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I'm looking for some flat accurate powered monitors for mixing. I can't spend alot of doe. These are the ones I'm trying to decide between...

Yamaha Hs80 m
Event tr-6 or tr8
Event 20/20 v2 Passive with an alesis Rs-300 power amp
Alesis Monitor 1 mk2 Powered

Thank's to all who have replyed ! With your help I've changed some of my choices !

Ps: My music is acoustic rock , so I'm looking for clarity and accuracy not bumpping big bottom for hip hop or rap .

Thank's....

Have a look at the reviews here:

Ten Powered Nearfields Reviewed

Sort of dated, but non-biased, and I respect the reviewer. Reading this will at least give you some ideas about what to look/listen for.

save up a bit more. In the meantime go to GC and check out the Dynaudio BM5A's.

T

qo wrote:Have a look at the reviews here:

Ten Powered Nearfields Reviewed

Sort of dated, but non-biased, and I respect the reviewer. Reading this will at least give you some ideas about what to look/listen for.

Interesting. I've read as many people give positive reviews to the KRK V8s and negative reviews to the Mackie HR824s.

Monitors. So subjective.

chrispick wrote:
Interesting. I've read as many people give positive reviews to the KRK V8s and negative reviews to the Mackie HR824s.

Monitors. So subjective.

Not subjective, Most people NEVER set up their 824's correctly. Then they say they suck. But if they heard em set properly, their opinions would change.

I have had people with 824's come to my studio and ask why mine sound so good and theirs dont. I always find out they never set the switches properly for their placement.

When set properly and compared to other properly set speakers then it become not hat or love but the differneces in character of the monitors.

Matter of fact here is a nice quote from that series of articles....

All monitors have a ••œpersonality••

To backup what Giles is saying, the fact is MOST people don't have a properly tuned room, let alont a properly built room for mixing. One reason is the lack of education on acoustics, or I should say the lack of knowing about it as there is plenty of education out there. Another reason is "you're putting what up on that wall???" Unless you're running top-notch converters with a finely-tuned room, it's really not possible to say this monitor is better over that. Besides, the way "most" audition them is listening to a CD through them in a store which is a whole other no-no at judging a monitor.

All monitors require getting used to, many require making compromises that you know you need to make to make the mix work...but that only gets you so far. Not all monitors are ideal for all kinds of music. For example from someone that has used HR824's for years, I did have very good results with them for mixing progressive rock, but the high-frequency gave me problems with cymbals. I didn't like them for mixing acoustic music for the same reasons. On the other hand, my Genelec 1031's were great for listening to reverb tails and those cymbals but the bass response just wasn't there. My current monitors are ones I see having for many years to come, they don't color or change a thing....it's like seeing the mix in front of me, it's that clear. But if my room wasn't properly tuned, it wouldn't mean a thing.

I guess my point is, there are many solutions that will work.... but no matter how little or how much you invest on monitors and D/A conversion... you will NOT get the full benefit until your room is tuned and your monitors are properly configured in the studio.

giles117 wrote:Not subjective, Most people NEVER set up their 824's correctly. Then they say they suck. But if they heard em set properly, their opinions would change.

I have had people with 824's come to my studio and ask why mine sound so good and theirs dont. I always find out they never set the switches properly for their placement.

I'm not putting down 824s. I'm just saying I run across quotes from people who love 'em and people who hate 'em. I have no idea how they set them up. Maybe they dangle them from their power cords off a curtain rod. Maybe they set all DIP switches to down and sit them on rusty buckets in their garden shed. I have no clue.

All I was saying is I noticed the reviewer liked and disliked some equipment that others have had opposite opinions.

And of course people's opinions in monitors are subjective. Yeah, yeah, tuned to the room, blah, blah, blah. That's understood. Do you ever read articles where they throw a bunch of producer/engineers types in a single room and have them vote on six or seven monitors, blind-tested? They never agree specifically (although sometimes a broad consensus is met).

FWIW: I considered buying their little brothers, the 624s.

I agree tuning a room is important. No room is perfect, especially rooms that weren't built with mixing in mind, or heavily altered after the fact. But, you can take steps to improve things (and some of these steps don't involve paying someone for something you may not need, as Giles has pointed out). 824s do need to be tweaked for their placement within the room. The other element not touched on is the placement of the monitors relative to one another, and to you. Spaced too far apart, and the soundstage ends up with a hole in it. Spaced too close together, and you can no longer judge where things are sitting in your mix. All this is relative to how far the monitors are from you and from the walls, etc. We're talking inches making big differences. Too, with some rooms, you're just gonna have to resign yourself to monitoring at low levels so that the influence of the room is lessened.

Finally, yes, acoustic treatment can help. But, you can't just splatter Auralex up on the walls and expect your issues to be solved. You first have to analyze the room to see what problems you have that need solving e.g. where are the standing waves and at what frequencies, flutter echos, comb filtering, etc? NOBODY can help you with this if they haven't been to your place, or at least obtained a very detailed description of your room, and the materials that it's made of.

If it's only you mixing (nobody sitting on a couch behind you, etc), then you may be able to get away with a standing wave near the back wall so long as your mix position is flat. Most rooms have a reasonably decent sweet spot. You just need to find it, tweak it, and setup so that you're sitting in it.

An interesting exercise is to play pink noise through your monitors (at a volume similar to your mix volume) and then walk around the room and listen. Even better, use a measurement mic and a spectrum analyzer and wave it around the room. It's very easy to find the areas to avoid and areas that are pretty flat by doing this. So, find the sweet spot, setup there and, if necessary, turn down the volume. You'd be surprised at how much $$ you can save by doing so.

I was surprised at how difficult it was to get my room sounding good. I found it very challenging to place both sets of nearfields behind my mixer & get good results. Inches really do make a huge difference! (that's what she said . . . I know) anyway something I did in my room that helped tremendously was altering the ceiling. I hung a 8' x 8' "cloud" with a 15 degree angle above the mixing spot. This really focussed the sound & tightened up everything. Incidentally I use NS10's & Genelec 1029. I have spent a lot of time with the Mackie's & enjoyed them too.

Well, anyway...

The thread poster's asking about monitors that hover around the $350-a-piece price range. The 824s and 1029s cost a lot more than that. My assumption is if he can only afford a $350 monitor, then tuning and acoustically treating his workspace for optimal listening might be beyond his spending scope.

I don't know which monitor on his list would be best for him; I haven't listened to any of them. A friend of mine once had the KRKs and liked them okay, FWIW.

I agree with a previous poster who said it might be wise to scrounge up enough cash to bump up into the $500-600-a-piece monitor range. Then you're talking Dynaudio BM 5As, Tannoy Reveal 6Ds, Mackie HR624s... I've checked all three of these out and would say they're each great for small project studio-size set-ups (I own a pair of the Tannoys).

sorry I went off on my own story there, that wasn't relevent to the original question.

I have a custome built room and I have heard many a cheap monitor in it (when I was searching for a low price alternative.)

The KRK Rock it's were cool, the behringers were adequate though a tad dark for my taste. The M-Audios wer cool.

I found nothing just nasty with these montiors and I am sure I could get a ver decent mix off of them.

#1 is your room. money spent there is your best bet. It will give you the highest ROI of anything you do.


Building my control room cost me $1500 in materials.......with todays increases, that figure would be more like $2200.00

BX8 MAUDIO are the new NS10 standard because of the bang for the buck value 8" driver. Quite usable.

You can spend a fortune on Geni's or Adams but Y bother.

Hi....check out the powered Event TR6's for about less than $400.

I've been getting great results on every kind of playback system I've heard my mixes played back on.

I bought these sight and unheard upon a recommendation from my salesman at Sweetwater. I told him what I wanted, my budget and price range, what I'd been using before (JBL 4206's), what I'm recording (all styles of music!) and I can't thank them enough. My old mixes came out well when I had to take my music into a 'bigger studio' for laying into films, and now my new mixes are even better.

They surprise me in the nicest ways, and my own mastering and mixing has improved immensely from having these monitors.

Set them up in your classic 'close-triangle', and away you go!

Good luck.

I've heard my own KRK V4s, V6s and the Mackie 824s in a room designed by John Sayers. I would rather have the KRK V series II. They were my first pick when I first went monitor shopping (at least for near-fields, as I am pretty used to loudspeaker systems), but the Mackies were always last to me. Though, I have to admit, the KRK V8's do suck. The V series work much better with a small speaker config. I have a set of Tascam VL-X5s that I'd rather listen to than the Mackies, though. But, if you're serious about your monitors, then you go ADAM (or the Gene far-fields for the bigger rooms). I have even been in a few studios that use B&Ws. They aren't even studio monitors, but they are super-accurate. My p11a's are probably my end-all when it somes to nears. Yes, it is very subjective. But, for most mixes, I can make due with my KRKs. It really depends on what YOU hear. I can probably hear things you'll never hear and vis-versa. Go with what makes your boys tingle. That is about all there is to it.