Playback Monitor system

[magoo]

Have finished building studio and am ready for playback monitoring system. I would like to have some kind of theater sorround system. I need it to work in the mixing room as well as in the sound booth. I can't afford new and was looking for suggestions on a good used system to buy. This way I can go on EBAY or something and see what I can get it for.

Thanks for any response,

Magoo

 

[barefoot]

Are you recording in surround sound? If not, why would you want it? In any case, all old surround sound systems SUCK. Dolby encoding is as far from quality sound as you can get.

Now, 5.1 tracks of DVD-Audio is another story. But, I guess you can't afford that.

- For future reference, it's probably better to put a post like this under Mixing/Mastering -

barefoot

 

[Dom Franco]

You need Studio Reference Monitors!

You need Studio Reference Monitors!

Home theater speaker systems are made to sound cool, with extra bass, (Subwoofers) and high end tweeters for sibilence, but these speakers are not accurate.

(To record and mix properly you need correct and even frequency response over the entire audio spectrum)

Studio monitors are designed and tested reproduce audio accurately and will allow you to create mixes that should sound good on most any speaker system.

Look for new or used speakers that are called "near reference" monitors or "Studio Monitors" and buy a name brand such as:

Tannoy, Event, Yamaha, JBL or Alesis

Sincerely;

Dom Franco

 

[frederic]

If you will be mixing/recording 5.1 or 7.1 surround recordings, i.e. Dolby, THX or DTS, you need several things.

1. 5 monitors, and a subwoofer (or 7 monitors and sub)
2. Proper pro-class encoders/decoders
3. several quality amplifiers.

When you are recording/mixing 5.1 (or 7.1) remember that you are mixing pre-encoder therefore you do need quality monitors/amps for each discreet channels.

For playback post encoding, you'd need the decoder, and run that decoder through your monitoring system. patch bays are a low-cost alternative to changing the patching to re-use the amps/monitors for the decoding/playback phase, but you're not going to get away with five radio shack minimus-7's and a cheap subwoofer.

If you are not recording in any surround format, but rather just looking for a good sounding surround system (that won't really buy you anything unless you record it in surround format - i.e. encode) you could use a quality, newer model stereo capable of such surround playback. However, I would NEVER use this as your primary monitoring system - where possible, try to use studio monitors and an appropriate amplifier in order to be able to hear any recording/mixing items that are subtle. Home stereos tend to emphasize the highs and lows to compensate for crappy speaker drivers. Bookshelf systems are the worse culprit in that respect.

Have finished building studio and am ready for playback monitoring system. I would like to have some kind of theater sorround system. I need it to work in the mixing room as well as in the sound booth. I can't afford new and was looking for suggestions on a good used system to buy. This way I can go on EBAY or something and see what I can get it for.

Thanks for any response,

Magoo