Studio Monitors Opinions

[Santos10]

Just heard the Equator D5s sounded like shit havent ordered them yet... now im scared

[Garygary1]

Just heard the Equator D5s sounded like shit havent ordered them yet... now im scared

From where? They sound awesome and flat to me, so i honestly wouldn't know why anyone would say that.

[mostapha]

Studio monitors are supposed to sound like shit compared to what laypeople are used to...maybe the person had unrealistic expectations.

Or they might jus suck.

If you get into this shit, you will CURSE the day you realized you could hear the difference between converters.

Also, as for amps. I believe the guy who says they don't matter as much as most other components as long as they're clean...based on what I've heard. As long as the amp is over-powered enough to never clip and is neither broken nor too smart for its own good, I haven't heard anything in a good environment to make me believe it matters.

As far as I'm aware, the biggest differences are whether the natural high frequency roll off happens in the audible range and whether you're getting nonlinear artifacts from bad circuitry or clipping.

[Santos10]

From where? They sound awesome and flat to me, so i honestly wouldn't know why anyone would say that.

a friend of mine told me they overdo the low end frequencies and the high end is harsh

[Nephew]

Seems like this needs repeating in here.

I'll say this, do not go CHEAP on monitors. This is the one place where you should spend all your money after you buy your laptop/desktop. If you can't accurately hear what you're doing then ll you're doing is guessing and making assumptions on what you THINK you're hearing.

I can not stress this enough. If you look at the top producers in the world, and then look at the top 10% of that group, do you think they're using KRKs and so on with a POS interface? Of course not! And you're mix downs will never sound as good as theirs because you will never be able to hear what they hear.

Best bit of advice I'll give you right now. Buy a nice interface (Duet 2 being the preferred choice for the electronic music producer). And then buy a pair of HS80's and the HS10 sub. After that save up until you can get a pair of CMS 65's and the CMS10 Sub and sell the Yamahas.

Boom. You have a monitoring system that rivals anyone else monitoring system out there.

Cheap speakers are cheap for a reason. Don't do it just to save a buck.

[16b441khz]

I'll vouch for the JBL's on your list. I have them, but onlu got them after listening to them for a whole yr while studying sound engineering at uni. I can hear things on these that i couldnt here any of the HS or NS series from yamaha nor the KRK's in a similar range. the only other monitors i can compare to are a massive jump up to the Event Opals and those things are magical but well expensive.

[djbassaddict]

Are these any good?

http://www.samedaymusic.com/product--ALEM1AMK2

[janzak]

Just wanna pitch in that I have a pair of A7Xs and they sound amazing. Tried the KRKs and demoed a bunch of monitors but the A7Xs just blew them out of the water. From my experience the best sounding monitors in the prosumer price range.

[Fyoog]

This question is the big sticking point for me currently as I have finally got my arse in gear and given into the production bug that has been gnawing away at me for the last couple of years.

I worked out fairly easily that I wanted Ableton as my DAW of choice to start out at least, to with that after a bit of research I decided to get a Novation Remote SL which I have been really happy with!!

When it came to looking for Production Monitors the lines became very blurred looking for that true sound for production.

I have been trying to gather as much info as I can and it seems to me a large percentage of the solution comes down to the price you pay as this seems to be a reoccurring theme across peoples experience, with cheaper speakers seeming to cause issues with High's wobbling and Low's distorting (or in some cases just not being enough).

The other large percentage of the solution seems to be a twinned issue of experience versus personal preference.

Alot of people have been lucky to test a selection of the speakers on the market (through college, friends, work etc) which obviously gives them great experience of which sound better, but within this I have seen massive ranges in opinions of the same speaker! Some people absolutely slating one and then on the next forum (or even posting on a thread) someone would absolutely love them leading me to believe alot of it can come to personal preference?

I think my point is (and also really round about way of looking for assurance) that the only real way to know you are going to make the right decision with your hard earned wonga is get out there and check out as many as possible either through friends, shops, local studios (if their willing) and see what the score is as recommendations and price seem not to be the best option in this area.

Hope this helps, from someone in the same boat as you!

[mostapha]

Fyoog seems right on the mark, in my experience.

Also…a lot of studios have pictures of their control rooms on their websites. Based on the ones I've seen or had experience with, the most common near fields are Genelecs or NS-10ms. Sadly, the NS-10s aren't made anymore and the HS50/80 just aren't the same speaker.