Small Active Monitors?

comfortstarr · Post by **comfortstarr** » Fri Oct 11, 2013 10:23 am

F'n house needs an F'n new boiler... Price consciousness is now heightened. I'm torn betwixt the Presonus and the Equators. I hit a store and heard (as best I could) the Presonus. I thought they sounded great--but I'm not too finicky about this stuff, I don't have "golden" ears.

Gregg Juke · Post by **Gregg Juke** » Sat Oct 12, 2013 7:46 pm

I'm telling you man, look for the Yorkevilles...

GJ

Gregg Juke · Post by **Gregg Juke** » Sat Oct 12, 2013 9:06 pm

Update-- I don't know if you get the GC e-mail newsletters/sales flyers, buy if I read things correctly, it looks like Alesis Elevate 3 monitors are on sale at the Columbus Day GC event (in-store and on-line) for $49.99 _per pair_! Even if that's $50 per speaker, that's great, but I think it's per pair.

GJ

kslight · Post by **kslight** » Sun Oct 13, 2013 2:00 pm

I just took the plunge on a pair of D5s, with the carrying bag and isolation pads and cables...$450 + free shipping seems like a good deal to me...(not as good a deal as they used to be unfortunately...but good enough I guess). Looking forward to them. Now for a new monitor controller...

jgimbel · Post by **jgimbel** » Sun Oct 13, 2013 10:05 pm

kslight wrote:Now for a new monitor controller...

You and me both. Presonus Monitor Station is looking really good to me for the features it has, but there are so many. Welcome to my world!

kslight · Post by **kslight** » Mon Oct 14, 2013 4:52 am

jgimbel wrote:
kslight wrote:Now for a new monitor controller...
You and me both. Presonus Monitor Station is looking really good to me for the features it has, but there are so many. Welcome to my world!

I'm probably going to end up with a Radial MC3.

Gregg Juke · Post by **Gregg Juke** » Mon Oct 14, 2013 5:58 am

The Central Station is awesome, and the Monitor Station is based on it. I'm not sure what features you'd be giving up, other than the rack/remote set-up, but it is half the price.

GJ

kslight · Post by **kslight** » Mon Oct 14, 2013 3:39 pm

Gregg Juke wrote:The Central Station is awesome, and the Monitor Station is based on it. I'm not sure what features you'd be giving up, other than the rack/remote set-up, but it is half the price.

GJ

Well split decision and after reading not so great things about the Radial I settled on the Presonus Monitor Station anyway. Coupled with a 20% off Musician's Friend coupon...but they were out of stock so I made Zzounds match it, and they beat it slightly, so got it for a nice price anyway. All kinds of new, not very exciting but essential, toys showing up.

comfortstarr · Post by **comfortstarr** » Mon Oct 14, 2013 5:40 pm

Well, just pulled the trigger on the equator's with the iso pads. I'll be running them via a Metric Halo ULN/2. I think I'll be happy!

jgimbel · Post by **jgimbel** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 7:42 pm

kslight wrote:Well split decision and after reading not so great things about the Radial I settled on the Presonus Monitor Station anyway. Coupled with a 20% off Musician's Friend coupon...but they were out of stock so I made Zzounds match it, and they beat it slightly, so got it for a nice price anyway. All kinds of new, not very exciting but essential, toys showing up.

Please let us/me know what you think about it. I was chatting with a good friend/client today about if the active Monitor Station is not a great idea and if the Central Station is worth saving more for, even though it's something I wish I didn't need to get right now! His response was just that the Central Stations go for a lot cheaper used. I'm going to look into them, but I'd still love to get the Monitor Station if it's nice.

comfortstarr · Post by **comfortstarr** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 8:22 am

The discussion of monitor controls is kind of interesting. I have a Mission Control from i3 Audio (they're no longer around). I haven't used it since I got the ULN2, I just control through that. The i3 thing is very good sounding. If anyone's interested in it, I'd love to move it on to someone who'd use it.

kslight · Post by **kslight** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 3:35 pm

jgimbel wrote:
kslight wrote:Well split decision and after reading not so great things about the Radial I settled on the Presonus Monitor Station anyway. Coupled with a 20% off Musician's Friend coupon...but they were out of stock so I made Zzounds match it, and they beat it slightly, so got it for a nice price anyway. All kinds of new, not very exciting but essential, toys showing up.
Please let us/me know what you think about it. I was chatting with a good friend/client today about if the active Monitor Station is not a great idea and if the Central Station is worth saving more for, even though it's something I wish I didn't need to get right now! His response was just that the Central Stations go for a lot cheaper used. I'm going to look into them, but I'd still love to get the Monitor Station if it's nice.

I normally like buying used, but the format of the Monitor Station (desktop versus rack) is more appealing for my intended uses, which involves my main setup and a mobile setup. Sound quality while a concern, if there is a difference between the two I still look at the Monitor Station as a big step up from my current monitor controller, so I think I'll be happy.

jgimbel · Post by **jgimbel** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 11:43 pm

kslight wrote:I normally like buying used, but the format of the Monitor Station (desktop versus rack) is more appealing for my intended uses, which involves my main setup and a mobile setup. Sound quality while a concern, if there is a difference between the two I still look at the Monitor Station as a big step up from my current monitor controller, so I think I'll be happy.

That was my thought too, about the form factor. The Monitor Station seems to be kind of based on the remote of the Central Station, so fortunately that form factor kind of applies to either. For some kinds of gear I like to just buy new, but I'm hoping to not spend $600. The used Central Stations seem to go used for about what Monitor Stations are new, otherwise I'd probably be going with the latter. My headphone amp now is a cheap active one and it sounds good, the only thing that would be a change is that right now my monitors are going from passive outputs on my interface, while with the Monitor Station it's active there too. One thing that seems a little confusing (to me, maybe not to anyone else) is the Cue Out. I'm assuming this could be used to go to a headphone amp, right? I need to make sure I can get more than just the headphone amps on the Monitor Station, or especially the two that are on the Central Station. It seems like the Cue Outs are basically just line outs, but you can send something else to them (but hopefully don't need to, I want to just send the same as what goes to the mains).

Jeff White · Post by **Jeff White** » Thu Oct 17, 2013 8:52 am

I'm definitely interested in this conversation as well. I have 3 sets of monitors (Rogers Studio 1s, NS-10Ms, and a powered mono Avantone MixCube). Right now I am using a Mackie Onyx to bring in audio from my MH 2882 and send it to all 3 pairs of monitors. I tried a few small format mixers for this and the Onyx hands-down sounded the best. However, I'm getting ready to make my studio a hybrid of tape and digital, so I'm going to upgrade my mixer to a (hopefully) console, and wire up a patchbay for everything to go everywhere. I definitely have a use for a monitoring solution that can be fed by both the MH 2882 and the console; something that can take at least 2-3 inputs and send them out to 3 sets of switchable monitors and headphones would be perfect for me.

Looks like the Monitor Station would be perfect...IF it sounds great.

Jeff

kslight · Post by **kslight** » Fri Oct 18, 2013 3:32 pm

Received it all today...time to hook them up I think!

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