Monitors that don't lie or steal your money

[ramchandra]

Inexpensive monitors that do their job are thay out there?

[bigtoe]

they all lie but they can all get the job done. no really.

ok ok...to the pod.

Mike

[dynomike]

How inexpensive is inexpensive?

I use a pair of passive home speakers, which I actually paid way too much for, but am still totally happy with. With a good amp they sound fantastic, and after I put up ethan's bass traps in my room, my mixes translate almost perfectly (occasionally need to check the bass guitar).

The speakers are the Boston Acoustics CR8. They have a 7" woofer and 1" titanium tweeter. 125 watts/channel power handling. Pair that up with a decent used HAFLER or NAD 2200 amp and you're set!

They go really really cheap on ebay (<$200/pair).

Mike

[I'm Painting Again]

the listening environment is half the battle..you can have THE most accurate monitor chain in the world..but if your room is not treated 99% of the time your perception of whats being played back will be skewed..you can do a test where you shoot your system with a sine wave sweep (of equal amplitude across the audio range 10Hz-30kHz) just listen (at the monitor position - an equalateral triangle with your ears with speaker line preferably parallel to the short end of a rectangular room) to where it gets louder and softer and take careful notes along the way as to what your ears are telling you..you can learn a lot with this simple experement..

with speakers as anything in life the good stuff is usually expensive..
people seem to think highly of the B+W705's which are marketed as hi-fi loudspeakers :

http://www.avguide.com/product/Speakers ... 5/2902.jsp

[joelpatterson]

I SWEAR there were a bunch of quarters on the desk last night...

[maz]

the listening environment is half the battle..you can have THE most accurate monitor chain in the world..but if your room is not treated 99% of the time your perception of whats being played back will be skewed..you can do a test where you shoot your system with a sine wave sweep (of equal amplitude across the audio range 10Hz-30kHz) just listen (at the monitor position - an equalateral triangle with your ears with speaker line preferably parallel to the short end of a rectangular room) to where it gets louder and softer and take careful notes along the way as to what your ears are telling you..you can learn a lot with this simple experement..

word. I would say it's more than half the battle. Great monitors/bad room: impossible to mix, average monitors/great room: at least you can reference how other stuff sounds on them and it will be accurate.

I loved my system in my old room, (tannoy reveals/Hafler P3000 with a yamaha sub) but then I moved to a new space and can't hear anything.

[midiot]

I SWEAR there were a bunch of quarters on the desk last night...

Ha! That one went over my head at first. Then I reread the post title and got it. Funny.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

Ha! That one went over my head at first.

yeah mine too. it's early yet and i'm hungover. anyway, nice work joel.

[cgarges]

"Steal your money?"

That's a good one. It's so refreshing to hear that because all this time I've felt like Levi's and Fuller's and Noble & Cooley and all the other companies that make really great stuff for which I've been willing to pay have really been ripping me off.

Fuck it, get some Behringers.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[sad iron]

Fuck it, get some Behringers.

Ahem...I'll actually second that.

I was gonna spend up to $500 on monitors in my garage set up and I went out to taste test the usual suspects in that range (Event, M-audio, etc)

The store had the Behringer B2031a's set up too, so I thought I would use them as a barometer of crap vs good stuff. After going through the all I, um, liked the Behringers a lot more. More honest and up front to my way of hearing. Not too hyped. I knew I had to have had s*&t in my ears so I went home and came back the next day. Same result. So I bought them and figured I'd get them home and everything would sound untrue and I would bring them back and shell out more $$ for the Event TR8s. Didn't happen. I still really like them a lot. The don't sound beautiful, but they don't hurt my ears and when I mix something it sounds like what I thought it sounded like...

I've mixed on a lot of different systems (including the Mackie 824s that the Behrries copy) and these things are a good bet for a low/mid-budget project set up.

In the end its your ears that do the mixing, not the monitors. If you get used to whatever you have to monitor from you can get good mixes.

[cgarges]

Fuck it, get some Behringers.

Ahem...I'll actually second that.

Can of worms open. The moose runs wild at midnight. Over.

CG

[ramchandra]

My room is set up great for mixing. We spent a month setting it up with an acoustics guy and we tested with his monitors. I don't have alot of cash but something that won't heart my ears would be great.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

The moose runs wild at midnight.

this needs to be the title of somebody's record.

[maz]

My room is set up great for mixing. We spent a month setting it up with an acoustics guy and we tested with his monitors. I don't have alot of cash but something that won't heart my ears would be great.

I do recommend the Tannoy Reveals - I just sold mine but only because I'm consolidating with a friend's studio and he has Genelecs. But for the money, they are cool.

They never stole any of my money but they did impregnate my cat. Most monitors do though.

[workshed]

I'll throw this one out there as a budget option: Wharfedale Diamond Pro 8.2 Actives. Got mine as blems from (I think) American Musical for under $300 with free shipping.

Now that I've thrown that out there, do keep in mind that I have about as much experience with all this stuff as Garges has in his left pinky. In other words, I have very little frame of reference against which to compare these.

That being said, I really love the sound of these speakers. They do sound really natural and clear. Lots of detail that I never hear on any of my other speaker setups.

I would love to learn more about setting up my room though. Time to do some reading.