Near-Field Monitors not needed.

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frank_1

frank_1

New member
Well???

I went to Sam Ash today and was talking with a sales rep.

He let me listen to the PS8, PS6, M-audio ($300 one), and then told me some Roland monitors was the best out of all of them. He was saying that the Roland gave you a choice if you wanted a colored or non-colored sound. I don't know about that, I have heard from Sonusman that digital monitors are just more expensive without and real difference in quality.

When I first heard the PS8's I said to myself; self that monitor sounds just like my house stereo speakers. The PS8's have too much low end for monitors IMO.

The PS6's were better then the PS8's but still, I can't figure out why people stress why a good pair of monitors are so important. Why not just use you house speakers instead???

I didn't like the M-audio ones at all!!

When I first went in the store I was expecting to hear a 180* differnce in sound, feel, and response. But I was fooled and I know now that they are almost identical to my 8" woofer house speakers, IMO.


--Anyone disagree with me???
 
im guessing everyone on this board thats used monitors will disagree. I have hardly any experience with monitors but i'll try. You know all about the monitors being relativly flat, trying to represent and un-jaded, clear representation of the sounds your listening to.

Home stereo speakers are made with the Smilly face. The exadurated lows, absent mids, and exadurated hights.

The idea is if you mix on home stereo speakers you will make drastic eq/mixing changes to your mixes to compensate for this smilly face effect and make your mixes sound good on them. The result is your mixes sound bad on most other systems/ you miss a lot.

the idea with the studio monitors, again, is that they give you a clear representation, so that you can make changes.

i also hear that making slight setting adjustments to effects, such as compression, reverb, eq, etc... are very noticable with monitors, and you can really tell what each thing is doing.

and with home stereo speakers it isn't very noticable, and you really have to lay it on heavy to hear exactly what its doing.

anyways, i dunno if that made any sense, but, maybe it was just the monitors you auditioned? Try some Tannoys, Yorkville, Event 20/20 BAs, and Mackies. Then see what you think, and listen to some of YOUR mixes, and your favorite music. If at all possible A/B them with some home stereo speakers. Only your ears can decide, but apparantly monitor speakers are essential, just depends on your budget.
 
frank_1 said:
When I first went in the store I was expecting to hear a 180* differnce in sound, feel, and response. But I was fooled and I know now that they are almost identical to my 8" woofer house speakers, IMO.
Click to expand...

You've found out the truth. Near Field Monitors are a scam perpetrated by the liberal jewish media to try and keep the black man down.

You have passed the first test, grasshopper. Now you must snatch the pebble from my ass.
 
I don't look black, do I???


Anyways, maybe your right. Maybe it's because the monitors were NOT set up in the right ratio/direction at the store. Maybe it's because my ears aren't trained the way they should be.

BTW, I did not try the PS8's, it was the 20/20's; sorry for the correction this late in the thread.

I did hear the Mackie's for a few sec., and they had very little bass to them and a clear high end, more high then low end. Too expensive though.

I dunno, I guess I'm just gonna buy the PS6's and if I really don't see a difference once I get used to them then I will sell them. I'll buy'em used first.

Peace.

:D
 
Re: Re: Near-Field Monitors not needed.

TexRoadkill said:


You've found out the truth. Near Field Monitors are a scam perpetrated by the liberal jewish media to try and keep the black man down.

You have passed the first test, grasshopper. Now you must snatch the pebble from my ass.
Click to expand...


Too funny. :D


Frank,

Your ears need to grow. Theres a very gradual learning curve when it comes to monitors. You need to start honing in on the particulars of the frequency spectrum. Try using a para EQ setting one band to +6dB or +9dB and move it slowly all the way up and all the down while listening to music you know well. Youll get to know what sibilance at 4.5k is like and what boomy mid bass at 225Hz is like, what the gives the guitar definition or honk at 900Hz, etc. Then youll start noticing what is so dif about home stereo speakers and monitors (though clearly not all) and why mixing with a top or bottom that is skewed by 6dB (or more) will kill your mix.
 
you gotta listen to source material you are familiar with and in a room you are familiar with......
 
I'm really not qualified to answer this from either a technical or experiance standpoint. So let me just relate an experiance.

The monitors I currently have are old Yamahas, kinda the grandfather of the NS-10s that were/are so popular. Now I listen to a lot of radio, both in my cars and at home. At home I have a very nice living room rig with big-ass KLH speakers, 15" woofers, nice rock'n'roll rig. I have pretty good car stereo systems. Now usually my monitors, located in my basement studio, are only for playing back my own stuff. But once in a while if I am farting around in the studio not really doing anything I'll pipe the radio through them. When I started doing this I would occasionally run across a song that I had heard dozens if not hundreds of times before, on many different systems, and just stop in my tracks: "Is that a different mix? I never heard that part before.. "

Monitors will do that for you. You will be able to heard parts more clearly and distinctly simply because the speaker isn't coloring what you hear. I would always suggest that you keep a set of good stereo speakers (or even several sets) nearby hooked up to the same rig, so that you can switch between "uncolored" and "colored" sound. But good monitors will let you work more efficently, and will ultimately help you to make a balanced mix that (hopefully) sounds good on any speakers, rather than great on yours and shit on everything else.
 
I got my first set of monitors last week {M-audio SB's}
I did a mix for a client a few weeks prior. He called and said the snare sounded flat....no punch, and the bass track was too bassy. I had mixed using my home stereo speakers. So I thru the CD in and listened with my monitors....Yes, I could hear this now....sounded like a paper snare, and the bass was booming. But on my stereo speakers it sounded punchy and right. Just goes to show that home stereos will give you a false image, or at least thats what I believe now.
 
i also have no experience and should not even be replying to this thread, but, because i am on the verge of buying monitors i thought i would say thanx for the good advice, link myself to this thread for more 411, add a post to my dismal count and then offer some of my own insight-
"colored" is no longer the accepted term-
it is "japanese american"
:D
 
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