I’m planning to buy new monitors for my home studio. I have some monitors but not entirely perfect for the studio setting. I tend to always mix on headphones but I need some monitors.
Currently Im looking at these (pairs)
Yamaha HS50M (possibly with the Yamaha HS-10W Sub)
Yamaha HS80M
Yamaha MSP7
Adam Audio A5X
Adam Audio A3X
Genelec 6010A
Genelec 8020A & 8020B (i dont know if theres a difference)
JBL LSR 4326P
yous can suggest other monitors those are some people told me to look at so im just seeing if someone could help be out if I get less expensive monitors like the ADAM A3X ill think about adding Yamaha NS10s since I would have extra money
wow im really considering picking these up due to the price and then add Yamaha HS-50M + HS-10W sub for $700 or a pair of HS80ms this way i would have 2 reference monitors and throw a MACKIE BIG KNOB
a pair of Yamaha HS80M is more than enough.
Best purchase ever made, dont think i’ll be needing a sub to go with them..the bass is adequate, at least for me.
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.
Wow those look really good. When you said $300 a pair I was thinking they would be junk but that’s pretty cool how they are doing them direct. If I needed monitors I would buy those for sure.
I wonder if they will make a D8- that would be pretty impressive.
I’ve heard that too, but they failed miserably. It takes like 2 seconds listening to NS-10s to hear the difference.
I overheard an engineer who’s mixed or mastered several grammy-winning tracks talking about them. His exact words were, “I couldn’t mix on them, but they’re decent speakers.”
The difference between a budget interface and a boutique $5,000 for 2 channels of DAC and nothing else is smaller than the difference between NS10s and HS80s. And there are still a lot of things that make a bigger difference than that.
If you know your monitors well and know how they compare to everything else out there, you can mix on them.
When you get up past the 1500-2000 price point that’s just down to how many I/O’s you want. So unless you plan on recording a live band there’s no need to go to that extreme, and that’s why I LOVE the Duet 2 because it’s hands down the best sound interface for $500 and it still beats the pants off of interfaces three or even four times it’s price.
As for learning your monitors, yeah of course you want to learn. But how are you supposed to learn from something that’s not even there. Cheaper monitors don’t just colour the sound, there’s just stuff you’re missing out on altogether.
Thank you everyone for the feedback its really helping me make my decision. Right now im probably picking up those Equator D5s for $300 considering they compare them to Adam A7X and other high quality monitors. Then I will pick up either a pair of Yamaha HS50Ms w/ the 10in Sub, HS80M or the NS10s.
Quick Question does anyone know a amp that would power the NS10’s properly and still readily available I saw this one yamaha amp everyone was recommending buy it came out in the 80s and it’ll be hard to get my hands on for a reasonable price.
It took me like 6 months to save up for a pair of halfway decent monitors (about $800 or so) and i was basically set on a pair of krk vxt 4’s when i made a thread on gearslutz to see if there were any other good monitors to take into consideration. One of the first replys was recommending the d5’s, and at first, i didn’t think they were something to be bothered with, but then i read through the other thread that i posted before and was pretty impressed that people were comparing them to monitors like the adam a7… and preferring them.
So I go to equator’s site, notice they have a 60 day return policy, and basically impulse buy them. I listened to a whole ton of monitors over a guitar center before and from what i hear, they are certainly as good any $800 pair.
One big vote for the Genelecs, with caveats. The 6010A sounds amazing for such a small speaker, but can’t really be considered for monitoring without the matching subwoofer, and even then it doesn’t work as well as the 8000 series.
8020B is great for nearfield work, if you don’t need low bass response. If you want to monitor midfield, or need the bass, you’ll need the sub, which will double the price for a 2-channel setup. The difference between 8020A and 8020B is minor - the newer model has a power switch separate from the volume control, which is handy, and supposedly more even dispersion characteristics.
I use 8030A’s myself on K&M tabletop stands, and couldn’t be happier.
Nice. I currently have two pairs of KRK Rokkit 8 gen 1s. While I really like them for DJing they don’t sound the best for production. I have them matched with the 10s subwoofer…
I wasn’t really considering switching but I could sell the RP8s for the same price. I just wonder if the smaller D5s would be lacking in the low and mid range since they are smaller. I also wonder how they would pair with a 10s subwoofer.
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