Why not use different sized monitors?

H

HopeForTheBest

New member
Hi All,
For my new Kawai MP7 digital piano I want either 5" or 8" monitors.
I will use them for personal playing at home mainly, and maybe later for recording.
The 8" monitors sounded better in the store, but a pair of them is over my budget.

So I thought, why not get one 8" monitor for the middle to low notes (the left speaker output)
and a 5" for the mid to upper notes (the right speaker).
Is there a reason they need to be the same size?

Also, I thought that since the 8" and 5" have different frequency response curves, together they will average out to an even flatter response than if they are the same.

Since I am totally new to audio/recording engineering, i thought I had better ask first.
Thanks for your help.
 
hey, just my take on your situation. Conceivably you could use two different sized monitors, but i doubt you would actually get any real benefit by doing so. Even if you can route sections of your keyboard to left or right outputs independently, effectively you are just monitoring in mono, with a speaker with more drivers. If the speakers were set apart as is usual for stereo listening, the notes will jump from left to right, which i imagine would be pretty annoying and just sound 'wrong', it'd probably sound better having them close to each other, for a mono image, in which case you may as well just use one speaker. Given you said that you may want to use your monitors for stereo monitoring when recording in the future, a pair of mismatched monitors would be a very real hindrance when you are mixing, if not next to useless for detailed listening. If you liked the sound of the 8" monitor, why not just monitor in mono using one for now, using the L/mono out from the MP7, save what you would have spent on the 5", and when you have enough money for the second 8" speaker, add that and monitor in stereo. That's probably what I'd do.
 
If you want to monitor/mix in mono, sure, but if you want to monitor/mix in stereo, you need matched speakers.
 
Thanks all.
The speakers will be on top of the keyboard on each end. I prefer a little stereo effect like an acoustic piano.
But for now I'll try both a pair of 5" at home versus one 8" and see which fits my room better.

But I still don't understand the physics of why mixing sizes won't work.
 
If you were only portraying the image of a piano, you could get away with an 8" on the bass and a 5" on the top (might even be better that way), but if you (as you said) are planning to do recording later and using those speakers for monitoring, the frequency response of the two different speakers would drive you to distraction.
 
HopeForTheBest said:
So I thought, why not get one 8" monitor for the middle to low notes (the left speaker output)
and a 5" for the mid to upper notes (the right speaker).
Click to expand...

That's the problem. Both speakers cover the entire frequency range, give or take extreme low end.
There's no divide like you describe.

Sit at a pair of speakers and listen to some music.
After 10 seconds or so, cup one of your ears like you would if you were struggling to hear someone.

This will give you a rough idea of why mixing and matching monitors isn't a great idea for stereo work.
 
HopeForTheBest said:
But I still don't understand the physics of why mixing sizes won't work.
Click to expand...
because part of mixing is setting the 'location in space' of the instruments/singers. If the speakers do not match then you will end up compensating for one speakers lack of some freqs and when it gets to a normal system that bass you had panned nicely centered will be off to the side instead of where you meant for it to be ....... and the same will apply to other instruments at other freqs.
 
The speakers should be a constant point of reference. The difference between left and right should be in the signal sent to the speakers, not in the speakers themselves.
 
HopeForTheBest said:
..But I still don't understand the physics of why mixing sizes won't work.
Click to expand...
Not that it couldn't 'work'- it's just that the expected benefit doesn't work out very well.
Your one scenario that seems to get close for example - split/assigning the lows on the keyboard to only go to the larger speaker, you'd still have less low end capacity than if the two were working together.
So in that particular situation (only one speaker gets the left hand') ok, you pick up some headroom.
(All the other down sides- still apply.
 
Not to mention bigger speakers are usually a higher wattage, so the bigger one is likely to be louder unless you alter the input level. Which still seems silly to me and you might as well just match the speakers than try to match the levels.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top