# Home Studio Monitors, Does size matter?



## MoeWalsaad (Nov 18, 2018)

Hello,
I wonder does size makes a difference with active nearfield monitors?

I had the KRK Rokit6 for several years in a home studio environment and was tired from the weight and size, now I'm seeking portability but with decent quality, I'm considering to buy smaller ones like 3", 4", 5", I'm fine with the KRK but I'm also open to trying other brands.


What differences should I expect from smaller monitors?
Why would people buy either large monitors or small ones?
Which brands and models do you recommend, for small size monitors?
Thanks in advance


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## CoffeeLover (Nov 18, 2018)

have rotkits in my rehearsalstudio 
they dont bother me cos i mainly record demo and ideas with multiple people but i would not use them at home i find them to colour the sound 
i do use yamaha hs series i find them to be less on the low end and more on the top end 
yamaha hs5 maybe?


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## SchnookyPants (Nov 18, 2018)

Well, room size is a factor. I don't think you'll be happy w/ teeny speakers in a humongous room.

If you really desire portability but don't want to sacrifice sound quality, have you considered decent headphones?


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## stan-k (Nov 18, 2018)

It depends on what you're going to do with them. If you are looking for portability, have a look at IK Multimedia's iLoud Micro Monitors (https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/iloudmm/?pkey=iloud-micro-monitor). Haven't used them myself but read only good things about them.

I personally have Yamaha HS5's. In hindsight, I should've bought the HS7's or 8's, not for the sheer loudness of them but for bass frequencies when mixing.


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## MoeWalsaad (Nov 18, 2018)

CoffeeLover said:


> have rotkits in my rehearsalstudio
> they dont bother me cos i mainly record demo and ideas with multiple people but i would not use them at home i find them to colour the sound
> i do use yamaha hs series i find them to be less on the low end and more on the top end
> yamaha hs5 maybe?


THanks, I see, Hs5 or probably a JBL are under my consideration  .


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## MoeWalsaad (Nov 18, 2018)

SchnookyPants said:


> Well, room size is a factor. I don't think you'll be happy w/ teeny speakers in a humongous room.
> 
> If you really desire portability but don't want to sacrifice sound quality, have you considered decent headphones?


does the room size makes a difference, or is it the speaker's distance from the person?

Nope to headphones for production, to me, It triggers serious ears fatigue.


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## gregh (Nov 18, 2018)

jbl lsr305 are amazing for the price and size. I have used them. Price goes up a bit to get much better.
Near field monitors are designed to be listened to up close ie at the desk, to avoid coloration by the room but I have never used small speakers in a large room. I would think if that becomes a problem then you are listening at too high a volume. You wont get great bass out of small speakers, but the 305s'(and better) are pretty good - way better than Rokits in my opinion and much lighter


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## EvilDragon (Nov 18, 2018)

MoeWalsaad said:


> does the room size makes a difference, or is it the speaker's distance from the person?



Both matter. Also dimensions and shape of the room matter tremendously, and speaker distance from the wall, and... everything 

You shouldn't go below 5" if you want any sort of reasonable bass frequency response.


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## sostenuto (Nov 18, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> Both matter. Also dimensions and shape of the room matter tremendously, and speaker distance from the wall, and... everything
> 
> You shouldn't go below 5" if you want any sort of reasonable bass frequency response.



Understand, and struggled over choice of current Yamaha HS5 _+ powered sub_ vs HS8. 
Secondary DAW (same room) has PreSonus E8 pair. Both 'ok' but favor Yammy config a bit.

Also .... can't recall engr /venue, but yesterday saw pro studio with Large monitors up and back, BUT
_Avatone Pro MixCubes_ directly in front of User. Is this a common 'Pro-studio' set-up ?


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## EvilDragon (Nov 18, 2018)

Yes, it is always good to have a secondary speaker set for so-called "shit control". Meaning, you can verify how your mixes would sound on a smaller, crappier speaker. And it can also be just a single speaker too, so that you can check out mono compatibility.


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## elpedro (Nov 18, 2018)

MoeWalsaad said:


> Hello,
> I wonder does size makes a difference with active nearfield monitors?
> 
> I had the KRK Rokit6 for several years in a home studio environment and was tired from the weight and size, now I'm seeking portability but with decent quality, I'm considering to buy smaller ones like 3", 4", 5", I'm fine with the KRK but I'm also open to trying other brands.
> ...


As far as small monitors are concerned, I think the Focal monitors are excellent. Small monitors will always lack bass, so it would be good to have some headphones that cover the range, if it is for a mobile setup


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## elpedro (Nov 18, 2018)

MoeWalsaad said:


> does the room size makes a difference, or is it the speaker's distance from the person?
> 
> Nope to headphones for production, to me, It triggers serious ears fatigue.


 Yes room size matters, the smaller the room, The more standing waves you will get. This means that the bass frequencies, which are long waves accumulate and low-end frequencies build up in the room. I have a very small room myself, that’s why I use a subwoofer,so I have more control over the bottom end. I found that works well for me, rolling off the bottom end somewhat on the sub gives me more control in the room. In small rooms, you would obviously use near field monitors, because yourlistening position is very close to the monitors. Also you don’t want to blow your head off. There are always compromise to be made, when it comes to sound.Purpose building a room and designing its features to accommodate the sound is always the best way, if you have the bucks to invest.


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## jbuhler (Nov 18, 2018)

sostenuto said:


> Understand, and struggled over choice of current Yamaha HS5 _+ powered sub_ vs HS8.
> Secondary DAW (same room) has PreSonus E8 pair. Both 'ok' but favor Yammy config a bit.


I have the Yamaha HS5s in my home studio and struggled with whether to replace them with HS8s or add the powered sub. My Sweetwater rep convinced me to go with the subwoofer for various reasons and I have been very pleased with the results.


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## Divico (Nov 18, 2018)

elpedro said:


> Yes room size matters, the smaller the room, The more standing waves you will get.


imo thats not the problem. The size of your room is inverse proportional to the wavelength of standing waves. A bigger room gives lower standing waves. Therefore mixing in a smaller room is worse because it gives you modes that interfere with more material.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 18, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> You shouldn't go below 5" if you want any sort of reasonable bass frequency response.



Yes sir.

Even 5" is very small and unlikely to give you much useful bass response below about 65Hz, probably higher.

Hopefully that's less of a problem with samples, but things like piano hammer thuds and vocal pops are lower than that. If you must compromise on speakers with no low bass, it's a good idea to check a spectrum analyzer for rumbling you don't hear, or some engineers used to put their hands on Yamaha NS-10 woofers back in the day to feel for it.


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## EvilDragon (Nov 19, 2018)

elpedro said:


> Yes room size matters, the smaller the room, The more standing waves you will get.



The shape of the room matters even more. The more regularly shaped it is (square, rectangle), the worse. The more slopes there is, the more standing waves get broken up and first/second reflections get away from your ears (of course, depending on room construction and where you will be located).


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## gregh (Nov 19, 2018)

if - like most people - one is in a less than ideal room there are lots of ways to improve the monitoring experience without spending a fortune. Firstly get nearfield monitors coz they are designed for being close to the listener. Secondly - monitor at all sorts of levels but in particular don't be so loud when monitoring as - obviously - the energy to generate standing waves comes from just how loud you are monitoring. Use visual tools to check low frequencies and - unless you re a dance music type - most times you can get away with cutting everything below about 50Hz -easily. You wont be hearing those frequencies and chances are none of your listeners will either.
As far as the room goes, make the geometry and the absorption complex - bookshelves are great for that as are soft furnishings, rugs and things on the wall. 
Of course if you are mixing for high volumes, large spaces and big speaker arrays then you have to think differently - but if you know your room and gear it is amazing what one can do with a normal household studio room and reasonable nearfield monitors. And good software

As always "better is better" but people agonise too much over this stuff to the point where the perfect becomes the enemy of the good. Get what you can afford - good monitors make a real difference no matter what the room - then learn what you have and how to use it to develop mixes that will translate to the listeners you seek to engage.


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## EvilDragon (Nov 19, 2018)

Also! Use Sonarworks Reference to flatten out the frequency response of your speakers. It makes a LOT of difference! Get the package with the reference/measurement mic, follow the steps for calibrating the EQ curve, done. Night/day difference.



gregh said:


> As always "better is better" but people agonise too much over this stuff to the point where the perfect becomes the enemy of the good.



This is a really great statement. I fully agree.

Sure you can spend a fortune on Geithains, PMCs, Barefoots or whatever, but if your room is shit, you are wasting your money.


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## creativeforge (Nov 19, 2018)

I have Yams HS5s and surprised at the bass. No subs. Small room. Depend on the source, but still surprising for most instrumental music, and songs. Near-fields shouldn't be cranked up overly, though, but these pack a punch. I tried the JBL305 but they sounded boxy to me, the Yams sounded "opened."


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 19, 2018)

gregh said:


> Firstly get nearfield monitors coz they are designed for being close to the listener. Secondly - monitor at all sorts of levels but in particular don't be so loud when monitoring as - obviously - the energy to generate standing waves comes from just how loud you are monitoring. Use visual tools to check low frequencies and - unless you re a dance music type - most times you can get away with cutting everything below about 50Hz -easily. You wont be hearing those frequencies and chances are none of your listeners will either.



Good post, Greg.

My main reason for liking NFMs is that the imaging is so clear when you're close to the speakers - but I like having big speakers too, because there's something overwhelmingly right about the low end especially that I've never heard from small enclosures. As I've posted before, I think it's the lack of acoustic compression.

As to removing everything below 50, well, I prefer to *control* stuff going on down there rather than just throwing everything away. The idea is to get rid of rumble that doesn't add anything but clouds everything up, but create a space for rumble that adds impact (and to create a space for the transients attached to those rumbly sounds, which are much higher - for example, bass drum snap).

In an acoustic/orchestral context that means filtering things like bass drum rumble from the reverb sends.

As a general rule it's the outsides - the very bottom and very top freqs - that are the most important, obviously because you hear them the most (as with the outside voices in an arrangement).


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## Land of Missing Parts (Nov 19, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> Also! Use Sonarworks Reference to flatten out the frequency response of your speakers. It makes a LOT of difference! Get the package with the reference/measurement mic, follow the steps for calibrating the EQ curve, done. Night/day difference.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


https://storeus.sonarworks.com/collections/black-friday-2018?goal=0_94ded1be95-4e506ec376-287454789&mc_cid=4e506ec376&mc_eid=51124844b7 (Sonarworks will be 40% off) 11/23-11/26


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## Tim_Wells (Nov 19, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> Also! Use Sonarworks Reference to flatten out the frequency response of your speakers. It makes a LOT of difference! Get the package with the reference/measurement mic, follow the steps for calibrating the EQ curve, done. Night/day difference.


How do you feel about their headphone calibration technology? Can you use it to get a decent mix through headphones? thx!


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## EvilDragon (Nov 19, 2018)

It's just another way of monitoring the mix. I would never mix solely on headphones, no matter what the correction software. Speakers are moving some serious air compared to headphones, there's just no comparison.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 19, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> Use Sonarworks Reference to flatten out the frequency response of your speakers



A friend uses it, and it's great... but he can't move his head more than 1/4" before the whole thing falls apart.


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## EvilDragon (Nov 19, 2018)

Weird. Haven't had any such problems with my coaxial Equators D5mk2...


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 19, 2018)

Could be worsened by a combination of his speakers (JBL L100s, which are by no means flat), his room/the corner placement of his rig, and the large amount of freq correction that's required.

It's actually not uncommon for highly EQ-ed speakers to result in a small sweet spot. After all, you're not fixing the room, you're evening out the speakers.


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## PaulieDC (Nov 21, 2018)

Here's the amateur rig I've got just for info sake. When I was super green and reading to do research, it helped a LOT just to see what people used, so maybe this will help a fellow noob out there:

My office studio is 18'x15' and I sit in a corner (yeah, I know...). I have a pair of PreSonus Eris E5's up on stands with Aurelex (sp?) foam under them, at ear level, with a T10 Temblor subwoofer that has a foot switch and I sometimes run it off to keep the family sane, then turn it on when needed to hear the full spectrum. I power those from my PC tower with a PreSonus Studio 192 Mobile as my main audio interface, and I run everything at 48/24bit. Simpl(ish) setup, definitely not end-all-be-all, but it works. I've got bigger issues than worrying about the monitors... like, composing something decent, lol. Eventually the Sceptre 6's will replace the Eris 5's, those Sceptres are pretty amazing. That'll come after some sort of revenue gets generated. I'm all PreSonus right down to Studio One simply because it's decent stuff that won't break the bank when starting out.

To hear a finished WAV or MP3 as regular playback or just general PC audio, I also use the IK iLouds on my desk. I just run an optical cable out of the motherboard to an inexpensive DAC, and plug the iLouds into those. Super clean and punchy. I don't ever use the analog audio jacks in motherboards, they are usually terrible unless the Mobo features all the high-end audio, but then it's usually colored and bass heavy for gamers. I actually use those amazing iLouds in the office at work on my old i3 PC they provide, just to listen to music during the day. For that I just use a USB SoundBlaster X external card/DAC thing and plug the iLouds into that. I guess that's a DAC too but not one I'd use for the DAW tower at home. Sounds amazing enough at work where low-level volume rules the day. Plus they are Bluetooth capable, so at 5:00pm MST when the NY Rangers hit the ice back at the Garden for a hockey game, I can shoot the audio from my iPad right to the iLouds. No, I don't work for IK, lol. OK, I'd better end it here, already TMI!


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## Tod (Nov 21, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> The shape of the room matters even more. The more regularly shaped it is (square, rectangle), the worse. The more slopes there is, the more standing waves get broken up and first/second reflections get away from your ears (of course, depending on room construction and where you will be located).



Mario's right, size and shape of your room is the most important thing, and although I've had a decent control room since way back in the early 70s, and have a very good one now, I can truly understand what it must be like to struggle with less then adequate rooms.

It was in the 1970's that the basic acoustical engineering, in regards to recording studios and control rooms we have today, really manifested itself.

Knowing what I know about not being able to hear what you're doing, it can be a very frustrating experience. You listen over and over, compare over and over, and in the end you don't really know. You can take it out to your car, listen on your TV, put it on your cell phone, or even a secondary monitor system. All because you can't hear how it should really sound and you hope to find that perfect mix.

I do realize that the bedroom type studio is what many or you have to deal with and there's actually a lot of info out there about that. I think sound proofing and the position in the room where you put your monitors is the best thing you can do.



EvilDragon said:


> Also! Use Sonarworks Reference to flatten out the frequency response of your speakers. It makes a LOT of difference! Get the package with the reference/measurement mic, follow the steps for calibrating the EQ curve, done. Night/day difference.



I've been wanting to try this out for a long time, it's on sale so I think I will get it. From what I understand, it will put in a stereo equalizer that will allow me to bypass my own graphic EQs, is that right Mario?



Nick Batzdorf said:


> A friend uses it, and it's great... but he can't move his head more than 1/4" before the whole thing falls apart.



Hi Nick, actually that could be anything, I've experienced that from what I think were standing waves, I could be sitting in one postition and move my head back an forth. It wasn't a 1/4" but more like 12 inches. Big difference.


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## EvilDragon (Nov 22, 2018)

Tod said:


> From what I understand, it will put in a stereo equalizer that will allow me to bypass my own graphic EQs, is that right Mario?



Yep, a corrective EQ curve that is much more precise than any graphical EQ in order to flatten your speaker response as much as possible. Several different modes too - linear phase (adds latency) and minimum phase (no latency or much lower latency but messes with phase some).


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## Tod (Nov 22, 2018)

Thanks Mario, I think I will get it during their sale after today.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 22, 2018)

Tod said:


> Hi Nick, actually that could be anything, I've experienced that from what I think were standing waves, I could be sitting in one postition and move my head back an forth. It wasn't a 1/4" but more like 12 inches. Big difference.



Indubitably, as Tigger says.

12 inches is quite different, because it means you don't have to put your neck in a plaster cast to mix.

It's also normal.

Actually, the image normally shifts if you just move your head slightly if you use lots of standard (amplitude-based) panning! That's another subject...


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