spend more on the 770's but the 250's are fine.

It's hard to Beyer the weight of promoting a product when I keep getting Bereyied by my colleagues.

The Green Hornet
 
cool. I will check them out. As my earlier post indicated, I did purchase the ps5's. wouldve gone with the ps6 but budget and space were and still are major factors. The ps6's sounded phenomenal but I really don't think i lose that much bass going with the smaller ps5's. Then again, I wasn't listening to anything with alot of bass at the store. Classic rock was what he demonstrated. I thought the event's were very accurate.

While I am here I have a question. I am getting a buzz on my events. I noticed that I did not have my levels set properly and once I followed my mackie's 1604vlz pro manual in doing that, the buzzing went away. Is that normal. I was playing thru a POD and had a fairly dirty signal going thru with extra bass. the buzzing occured a the end of any notes. I thought i may have been my events but once i set my levels right it went away. Im still concerned, any thoughts anyone. Any thoughts on whether I should keep my events plugged into the main outs or the cr/outs? What is the difference? And lastly, I noticed that I purchased instrument cable for my plugs on my events. Should i take'em back and trade in for speaker cable?
 
You can't use speaker cable to connect to the PS5's. You are not connecting to a speaker, you're connecting to an AMP. Remember, the PS5's are powered. Mixer -> amp -> speakers (except the amp and speakers are in the same cabinet).

I would suggest that you use "balanced" cables though to go from your mixer to the PS5's.
 
i have a mackie 1604vlz pro and it does not have balanced outs(xlr outs). So, using instrument cable is right? What cable should I use then. All that i have seen are labeled instrument, speaker and I believe i have seen 'line'
 
The Mackie 1604VLZ does indeed have balanced outs - both for the main outs as well as the control room outs. In fact the jacks are labeled BAL/UNBAL, which means they will accept either balanced or unblanced cables.

If you are under the impression that XLR connections (3-pin) are balanced and that 1/4" phone connections are unbalanced - this is not necessarily the case. While 3-pin XLR connections are, in fact, always balanced, 1/4" phone connections can be supplied either balanced (TRS) or unbalanced. Therefore, while your Mackie may not have XLR outs, it does accommodate balanced outs.
 
Monitors

Hey Recorder,

You should check out Zone Music in Cotati, CA (it's in Santa Rosa, just North of San Fran). Anyway, they beat Guitar Center's prices all to hell (I live around Denver and used to hit GC all of the time). I'm about to buy a set of Roland DS-90a's off of Zone for $720/pair. No sales tax (I'm out of state) and they're picking up the shipping. GC has the DS-90a's for $900 before taxes. I also picked up a Roland VS 1880 from them last week for under $2100 with the VSCDR II CD Burner. Might be worth the shipping wait (took 3 days) if you know what you want. They also have their prices listed in their catalogue and since GC has a price matching policy, you might be able to have instant gratification at a lower price. Their phone number is 707.664.1213. They've been kick ass to work with, compared with GC which seems to be filled with apathetic sales people who know how to read labels and little else.(I have a problem with GC's customer service).
 
Hey, I hear ya. I hate those nonhelpful....well you know.
I will check it out. Im thinking about upgrading my monitors. Have to do some more research though

Also, some people say that using the trs type cable doesn't make a difference when connecting my monitors to my mixer's main outs. I am using the instrument cable now. Any thoughts?

I am going to search 'cables' so maybe i'll find my answer before your replies but I will still appreciate any.
 
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