budget studio monitors - any recommendations?

bassnation

the abyss
hi everyone, i have to replace my aging studio monitors as i can longer feel very much bass from them - obviously rendering them completely useless.

does anyone have any recommendations for budget monitors? the maximum i can afford is 250 - 300 ukp.

many thanks!
 

swears

preppy-kei
Funny you should mention this, I just asked my mate who builds speakers if he could do me a pair of monitors. And he said £400. At mates prices.
 

hint

party record with a siren
Do you already have an amp, Bassnation?

If so, I recommend the Dynaudio BM5 Passives. They're £175 each. A great monitor.

They're not suitable for huge rooms, but for a home studio style set up they're excellent.
 

bassnation

the abyss
Do you already have an amp, Bassnation?

If so, I recommend the Dynaudio BM5 Passives. They're £175 each. A great monitor.

They're not suitable for huge rooms, but for a home studio style set up they're excellent.

yes, i've got an old technics amp which seems to be as good as ever.

those dynaudio look pretty nice for the price, thanks hint! i've got a tiny room for producing, so i guess they'd be perfect for that setup.
 

nomos

Administrator
Any more suggestions along these lines? They have to be on the budget side yet decent enough that they convey what the low end is doing.

The Dynaudio ones above look nice, but I may be more interested in powered ones. I'm wondering about M-Audio's BX5a and BX8a but I'm interested in anything that people can confidently recommend.
 

borderpolice

Well-known member
I use Alesis Monitor One Active MK2. Cost about £200. They are ok, but don't
reproduce subtle string sounds very well I find.

9490_m.jpg
 

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
^ it depends. Get the Sound on Sound articles on better bass and subwoofer set up from last month. It depends on how big your room is. A sub will give you more bass but not necessarily better or more accurate bass. And cheap subs will sound horrible.

On recommendations, the new active Yamahas seem to be nice, but KRKs also work well. The more expensive Dynaudios are great, though I haven't heard the smaller ones.

My favourites are Genelecs and I'd really like a pair. Benga has some. But they're expensive.
 

nomos

Administrator
thanks paul. i forgot about the sound on sound article. i'll go through it. it's a small room that i'll be dealing with, and neighbours below. so if i can get away with no sub i'd like to.

i've noticed that the speakers' "resonance frequencies" are always listed in the specs. for example, the cheaper m-audio one is around 40hz or so while the bigger one comes in around 30hz. am i right that, say in former case, a tone at 40hz will cause the speaker box itself to produce harmonics? so if i'm dealing with a lot of low frequencies, i'd be better off with speakers with a lower resonance frequency?
 

leamas

Well-known member
most important thing is to demo as many pairs as possible. i'd stick to dynaudio, genelec or adam. the adam a7s come in a little over your budget, but i'd check them out if you have a chance. if you're worried about bass extension, an alternative solution is to invest in some reference headphones. the beyer dynamic dt150s for example are great to check mixes on, and for the money you get a much wider and more even frequency response than a pair of monitors will give you at that price.
 

Gabba Flamenco Crossover

High Sierra Skullfuck
IME subs are best avoided in project studios. Unless you're prepared to get deep into acoustic treatment, they tend to cause more problems than they solve. There's also problems with distortion harmonics creeping into the midrange and screwing with the stereo field.

I auditioned a load of monitors last year but they were all in the £1500-2500 price range so not really relevent to you, bassnation (the ones I bought were PMC TB2SAs if anyone's interested). I can't make any real recommendations about cheaper monitors except that auditioning is the key. Find a good store with staff you can relate to, and go along on a quiet weekday afternoon with a selection of CDs that you know well and rattle through them until you get the right pair.

A good store will let you test them at home before you pay so hold out for that too.
 

Gabba Flamenco Crossover

High Sierra Skullfuck
if you're worried about bass extension, an alternative solution is to invest in some reference headphones. the beyer dynamic dt150s for example are great to check mixes on, and for the money you get a much wider and more even frequency response than a pair of monitors will give you at that price.

Headphones are great for checking low level detail like reverb tails and unwanted distortion, but they can't reproduce the stereo field in the same way as monitors can, so I'd never recommend mixing on headphones alone.

The thing about bass extension, with regard to mixing, is that no amount of bass extension will ever make your mixing room sound like a club - even if you pumped the dbs up to an equivalent level, there's lots of psychoacoustic factors to do with the way the body percieves bass in a club enviroment that you can't ever replicate in the studio. So mixing for clubs isn't about creating a like-for-like environment, it's about learning through experience how to mix bass on your home setup so it will sound good on a rig. It obviously helps if you can do mixes and then quickly check them out on a rig you know, which is partly why producers in bass heavy genres love dubplate culture so much. But for the rest of us, it's about listening to music intelligently on a range of different systems, doing lots of mixes, and gradually building up knowledge.

But that said, it obviously helps to have the best set of monitors you can afford.
 

wonk_vitesse

radio eros
i'd agree about the dynaudio ones, if you must go for powered then perhaps the Tannoy ones would do, i'd avoid Alesis , they don't stand up nearly as well. With all these things it's what works well in your room. That may not be the best or most expensive.
 
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Another vote for Dynaudio BM5s, bought mine when they came out (more than 10 years ago), still going strong, sound excellent even with a cheapish hi-fi amp.

They are very hard to damage with accidental loud spikes (turning on and off equipment thuds and clicks etc) which is good for idiots like me and will save you a lot of money compared to NS10s, Alesis and Soundcraft cheap monitors you can easily pop the tweeters really often.
 

leamas

Well-known member
Headphones are great for checking low level detail like reverb tails and unwanted distortion, but they can't reproduce the stereo field in the same way as monitors can, so I'd never recommend mixing on headphones alone.

No, but they do allow you to double check the lower frequencies which are produced by the subs you get in club soundsystems, so in addition to a half decent pair of monitors they make a good reference.

Let us know what you go for Bassnation, also in the market for a good pair of monitors so eager to hear what you come up with. ;)
 

nomos

Administrator
so i've just bought a pair of tannoy reveals quite cheap on ebay based on a recommendation. they're passive, so now i need an amp: 200w or so and also cheap. any suggestions? i'm not sure what sort of things (good, bad) to look out for. or can one do just as well with a hifi amp?
 
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barry_abs

lil' beyutch
the ones I bought were PMC TB2SAs if anyone's interested

<passing remark>
my pal has a pair of PMC active monitors (don't recall the model name but cost just shy of £2k).. i really can't stress their quality enough.. the odd occassion i take my projects round there i always whack them through the PMCs.. the quality of the sound is so good it highlights all the flaws in my music - i leave stunned by the monitors but concerned about my production!
 

Kate Mossad

Well-known member
I swear by Yamaha MSP3s: powered monitor, 100mm cone, 22mm tweeter, 20 Watts, max SPL. 98dB (1m), 2 lineinputs (line 1: RCA, Line 2: XLR & Phone), 2-way EQ (Low/High).
They're about £120 each but built like tanks with a transparent sound that delivers plenty low end when required. If mine got stolen I'd buy a new pair tomorrow.
 
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