Ok. I have moved the Dj table to my little living room which shares it’s space with my kitchen. Total size is 10’ x 20’. I have been using some cheap PC 2.1 speakers I had around with a female 3.5 to red/white RCA. After quite a beating they are sounding even worse and was planning to buy a new speaker setup.
Budget is kind of an issue but willing to make sacrifices. I saw on my local CL a pair of POLK AUDIO RTi4 for $170 and a pair of monitor audio BR1 for $179. Upon further research I came to the knowledge that those arent active (self powered) and since I have no pre-amp Im sol.
Then I came to think about some other cheap PC speakers namely Creative Lab Inspire A500 which sell locally for 50 bucks. The space is half wood and half concrete with a lot of echo since Im broke for furniture too
What would you recommend? getting the polk audio or Monitor Audio speakers and some cheap 2 channel pre amp or go with the PC speaker setup? Any recomendations on a budget 2 channel preamp or good PC speakers that might do the job? Any budget active bookshelf speakers that might work?
If you have been using desktop speakers and the quality hasn’t been killing you, I would highly recommend either the M-Audio, or KRK 5" active studio monitors.
They are fully active, and about 70 dollars per speaker, so $140 total for your needs.
Add to that a small powered home theater sub, and use the full frequency outputs on the sub box to go to the krk, or m-audios.
And for about 170-200 max, you can have a sweet audiophile level sound system, that has bass extension down to the really low ranges that you need to hear if your mixing edm.
You want to know if those two baselines you overlap are going to sound right on a system that can actually reproduce the sub-lows, so your practice system has to be able to put out the sub-lows.
And your 2.1 PC setup had a sub, so it did that.
If you use JUST two 5" studio monitors, they will not, you absolutely have to have a to reproduce the sub-lows.
Now I don’t know what kind of connections you have on the back of your mixer. If you have two separate main outs (like XLR and RCA) then you could send the XLR to your monitors (krk, or m-audio, or whoever) and send the RCA to the sub you were using for you 2.1.
So you might be able to get away with re-using the 2.1 systems sub, with new small studio monitors, and get some really decent results for how little money your investing.
These Dayton’s make great monitors. They will not get to full “war volume” but the response is very flat, and provides very little coloration of the sound. The response is reasonable to 45Hz…so you will get to hear some bass. Place them near a wall…or better yet, mount them near the ceiling/wall junction and point them down.
For $160 a pair, plus your time to assemble, you will not beat the sound quality for less than 3x that amount.
Get any reasonable “home stereo receiver” that will put at least 30w into the speakers…they will take 100w.
So far Ebay has the best prices for the M-Audio. Krk’s are still off the budget. Another alternative I thought is that if buying passive speakers, pair them up with a cheap receiver. Would this be a good solution? Local CL has them for $50 and maybe could work. Also, like exokinetic said, I would need to pair the speakers with a sub to really feel the lows.
Any recommendations for a sub? How to hookup 2.1 speakers when, ie the s4, has just 2 output master RCA’s? Would I need to split the cable to the speakers and they would just play the frequency they are designed to play or some other magic?
Sorry for the n00bness but I haven’t delved into audiophile systems since most of the time equipment was hooked to regular recievers or simply being told “Connect your master to this RCA”
You can probably route sound into the 2.1 sub box, as that is how most of them work in the first place, then the box sends out a signal to the other speakers in the system. So you may be able to send your signal off the rca (with a rca to 1/8 adapter) to the sub box, then off to the new speaker system, probably with another RCA to 1/8 to go from the 1/8 on the subs output, to rca into a receiver, or set of powered monitors.
I have a Klipsch promedia 2.1 system that I’ve had for nearly 6 years. The satellite speakers are smallish, but not suspiciously small, and put out a nice vibrant sound. The subwoofer is a good size too, and amazingly loud. I usually end up cranking the bass knob all the way left if i’m practicing. Parties are different . I was just looking on Ebay, and you can wrangle a pair for cheap. I got mine for $60 because they had a broken DIN plug and had a friend put a new end on for a few bucks. Definitely worth a look though.
I had a pair of m audio av40 I think? Well, gave them to my bro since I upgraded but for a little pair of 4’’ speakers those things get pretty loud but excellent for desktop purposes and good price. If you ever upgrade, I got mackie mr8 and they are absolutely awesome, I like a little more bass since I lack a subwoofer and you can boost these nicely if you need them for something else, say a small party at home… Well actually if I go over half the volume the neighbors would bang on my door! (of course probably wouldnt hear them)
Apparently, PC speakers arent any good and real studio monitors are way better. The way I get to understand it is:
God tier - Monitor speakers like KRK,s Yamaha, Mackies etc… Studio stuff
Top Tier - Great bookshelf speakers , great dedicated amp
Mid Tier - Decent home theather
Low Tier - PC speakers
Shit Tier - skullcandy, DIY’d old car speaker setup.
Bought the Techinical Pros + Sub for 189.00. I’ll write a review here when I get them. I havent still seen any1 here with those speakers but I’ll let yall know if they are good or no.
