Studio monitors for under $300

  • Thread starter Thread starter lttoler
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Question. Are the Tascam VL-X5 monitors still available through retail? Or have they been axed? I've checked with the two large local music stores in town, and neither carry them. I also noticed a few online sites no longer carry them, while others have them in stock. Tascam has them listed on their site. Does anyone know if they've been discontinued?
 
As far as passive speakers go and judging only by my experience.. I just got a pair of yorkville ysm1i's I actually comapred them to my old truths' and they aren't even in the same league I could not believe how shitty the truth's really are until I directly compared them to other speakers.

but I paid around 300 just for the speakers and you'd still need an amp.. so that might blow the budjet a bit.
 
engine joe said:
no, i meant active crossover. how good can the power supply, amps, and crossover be in a low budget monitor in comparison to a passive monitor and external amp?
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Probably not a big difference there. Passive crossovers generally require heavier components - which in turn cost more, due to the amount of electrical energy they have to handle.

The real matter with biamp vs. passive is efficiency. This manifests in a few different ways: first, passive crossovers waste power & generate heat. The raw power coming out has to be split between the drivers, which is basically done by splitting the signal in two, then shunting off the high or low frequencies before they go to the driver.

This means that your amp will have to work harder just to reach the driver's rated capacity - if you have a woofer & tweeter, each rated for 50 watts, a 100 watt amp will never deliver 50 watts to each component because of the filter network.

With an active crossover, however, you divide the low-voltage version of the signal, which then feeds 2 separate amps. These amps then power the speaker directly, and can give their full power output to the driver.

Another benefit of this comes from the fact that low frequencies use far more energy than high frequencies. Consequently - I'll cut to the chase here - if you're driving passive speakers really hard with a lot of bass-heavy music, your high frequency response (that is riding piggyback on the same amp) is going to suffer.

With active crossovers, bass energy goes to the bass amp (which is often a more powerful amp) and high frequency energy go to its own amp - so, no matter how hard you push the bass, it won't mess up the highs.

There's a good explanation here (Mackie.com) - read between the sales pitches for their HR monitors ;) and the technical explanation is quite good.

I was just in the same boat, monitor-wise. I opted for (and am awaiting delivery of) a pair of Samson R5a actives. They have ribbon tweeters, and from my research they have gotten several good reviews, especially bang for the buck. If anyone's interested, ;) I'll post my impressions after they arrive.
 
my passives do seem to eat up some amp power when cranked but i rarely use my monitors at that volume. i can get all the volume i need out of a 120 watt stereo amp (60 per side), but for those rare occasions of cranking things up, an amp that small doesn't cut it. the efficiency of active crossovers and amps that match up well power wise with the drivers sounds like a pretty good advantage for active monitors.

i'm on the lookout for some actives that i can use with a personal mobile recording setup. cabinet size is a big deal but i don't want to give up decent low frequency response. i'd like to find a case for them too as they will be unpacked/packed at least once a week. does anyone make cases for monitors?
 
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