Monitors? No Monitors? The Speakers That CAME with Your Computer?!!!

  • Thread starter Thread starter KonradG
  • Start date Start date

Your monitor situation...

  • I bought real monitors you prick, how dare you confront me?!

    Votes: 229 62.6%

  • I use some sort of jerry-rigged system, be it pc speakers, etc

    Votes: 68 18.6%

  • I use headphones! haha

    Votes: 56 15.3%

  • I plead the 5th

    Votes: 13 3.6%
  • Total voters
    366
monitors best kept secret

Well, i've bought and sold the "pro-sumer" KRK Rokits and Yamaha HS50M after years of using home stereo speakers and... I went back to bookshelf speakers! Here is my best kept secret for inexpensive but pretty flat and very clear bookshelf speakers: Yamaha NS6490. I bought them at Best Buy for $90 a pair, they blew away everything else in range. Now discontinued, but believe it or not they can be found these days at Radio Shack! Subwoofer too:
http://www.radioshack.com/search/index.jsp?kwCatId=&kw=yamaha&origkw=yamaha&sr=1

For a dense rock mix, i found i really can't get the whole picture with little 5" monitors. Almost stepped up to the Yamaha HS80M, but instead I went back to my trusty NS6490 with sub, and also a pair of old JBL stereo speakers (don't remember model but they are nice, heavy, old 3-way speakers.)

You can hear the results on some of my recordings:
www.myspace.com/lundquistaudio

Chris
 
I bought my Yamaha HS80's 2 days ago...

They sound amazing and look amazing! They molest my old Sam Ash Samson 65As.... Which weren't too bad when I bought them... but that was back when I still thought reference monitors were Computer screens with instructions on it ;)

Had to upgrade.
 
seems like everyone else has posted here, i'll play...

Currently rockin Alesis M1Active 520's
 
eternalpayn said:
I use ipod headphones and PC speakers. I'm a cheap bastard like that.
Click to expand...

It doesn't really matter what you use. What matters is how well you know what you're using. What ever freq range your speakers are strong in, your mixes will be weak in UNLESS you compensate. The most famous monitors - the white cone Yamaha's - were just flat response honest speakers. You just need to know what you're working with.

That said - I mix on headphones and I recommend listening to my music with headphones. Headphones give a more intimate experience anyway. I know that my mixes lack the big bass that rumbles the car, but I don't write the kind of music that you listen to in the car...

anyway just my 2 cents
 
Jewishjay said:
The most famous monitors - the white cone Yamaha's - were just flat response honest speakers.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry, Jason, but the truth is quite the opposite. The NS-10 and NS-10m - which are the "white cone Yamahas" you're referring to - were infamously UN-flat and dishonest. Their response below 80Hz was horrendous and they had a very noticeable bump of several dB in the upper mids. The NS10m - the later of the two models - was considered harsh in the high frequency ranges, and not in an "honest" way, to the point where a famous "mod" amongst many pro engineers was to tape a piece of tissue paper over the tweeter screen in order to deaden the high-kHz stuff.

What made them popular - and now legendary - were two things. First they were the first loudspeaker seriously used as a "nearfield monitor". They were not even made for the studio, they were just regular home stereo bookshelf loudspeakers. There pretty much was no such thing as a "nearfield studio monitor" back then. But then engineer Bob Clearmountain started carrying around a pair of NS10s (they could have easily been any other similar-responsed bookshelf speaker) with him from studio-to-studio. He did this because he liked the idea of having a loudspeaker he recognized the sound of, and the NS-10 was his choice.

Before you knew it, the idea of having your own "check speakers" that you brought with you to the studio caught on in the engineering community, and this led to studios now equipping themselves with NS-10s in order to attract engineers without them having to lug around their own gear. Then, other speaker companies thought, "hey, if Yamaha can do this, so can we", and the nearfiled "studio monitor" market was born. The "m" in the later NS-10m stands for "monitor" as a change in marketing strategy by Yamaha to join the rush.

The second reason is the reason why Clearmountain picked the NS-10, and is related to the reason you described in your second sentence:
What ever freq range your speakers are strong in, your mixes will be weak in UNLESS you compensate.
Click to expand...
The oversimplified and cliche saying about the NS-10 is that "If it sounds good on the NS-10, it'll sound good everywhere" is not quite 100% true, but it's close enough for rock n' roll. The reality is because of the strong upper-midrange bump in the NS-10, the ear wants to try and compensate for that by scooping or sculpting the upper mids, which is also just about the most problematic frequency range in modern popular music.

This sculpting makes the music sound good on the NS-10s, as well as on the limited-range reproduction systems of the time like your average car radio, desk radio or furniture-style home entertainment console that were similarly midrange-centric. As far as the better-sounding stereo systems, the scoop in the upper mids also kept the problem frequencies in check, and managed to synthesize a bit of the ol' smiley-face EQ curve that most folks with uneducated ears seem to think sounds good.

So you're right that knowing the speaker is important, but your statement about the Yammies I felt needed correcting. But there is also a problem with the "knowing your speakers" making speaker choice irrelevant. If your speakers are deficient in a certain frequency range, you can't compensate properly for it because you have no way of knowing whether those frequencies are simply missing from the recording or whether they're there, but the loudspeaker is masking them. You can adjust for speakers that over-emphasize a frequency or frequency range - somewhat - but you cant adjust for frequencies you can't hear at all.

G.
 
Last edited:
I had an engineer friend who used the NS-10's for the reasons listed above - he said if his mix sounded good on those, it should sound good anywhere.

For my monitors I use my old Alesis Monitor One speakers. They're a tad bright but I'm used to them. My biggest problem is that everyone wants to hear hyped low end nowadays and it's kinda hard to judge that on these. I listen to my mixes in the car a lot, too, because I listen to a ton of music in my car, so I have a good idea what modern music sounds like on them.

Ironically, I used to use "The Nightfly" as my gold standard - I tried to balance and eq my mixes to sound like that. But nowadays everything and I mean everything has more low end than The Nightfly. But that's probably another thread.
 
Heres an idea...

Check Consumer Reports for the most popular ipod docking station, buy it, and check your "final" mixes to that.

Scott
 
At this point I chose option two. I'm looking into buying a set of Yamaha HS50M's I just found out that Dell sells them. I just might pick them up soon.
 
Im starting to like you chicken master... keep it up

and dodgeaspen... arent hs50's subs... not monitors... cuz i have the hs80s... and the hs50s were the subs... lol!? r they not?
 
I use headphones. My computer room is next to, and open to, the lounge room where the TV is, and my partner watches the damn thing (I affectionately call it the idiot box) (the TV that is, not my partner) all day & half the night. But I check the mix on the 2.1 pc speaker system, and the home stereo which is, fortunately, almost next to my computer desk. I've also got a bookshelf stereo system in the recording room for checking mixes on as well.

Amanda
 
I use some old Yamaha bookshelf speaker...Whatever gets the job done
 
I only have KRK Rokit 5's because it's all I could afford. I spent years using all kinds of low end "monitor" speakers. There are a lot of speaker systems that are cheaper sold by Musicians Friend and other music stores as "MONITOR" speakers, but they all suck...

You can't really get a sure mix on them. I'm not the type of person who wants to waste too much time playing it on every system I can find. It sucks when you have to play it everywhere possible to make sure it works.

I use to do it on a few pairs of computer speakers, in my truck, on several pairs of head phones, CD players, and at friends houses. What a pain in the ass! Looking back I hated it...

I guess I have budget monitors now, but they actually work. I've tested it and my mixes sound the same on every system. So, I don't have to go back and forth testing it...
 
Currently using Event ASP8's (aka studio precision 8's), i upgraded to those from the event 20/20's.

I've also used and liked Dynaudio BM10's and Meyer Sound HD1's.

As for the NS10's, they can be useful as a secondary set of nearfields (mainly for rock for the reasons mentioned by previous posters), but i wouldn't use them solely to mix on.
 
hs80 for me. the accuracy and they translate mixes very well.
I love me some yams
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top