Need a small monitor recommendation

[mikehalloran]

Ok, I've been doing a lot of music for online church services these last 8 months.

I've come to the unscientific realization that most of my work is being heard on laptops, notepads and smart phones. Usually, my mixes translate but lately, I've had a couple that just fell flat including one disappointment from last Sunday.

What I don't want is to upload all my mixes to Soundcloud, then audition them on my iPad Pro. Though that would work, my deadlines are sometimes too tight for that.

What I'd like to find is a small set of speakers that I can use for checking my Sunday mixes. Something like the idea of Auratones but, frankly, with a response curve closer to my iPP (which has better bass than my wife's MacBook Air). They need to be powered.

[HCMarkus]

Too time-consuming to just shoot yourself an email with an MP3 attached?

[mikehalloran]

Too time-consuming to just shoot yourself an email with an MP3 attached?

And tweak and email and adjust and email and… Last Sunday, I submitted 9 tracks to three different churches.

Seriously, that's a great idea but I rarely have the luxury of that much time.

I have amateur groups working offline sending me tracks and volunteers on the other end taking what I send to build the final service. I can't be demanding of one group and I can't be disrespectful of the time of the other. I may be the leader but I'm no one's boss.

A pair of small speakers that approximate the sound of portable devices would be a major time saver.

[HCMarkus]

Then you need some really small speakers!

Mike, I'd look at speakers marketed for desktop use with computers... I've seen some really tiny ones that sound like Steve Martin would enjoy them... they get (a) really small (sound).

[mikehalloran]

Then you need some really small speakers!

Mike, I'd look at speakers marketed for desktop use with computers... I've seen some really tiny ones that sound like Steve Martin would enjoy them... they get (a) really small (sound).

Yea, I’ve got a couple sets of those in the garage, now that I think of it. Perhaps a pair of those will do what I need. Thanks.

Thing is that the iPP speakers are pretty good from around 200Hz up to around 6kHz or so. Other laptops have decent speakers in that range, too.

An ideal speaker for the use would be fairly flat from around 150Hz to around 10k with pots for high and low shelving so that one can set the range to match whatever one thinks.

This isn’t an issue for my choir work. I’m not trying to make organ pedals “pop” or other such nonsense. I did a band track, however, that had a nice drive from a bod’hran and bass. It sounded great on my Equators but the drum and bass were imperceptible when I listened to the service. I could have fixed that easily with a parametric had I heard it. Lesson learned.

Back to work. Only 5 pieces due by tomorrow, one with choir and bells. Gonna be a long day.

[Gravity Jim]

I used a pair of these as Awfultones for many years. Nice bunched up midrange so you can hear what's really going on down there. But they don't sound "awful:" you can stand to listen to them.

https://tinyurl.com/yxtfzcm8

[mikehalloran]

I used a pair of these as Awfultones for many years. Nice bunched up midrange so you can hear what's really going on down there. But they don't sound "awful:" you can stand to listen to them.

https://tinyurl.com/yxtfzcm8

Can you really hear what's going on around 100Hz? If the answer is, not really, these might be what I'm looking for.

[rickorick]

M-Audio just came out with the BX 3 with a 3.5 woofer and a 1” tweeter, not to big not to small.
Check them out.

[Gravity Jim]

I used a pair of these as Awfultones for many years. Nice bunched up midrange so you can hear what's really going on down there. But they don't sound "awful:" you can stand to listen to them.

https://tinyurl.com/yxtfzcm8

Can you really hear what's going on around 100Hz? If the answer is, not really, these might be what I'm looking for.

Not really. As you'd expect, the lows either aren't there or get washy.

[mikehalloran]

M-Audio just came out with the BX 3 with a 3.5 woofer and a 1” tweeter, not to big not to small.
Check them out.

Apparently there are two versions of the BX3. The new one has high and low eq trim pots. The manual doesn’t give the center frequencies or range but probably doesn’t matter for my purposes. These might be exactly what I’m looking for.

https://storage101.ord1.clouddrive.com/ ... 1604031193

$99.95 on Amazon “to be released on November 13”. I’ve sent an inquiry to my Sweetwater rep. Talk about your timing. Thanks for the heads up!

There’s a different version sitting at Guitar Center stores and online. Same model name, BX3, but no hi/low eq pots. $120 new; $80 used. A GC exclusive, perhaps?

Going to give the new version a try and will report back.

[mikehalloran]

Update:

Two weeks after release, Sweetwater told me they weren't going to order the M-Audio BX3 for me and recommended that I get them from Amazon—which I did with same day delivery.
https://www.amazon.com/M-Audio-BX3-120- ... B08KXVYGSF

The specs are a joke—80–22k? Yea, right… and the user manual is fairly useless. It's easy to figure out that the switch is set to whichever side the powered monitor is on and that the 1/8" TS cable attaches the passive satellite. The manual does not explain that the treble & bass trim pots do but they control the sensitivity of the drivers at the amp level. Ok.
https://www.m-audio.com/bx3

Hi frequency response is poor unless you crank the treble pot. How bad is it? In the center detent, you can't hear the hi-hat on "Hey Nineteen" except as part of the snare — goosing the treble pot offers a minor improvement. The crash is audible.

Bass response is about as good as one can probably get from a cheap, 3.5" driver and the bass pot has big effect but only on overall balance—it's not a shelving filter.

Mids aren't half-bad. You can still tell it's Donald Fagen.


But none of that's why I bought and will keep these. For emulating the response of laptop, iPad etc. speakers, they're ideal. Much better than the Altec and Cambridge computer speakers that I bought years ago. These have enough power that I can get the same overall level in the mids as my Equator D8-IIs.

My Radial MC3 controller has trim pots for A/B/Sub outs. This helps.

I may stuff the bass ports with some foam (or not) and will tweak the trim pots to get a useful sound but they will work for my purpose. My mixes will sound much better in the online church services that I'm doing. As these services are all on YouTube, it will be easy to dial in. Perfect? Of course not but that's not the goal. For $100 instead of $469 powered Avantones or $369 passive Auratones (plus another amp!), this works.

No more background singers or hand percussion that sounds great when I send it in but are inaudible on Sunday. People's feelings get bruised if they feel that I left them out of the mix — not good when it's church.

[mhschmieder]

I'm about to unpack my Neumann KH 80 DSP pair, but they aren't Auratone style as they are two-ways (4" + 1"), yet the DSP side could possibly be used to emulate a non-crossover speaker design? I haven't checked yet. I did almost buy Auratones, but a friend recommended I go with KH 80 so that the mixes I do in NC translate better to my KH 120 based system in CA once I am able to move back to the other side of the country again (and also I could then possibly set up a surround system).

I remain curious about the real benefits of Auratones for quick real world sanity checks though. That's for later, I suppose, as I am pretty cramped in here, with a much smaller computer table that I bought for my house share in NC than what I have in the house I actually own back in CA. Not sure if the Auratones need to be on risers though. Some even recommend just buying one of them and summing to mono.

[bayswater]

Mids aren't half-bad. You can still tell it's Donald Fagen.

Damning with faint praise?

[Rick Cornish]

I got a set of Westlake BBSM-4s (4”) as my "small" speakers, which have great low end, and come at a steep price. For checking mixes for computer and other odd uses, I got a single Behritone (Behringer's self-powered knock-off of the Auratone), which gives me a mono reference, as well. I suppose you could get a pair if you need stereo. They’re cheap and do the job.

BTW: I did a quick search, and it looks as though the Behritone may have been discontinued, but there are plenty on Reverb and eBay.

Good luck.

[mikehalloran]

Mids aren't half-bad. You can still tell it's Donald Fagen.

Damning with faint praise?

Yep. You got it.

I bought these to fine tune my mixes in the 220–500Hz range and they’ve saved me time. The idea that anyone would make any critical EQ or balance decisions is laughable. These have uh… “less than ideal” dynamic range and the treble response is a joke.

At a recent meeting, one of the other music directors complained that the AV guy must be doing something during the final assembly since his mixes don’t sound the same on Sunday morning. I tried to explain that the services are streamed over YouTube and they apply their own processing, mostly compression. Best one can do is listen to older services, compare to one’s mix and learn to adjust. Heck, I bought some cheap-o monitors with built-in compression for that exact purpose.
https://www.musicradar.com/how-to/4-wa ... our-videos

I might as well have spoken to the wall.

My monitor controller sums to mono at the press of a button as does the interface I normally use.