Hello!

I finally want to buy better, professional audio monitor speakers. I am not looking into fancy 5.1 surround ones, but a pair (maybe plus subwoofer if needed?) of very good, professional quality stereo speakers that I can do some serious work in sound design + mixing.

My budget is around $300, give or take a few dollars.

Anyone can recommend some excellent professional speakers for that kind of money?

Thanks!

A friend of mine just got a pair of m-audio bx 8's. They sound great for the money. I think he paid $300 at guitar center. Go give this line a listen.
http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.list&ID=studiomonitors
Bruce S. yarock

I've had a pair of KRK Rokit RP5 powered monitors for about a month. They sound great and I had a much easier time mixing the music for my last video compared to the computer speakers I was using previously. Great value. Comes with unbalanced RCA and Balanced XLR and Phono. Should be around your budget.

http://www.krksys.com/v3/rokit_rp5.asp

with optional matching sub http://www.krksys.com/v3/rokit_rp10s.asp

In my experience, bass is pretty tight especially when used nearfield.

USD149.95 each at BHP.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=314486&is=REG

I;ve been shopping around myself and have heard good things about Behringer 2031's. Planning on giving them a listen soon.

Check out the M-Audio Studiophile DX4: http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/DX4-main.html.

Here's a review: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1728338,00.asp.

Note that it might not be optimal to use regular stereo system speakers for mixing with a computer system, as they are optimized for listening at greater distances than one sits at a computer.

All of the suggestions here are good ones ... try to audition these somewhere (Guitar Center?) if you can. See what you like.

Another M-Audio speaker to check is the BX-5. I use them to mix video and they are nice, flat near field monitors.

Good Luck!

After a little research, on my limited budget I got a pair of M-audio BX-5's also. Later I picked up a cheap KLH subwoofer at Best Buy. All together they were less than your budget. But you need to do some balancing of your system also.

Audio really isn't "my thing" so take my advice with a grain of salt... but I got a Radio Shack digital sound level meter, then I created a whole series of audio clips with tones that spanned the most important frequency range. I fiddled with the controls on the sub and studio monitors to create as flat a response curve as I could. One thing I learned from this excercise was that what "sounds good" is probably completely wrong if you want accurate frequency response. We're all used to cranking up the high and low ends way too far.

No doubt I'm just fooling myself with all this pseudo-science, but at least I ended up with something a little more reasonable than the cheapo computer multimedia speakers I had before...

Thanks very much for all your advices!

I think I've made a decision, I'm gonna settle on the M-Audio product, the BX-5 or the BX-8 if the latter fits into my budget (that is if I can find an offer around $300 which I doubt).

My primary (if not only) use is sound design and mixing for my short film(s). Do I really need a subwoofer in that case? This can add up quite a bit to my budget.

Thanks once again!
Bogdan

A sub is a virtual necessity if you are doing sound design. If you are only mixing dialog and limited bed music, no sound design, Foley, or other FX, you can squeak by without a sub. But if you have FX stems, you NEED a sub. (unless you are listening at almost imperceptible levels)

DSE,

I think I recall some good advice you gave before that said, after you do your mix in studio quality headphones/speakers, listen to the mix in the target audience sound system. In other words if you know your audience will only be listening on pitful computer speakers, adjust for that.

Absolutely. You need to listen to your mixes in a variety of settings.
Back in the "old days" we had an FM transmitter in the control room. Most studios that did commercial airplay mixes did. We'd run out to the car to listen to the mix over an FM radio to be sure everything was great. We'd also monitor on little AuraTones, and even today, I still check mixes on an old Craig boombox in addition to my far more accurate systems. And, I color-check my vid on a crappy Sanyo TV from Walmart, even though I do all my correction work on a Sony BVM monitor. It just pays to double check on junk gear. You never know what might creep in there.

Hey, Spot, what brand/model sub would you recommend for the BX-5s?

Thanks!

-Matt

I've forgotten the model #, but M-audio has a nicely matched sub for their smaller systems. I've got the older 12", and it does just nicely in smaller rooms.

I would be very careful to match your subwoofer to your speakers, personally I would not use one unless you are mixing in audio effects that have very low frequency extension content. Matching the sub output to the speakers and making sure the crossover is set up correctly are not trival and I would be surprised if you would end up getting a flat response. I would be much more inclined to spend the money on a good set of near-field monitors with good flat response. I would think you can get a good feel for the extended bass a sub will provide from a good set of monitors, then just calibrate your ear by burning test DVDs and listening to them on a home theater set-up. Studio headphones are also a good thing to use as well. I would suggest the AKG K240s ($99) they have been an industry standard for years and years and know for their flat response and comfort! Mark
PS I would consider my advice to be a supplement to DSE's, which is spot on, no pun intended... ;)

Ηι

I don't know why you need the sub. I would not use a sub. Professional studios put the right monitor at the right position after analysing the room and correct it with EQ. I know that this sounds too much but you can at least have a pair of flat responce monitors at a good price.

I haven't heard of pros mixing down with m-audio! Now maybe I am wrong-last studio mix i ve done was 10 years ago.

I would trust JBL, Tannoys, Yamaha, e.t.c. The ones that I am mixing my wedding videos are Tannoy Reveal where you can get them for $300 from B&H. Are cheap but you find them on recording studios as a near filed, because they are flat and that is what you need from a monitor.



Good luck

Anthony

Ηι

I don't know why you need the sub. I would not use a sub. Professional studios put the right monitor at the right position after analysing the room and correct it with EQ. I know that this sounds too much but you can at least have a pair of flat responce monitors at a good price.

I haven't heard of pros mixing down with m-audio! Now maybe I am wrong-last studio mix i ve done was 10 years ago.

I would trust JBL, Tannoys, Yamaha, e.t.c. The ones that I am mixing my wedding videos are Tannoy Reveal where you can get them for $300 from B&H. Are cheap but you find them on recording studios as a near filed, because they are flat and that is what you need from a monitor.



Good luck

Anthony

First, the need or lack of it for a sub, is entirely dependent on program material, as mentioned above.
Second, ain't NO SUCH THING as a flat monitor. Never has been at any "reasonable" price range, and never will be. Never been a flat room at a "reasonable" cost either. No such thing as a "flat" room in our world, with or without an EQ. Even with more than 1.5 M invested in our main room and construction, we're no where near flat. (And we have a sub, and always have had, and most mastering rooms do too)

Finally, LOTS of "pros" mix with M-Audio. In the video and audio biz. One of the CSI shows (DiBlasi) is mixed entirely through M-Audio gear and Logic software on the music side, and he does a lot of dialog sweetening for them as well. I've been using M-Audio Delta cards for years, and have been using their BX5's and 8's for years. Jeffrey Fisher did the Culligan Man commercials with the LX4's. I absolutely prefer my Hothouse's and Mackie's over my M-Audio, but M-Audio gear is very good, once you get past their "Soundblaster" competitive audio cards.
In fact, most of the audio systems in the Capitol Records listening suites are either lower end Mackie or upper end M-Audio.
Tannoy Reveals are great in their price category, but for me, I'll step to the Mackie's every time, then to the Genelec's in the next price range. JBL doesn't really have anything that they build on their own in the lower price ranges, they just license OEM from other builders in the lower price brackets. Same with other speak companies. KRK is another to look at, as is the Event line of speaks.

[QUOTE=Douglas Spotted Eagle]First, the need or lack of it for a sub, is entirely dependent on program material, as mentioned above.
Second, ain't NO SUCH THING as a flat monitor. Never has been at any "reasonable" price range, and never will be. Never been a flat room at a "reasonable" cost either. No such thing as a "flat" room in our world, with or without an EQ. Even with more than 1.5 M invested in our main room and construction, we're no where near flat.

By reading the reply I assume you are not a sound pro and therefore yoiu are excused.
Regarding inexpensive monitors : The most famous near filed monitors in the last 15 years were the Yamaha NS10 and If I remember well where about $600. So there are monitors out there that are cheap. As I said earlier "Tannoys" are a good example. Mackie's are also good for near filed or home studio.
Regarding "flat" : This why you pay the extra $, to get a flat responce.
Recording studios also do the following in order of helping "flat". They provide with "pink noise" at least that waht we used to do 10 years ago.
Then, pink noise shows the possible problems of the room which they correct with a 2-31 EQ and offcourse they "lock it". When rooms still have problems we put "sound-traps".

If rcording studios don't have "flat" responce from the monitors,,they just can mix. Ask and sound guy. Sound analysis for "flat" is also being performed even in conserts.

To get back, to our subject: If one wants to mix music that later it will be played in a system sith sub, then sub might help but is not nessesery.
Now for applications like video e.t.c. a pair of flat pro monitors is the best way to go.

Best
Anthony

Anthony- All of us here, know D.S.E.'s reputation well. What are your background and qualifications?

By reading the reply I assume you are not a sound pro and therefore yoiu are excused.

Best
Anthony

:-)
You're right Anthony, I'm not a sound pro. The two Grammy Awards, nine (personal) Emmys, and 32 shared Emmy's all came from good guess work. I don't count the Peabody's, DuPonts, or Weaver awards for audio.
The 11 books I've written and more than 100 tutorials I've written on audio in a variety of situations from Broadway to "Last Samurai" were just noodling around on my part. The Mix Magazine engineering award a few years back was just luck of the draw. And the million dollar main room, and our substantially lesser expensive B-D rooms are just for show. ( I like the blinky light thingies) And the studio work I've done as a musician and engineer for artists ranging from Jim Brickman to Frank Zappa? That's just cause they liked me, they didn't realize I didn't know everything I was doing was just guesswork.
Rather than brag any further, you can see my credits list.
http://www.spottedeagle.com/credits.htm
As I said before, and I'll gladly challenge anyone to refute it, there is no such thing as a flat speaker monitor, and no such thing as a flat room in a price range that frequenters of this forum could afford, even if they wanted to.
Maybe I'm not professional enough because I always thought (and still do) that the NS10's suck. I never owned them, and always carried my own amp and monitors. I no longer do, unless I have to, but most studios have gotten rid of those ancient, antiquated crap boxes that only had value due to their constancy, not quality of sound.

Spot, you mentioned before that JBL's lower end are not made by them, and so I'm thinking that they might not be up to par, but do you know anything of the LSR6325's? They're cheap as far as JBL nearfields go (~US$400 each). Just wondering what your thoughts are on those if you've heard them?

http://www.jblpro.com/LSR/LSR25P.htm

Cheers
Aaron

For Spot

"You're right Anthony, I'm not a sound pro. The two Grammy Awards, nine (personal) Emmys, and 32 shared Emmy's all came from good guess work. I don't count the Peabody's, DuPonts, or Weaver awards for audio.
The 11 books I've written and more than 100 tutorials I've written on audio in a variety of situations from Broadway to "Last Samurai" were just noodling around on my part"


Spot. I really do not care about your credits. What I care is to advice he person that started this post what monitors to get.
And I will say it again,no Sound engineer on planet earth will ever say "there are no flat monitors, or that NS10 suck" because then he/she wouldn't be one.

Sound engineers now why they need responce from a monitor as they can. This is a simple fact that every body, even in every shop an audio sales person knows. NO MIXING IS POSSIBLE WITHOUGHT FLAT MONITORS (unless you mix loops that they all ready pre-EQed - but even then ,,,,)

I didn't enjoy our small debate.I am leaving the audio and go back to the video-forum.:)

by the way, with all these credits and success of yours ,why are you so angry?

Buy
Anthony

Anthony, I'm not in the least big angry. What I'd really appreciate before you leave the thread, is an example of a flat monitor. Any flat monitor, period.
Monitors, even in the 10K per range and higher, are not flat. You can make them playback as flat as a spectrum analyzer and EQ can help you find them to be, but you're still dealing with coloration from the microphone, and any other electronics in the chain. Temperature of the power amplifier affects performance, cable to a very limited extent affects performance, room temp affects performance, and this is all before you start to take into account the room.
Most any professional engineer who makes his/her living in this industry did not like the original NS10 monitor. They caused early ear fatigue, and a bumpy low end. But they were a standard. Just like the Sony 7506 is a standard. It's not the best sounding, but it's a benchmark that everyone agreed is a good median benchmark. But far from being great, and far from being bad. If you feel my opinion as a producer, mix engineer, and musician negates my talent, then I'm without words with which to respond.
Suggesting that the NS10 is the only choice of a "professional" or suggesting that all professionals use them, is a little blind to the realities of current time, and the vagaries of times past.
It's somewhat like saying that the SM58 is the only real microphone for stage use. OK, according to Roger Daltrey, that was once true. Today, there are loads of choices, and all of them (most of them) are viable. In the earlier days of audio for video, Shoeps was the ONLY choice for many things. Today, we have lesser expensive, virtually identical choices.
My only real argument is that you stated that the Reveals are flat, when they are anything but. Hans Hilberink had an excellent article in Mix several years ago as he hotrodded the Tannoy Gold's to get them to a point of reasonably smooth, but certainly not flat. Tannoy's chart shows what everything I've experienced them to be; a bump around 140, and another around 8k, plus a few dips and ridges in between. This certainly doesn't make them a bad monitor. But trying to do a full mix on them for film/video, would be all but impossible except in a very quiet, non-realistic environment. Today's home theatre viewers are demanding greater impact and ear candy, and these little monitors without either a passive dual bandpass or active sub, can't deliver. Not many of these 4" to 6" monitors can.

In closing, you were the one who "excused me" from the discourse and suggested I don't know anything about audio. While I'm certainly not Don Davis, I'll suggest I hold my own.

Back to the topic of debate, please identify any speaker monitors that are flat, as opposed to having smooth response. There is a whopping difference. Were it easy to build a "flat" speaker, everyone would be doing it.
There once were some polymer membrane speaks that were flat at nearly sub-aural levels, but they couldn't develop any sort of SPL that made them usable.

Next topic, was that Bogdan asked about Sound Design. Sound Design is a lot more than just mixing dialog and music. And effective sound design can't be accomplished without a sub. Maybe, if your sound design never touches the darker recesses of audio in the 200Hz range, you COULD create design without a sub, but much of sound design is presence and feel, ambiences and spatial redirection, audio that is 'felt' or sensed, rather than heard. A sub is pretty important to that concept.

Finally, your comment that pros don't use M-Audio? Hans Zimmer, Joe DiBlasi, Crystal Method, James Horner, Rudy Sarzo, Ric Wake, Mark Isham, Brian Keane, Jeff Beck, Verdeen White....all use M-Audio speaks in their home and/or office studios. And they all score for film or television.

Accuracy is equally important to passion. I can't count the number of times I've been wrong technically, because passion overshadows the technical side of things more often than not. But saying the Reveals or Yamaha NS10's are "Flat" is not accurate in any context. But they are decent monitors. And some folks really, really like them.

Hi, was wondering if someone could help me, I am looking at purchasing some audio monitors, I have a semi professional video editing system setup, Adobe premiere. So mainly need them for that, but also do a bit of Recording and mixing with protools, I have heard a lot of good feedback about Yamaha Ns10s, but am wondering if they will also be adequate for use with Video editing as well as Sound mixing with protools. I would like something that would offer correct sound for both programs if this is possible, otherwise do i need a seperate set of monitors for each program.

Trent, welcome to the forum.
the Yamaha NS10's will certainly work, but you'll have to find a used set. They've been discontinued for about five or six years. They were replaced with the MSP10, and those don't sound all that great, IMO. Cost is around 1500.00 per pair, and for that kind of cash, you can get a great set of Mackie 626, 824's, Event 2020's, and almost a set of Genelec 1030's. You can also get great speaks from M-Audio, like the BX8's, complete with a sub if you need one.
Get a set of MoPads from Auralex, and you'll be surprised at how great a lower cost speaker can sound anyway.

Any good sounding monitor will let ProTools shine through, the question starts to become how good. If you have a great set of monitors but a crappy audio card, even the best monitors won't sing true, so consider a sound card in the middle of all this, especially if you'll be recording as well as playing back.
And, as long as the monitors are shielded (most are), then they'll be great for video, too. The shielding keeps the monitors from messing with your broadcast picture monitor.

Hi Trent,

Just to add a little to what DSE told you: My engineer friend got hold of some NS10Ms the other day and is trying them out. They sound TERRIBLE!!! The logic I'm hearing from engineers? "If I can make it sound good through these, it should sound good on anything." : )

All I know is that it would drive me bonkers having to listen to them. I told my friend to go back to his Mackies or I was leaving the room.

Thanks for your feedback,
Ive got Sound blaster Live 5.1 Sound card, Both Premiere sound is transmitted through its own breakout box which seems to do the job, and protools through the Mbox i run them both through my amp, So does that then imprve the sound as what i would otherwise get just from powered monitors running through the output in my sound card. im just not to sure if Ns1os will be appropriate for premiere as well.

Wow,

Can't believe that my little post sparkled such a intense discussion :-)

At least now I am honored (seriously) to realize what kind of wonderful people are taking the time to answer these threads. It is really extremely merituous that they are willing to help people.

Back to the original question, I decided like I said on a pair of M-Audio BX-8. Now I don't know what kind of sub I should be looking for to best compliment the M-audio pair.

So far I have been doing my sound design at Columbia with a pair of Sony MDR-7506 headphones, using just the limited audio featured of Final Cut Pro (and sometimes SoundSoap for noise reduction). But since I've always been fascinated with sound design and what audio means to a film (and after attending a few seminars at DuArt), now I want to get into it much more. I have bought an Mbox and ProTools, and I am learning the software. I just wanted to get a good monitoring solution since without it there's no point in upgrading.

Thanks.

Wow,
Can't believe that my little post sparkled such a intense discussion :-)

Back to the original question, I decided like I said on a pair of M-Audio BX-8. Now I don't know what kind of sub I should be looking for to best compliment the M-audio pair.

Bogdan,
Apologies, my answer was in my first post. The M-Audio SBX (the only sub they now offer) is a good one for the price. You don't need a servo-driven Carver for sound design unless you're designing for large theatre. :-) Even then it's debateable by a mile.
The Mackie 120 sub is a great one too, but it's likely overkill for most design work.

And what would you recommend for us poor folk? I mean, somewhere above Creative and Logitec, but way less than those multi-thousand dollar speakers? Currently, I only have a pair of Creative desktops, but will be building an office/studio with surround.

Keith - the M-Audio LX4 2.1 system (expandable to 5.1) is $280 at B&H.

Add another $160 for the 3 additional speakers if you want 5.1.

The M-Audio LX4 is an excellent budget-conscious system. We use them on some of our smaller training tours. In a room of 12 x 12, they are just about perfect for reasonably good nearfield. Put the speaks on a set of Auralex MoPads, they really sing nicely.

Mopads? What are those?

Isolation. Google them.

Anyone have any impressions of the Behringer "Truth" 2031A's. See from their website there's an interesting looking matched sub, Truth 2029A on the way promised Q3. Gave a pair a non-critical listen at dealer the other day and they sounded pretty good.

just to add a little more confusion to the mix here:

My understanding was that most recording studio's had a pair of NS-10 monitors _in addition_ to their main monitors such as JBLs, Urei, or other accurate _expensive_ large monitors (typ. 10-12 in woofers). I have never heard of any serious studio that mixed exclusively on ns-10 monitors and, in fact, they were there to get an idea of what the mix would sound like on standard home audio gear (to be sure it would sound ok on a cheap stereo) and not really used for the main mixing tasks. I still have a pair of tascam 4406s (6in woofer) that I paid $450 back in '85 that made ns-10s sound like a boom box. I know a lot of "home studios" that used them (ns-10s) to mix stuff from their 4-track cassette machines... Again, I must say that DSE is spot on the money! just my 2 cents. Mark

just to add a little more confusion to the mix here:

My understanding was that most recording studio's had a pair of NS-10 monitors _in addition_ to their main monitors such as JBLs, Urei, or other accurate _expensive_ large monitors (typ. 10-12 in woofers). I have never heard of any serious studio that mixed exclusively on ns-10 monitors and, in fact, they were there to get an idea of what the mix would sound like on standard home audio gear (to be sure it would sound ok on a cheap stereo) and not really used for the main mixing tasks. I still have a pair of tascam 4406s (6in woofer) that I paid $450 back in '85 that made ns-10s sound like a boom box. I know a lot of "home studios" that used them (ns-10s) to mix stuff from their 4-track cassette machines... Again, I must say that DSE is spot on the money! just my 2 cents. Mark

Have a pair of ADS L1230 floor standing monitors that I bought back in 1980, paid about 2 kilobucks for the pair as I recall. Sounded great when each side was split for biamping using ADS's active crossovers and driven by a Carver M400 on each side and I'm still using them today for my home theatre front L/R speaks. Planning the upgrade on my PC into a quality audio/video editing workstation and I've been tempted with the thought of using them as my monitors since the manuals say they were designed as near-field / mid-field monitors, I was told many years ago they were originally intended for DG's mixing studios.

Would these monitors you guys have been discussing, especially the M-Audio DX4s that look very nice, small, and in my prirce range, work for surround mixing as well by using three pairs and a subwoofer?

Thanks!

Peter

If you like the DX4, you might as well buy the LX4 kit consisting of 5 satellites and a sub. At a budget level, it's a very nice, very sweet sounding system for the bux. Nice in a small room, definitely.

Ah, looks great. Thanks Douglas!

Well, wound up going with the BX5's after falling in love with them at first sound! Absolutely beautiful speakers. The store will give me a deal on 3 more + a sub when I'm ready to up to 5.1. Already my CD mixes sound better just by being able to hear them so clearly.