Studio Monitors: The Skinny

pianoman1976

pianoman1976

New member
Hello friends,

I am building a small composing/recording studio in my home on a limited budget. I have a question about the speakers. For now, I'm looking to use one pair of monitors for both composing and for mix down.

I was going to go ahead with powered monitors by Mackie or Event, until I spoke to a friend of mine. This guy is an electrical engineer. His expertise is in high-end audiophile level home audio and video installations. Very high end stuff.

He tells me that I will get much better sound/performance from passive monitors with a separate amp. In addition he is telling me to avoid buying the type of amps that you see at Guitar Center/Sam Ash and to purchase a audiophile level amp. (He mentioned Adcom and a few others.)

The benefit to this approach is that he's willing to allow me to use his resale account to get this type of gear at cost. I'm just surprised to hear that this is the better way to go sound wise - it's news to me that powered speakers are no good. He also threw in that Mackie makes poor quality equipment. (!?)

Any opinions?

Thanks,

Ryan
 
Well certainly Mackie and Event aren't the top of the food chain, but it's a question of what you need. You do need to be a little careful with audiophile stuff, some of it is great (I have an audiophile-grade amp, for what that is worth, and monitors I built using audiophile-grade components), and some of it is fluff. More pertinently, some of it is clearly not designed as reference gear.

The most important consideration in buying studio monitors should be materiality for making mix decisions that translate across a broad range of systems. That means it doesn't necessarily matter if a particular brand of monitor sounds better or is technically better if that improvement does not make a positive change in your mix decisions. Having said that, clearer and flatter is generally better.

The monitoring environment is also extremely critical; that is, the acoustics of your room. With a poor room, the best monitors in the world won't help much.

Given the choice of three factors: quality of speakers, quality of power amp, and quality of room acoustics; acoustics and speakers would be far more important than the power amp. At typical studio monitoring levels, the power amp really isn't that critical, again in terms of materiality to your mix decisions.

I expect as your friend is an EE he takes a scientific, objective approach to selecting gear. That could serve you well. A subjective approach designed to maximize euphonic qualities in a monitoring environment could be actively detrimental to your mixes.

As for the powered vs. passive argument, I find that too a rather trivial concern. Arguably, powered should always be better, if for no other reason than to avoid speaker cables. Active vs. passive crossovers, matching of amps to drivers, even onboard DSP all come into play with actives. Some of the finest monitors in the world are active. But audiophile gear is generally passive. It matters not to me; I built passives because I already had a good amp. In real-world low-mid prosumer range, I doubt it makes a lot of difference.
 
Those adept at using a hammer tend to see most problems as a nail.

I see at least some shades of this truism in your buddy's advice in that it happens to dovetail with his expertise in audiophole systems and electrical engineering, and not with actual studio engineering. I'd also add that his advice does not seem to be quite in sync with your limited budget.

While people will go back and forth as to what brands and makes are better or worse than others - amazingly completly ignoring the reality that within practically every brand there are shining star models and there are clunkers - I would like to say that the over-simplfied and somewhat mythical blanket statement that "Mackie makes poor quality equipment" is, at best, just plain unfair, and at worst, mis-information.

Sure Mackie as a company in general may only be the Chevrolet of audio brands when compared to some of the BMWs, Lexuses, and even Bentleys out there, but any knock on quality when it comes to their studio monitors is just plain unfounded. I have had and used almost daily my HR824 monitors since I bought them in the late 90s. They are still going strong for me today, with nary a problem or loss of fidelity. I still rate them as just about the best return on investment I've gotten from any gear I have gotten - pro or audiophile - since I started in this racket almost 30 years ago. I think the fact that Mackie has been able to keep that model both current and a bestseller for 10 years without having to upgrade or modify it until this year speaks strongly to their popularity and reputation. If they were indeed "bad quality", their sales would have discontinued or re-desigened that model a long time ago.

Make your own choice as to monitor selection. I'm not steering you towards the 824s or to anyone else; I'm just not steering you away from anything, either. Make your choice based upon your own listening tests (everybody's ears and tastes are different), and you own budget.

More importantly, IMHO, reserve enough of your budget for room treatment and proper positioning within that environment. It doesn't have to be real expensive or elaborate treatment to be effective, and to easily have a greater effect on the quality of your tracking and mixing than your monitor selection will. Put another way, without at least some control of your room's bass modality and high freq first reflections, even the highest-quality monitors will not give you a worthy-sounding mix, because proper translation will be close to impossible. OTOH, in a halfway decently coiffed environment, even middling monitors will alow you to make mixes that translate well and sound good to the real world.

G.
 
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Don't listen to audiophiles, EVER!!!

These morons spend FAR more money on amps and speakers than the recording engineers whos work they listen to did!!! It is the most amazingly stupid concept there is! 999,999 out of 1,000,000 of these guys could not pick out that "better cable", or "better amp", or the CD with the green permanent marker along the edge in any double blind test!

I do however agree that passive monitors with a good professional level amp sounds MUCH more pleasing, and will translate better than self powered, bi-amp'ed studio monitors will.

I have used Event 20/20's (passive) with a Hafler P3000 for over ten years now, and still like how it all works out! Here is a bunch of my engineering work: http://www.phoenixlightandsound.com/Audio/ for you to listen to. My monitor chain is the LEAST of my equipment worries!
 
jrhager84 said:
No one here rocks Yamaha HS-80m's?

*cowers in corner*
Click to expand...

I am for damn sure, and very happy with the results. Mixes translate very well for me, and I only paid about 500 bucks for a new pair.

I know this doesn't directly answer your question, but here's my advice. A very close friend of mine recently graduated from Berklee with a music degree, and did it in three years which is quite an accomplishment. They did a mic pre-amp shootout, comparing $5000+ handbuilt pre-amps, with a $200 4 channel Mackie Mixer. To sum it up for you, the instructor is depressed because after doing these types of a/b comparisons, he realizes it doesn't matter THAT much, and that he had spent about 30 grand in the last few years on things that don't add that much to the sound.

This kid made a demo recording using things like 1 mic on the drums, random bedrooms and dorm rooms to track vocals, a behringer 80 dollar used pre-amp, and some budget alesis monitors. It sounds fucking fantastic. I am going to have to post this soon, but seriously, I am blown away. Buy what is in your budget and focus on what is the highest priority to further your recording. Learn every aspect of each piece you buy so you better learn its advantages.
 
I burn a CD to use in several available sources to listen to the mix.

KRK Rockit 6's, which are my main studio monitors.

Audio Techica Headphones

Cheap walkman style headphones

Work truck stereo w/ 1 bad speaker

Home stereo

Boom box in the shop

Reason being that I get it in all the different listening environments, I can hear different things in the mix.
 
I really like my Tannoy system 800s. They are powered, not THAT expensive. I think I got the pair for under $2000 Canadian. They seem to translate exceptionally well to other systems.

Really, your ears, and intuition, and how well you know your gear will take you much further than what gear you have. You could easily do a really good mix with less than adequate monitoring, room, or what not as long as you know your gear.. That'll come with doing lots of mixes, and checking the mixes on tons of systems in different rooms and environments, such as in your car, living room, friends house, in ipods, in big systems little ones.
 
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