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Best studio monitors for price/quality?

It's a small bedroom with a window and a pretty low ceiling. Maybe it will *fare* ok, but I'm new to having monitors as I've only used headphones before, so I wouldn't know.

Agreed :)
You'll probably hear your room more than your mix in the low frequency range, so I wouldn't spend money on big-bottomed monitors.

How do you know when you're hearing the room ? Well, if all your kicks and basses sound the same no matter how you EQ or compress them, then you're not hearing them, but you're hearing the room's reaction to them (and the room will tend to sound always the same).
 
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Yamaha and JBL are solid choices in the lower price bracket.

But an untreated room is a dishonest room.
 
Treating a small room to improve bass response is a challenge, because acoustic treatment for low frequencies tends to be bulky, hence not easy to fit in a small room. And adding absorbants for mid and high freqs may end up making the bass problem even more obvious. I would recommend following every advice better acousticians than me can give you. You might still need to alternate between monitors and headphones regularly.
 
Fredeke - So you're saying the drier/smaller the room, the better? And I'm planning on switching between them
 
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I'm going to try and say this calmly without raising my voice:

WHAT THE F...

Sorry, I shouted at several preceding posts. :)

If you can't hear bass in a small room - and trying to is such a fool's errand that you have to buy shitty speakers that don't have bass - why can you hear the bass in a room the size of your ear canal (aka "headphones")? Answer: you'll probably hear bass better if you trap it, but it's not like it totally vanishes because the room is too small.

I say you're just adding another problem: shitty speakers with no bass!

Now, obviously UREI 813s - soffit-mounted big main speakers found in every commercial studio in the '80s - wouldn't be the first choice for a tiny room, because they're intended to be heard from a distance. But little speakers with some bass, or with a subwoofer, are fine in a closet.

So you're saying the drier/smaller the room, the better?

Nonstarter. No, not at all. No. No.

Enjoy your new speakers and please stop worrying about this.

But an untreated room is a dishonest room.

I say a room with unspecified "room treatment" products nailed to your walls for no good reason other than that you think one should have them... is a sure sign that you had too much money. :)

Look. If your room has problems, of course you want to deal with them. But just saying "room treatment"... well, what are you treating?

As I said, it's much easier to screw up a perfectly good room's response with bullshit all over the walls than it is to make a room workable. And it's not all that difficult to make a room workable.
 
I say a room with unspecified "room treatment" products nailed to your walls for no good reason other than that you think one should have them... is a sure sign that you had too much money. :)

Look. If your room has problems, of course you want to deal with them. But just saying "room treatment"... well, what are you treating?

As I said, it's much easier to screw up a perfectly good room's response with bullshit all over the walls than it is to make a room workable. And it's not all that difficult to make a room workable.

My new room has some problematic frequencies, so I plan to address this with some calculations, a measurement mic, speaker/sub and mix position variations, bass traps, broadband absorptive panels, and scatter blocks.

If any of that fails, I will deploy the strategically placed velvet painting. You should see it - it’s total bullshit.
 
Fredeke - So you're saying the drier/smaller the room, the better? And I'm planning on switching between them
No, on the contrary. I am saying the bigger the room the better. All other things considered equal, of course. But room size is an important factor.
As for the room being dry, yes it is better of course. I was just saying that if you prevent only the mid and high frequencies reflections (because that's the easiest thing to do), then you will be left with bass reflections really standing out.
 
I'm using Yamaha's HS5 and am quite happy with them (except for a small white noise and sometimes a buzz, but may be the power cables).

When I have a good room for better monitors, I will certainly look at Prosodia's Boras. They're built by a small French company (founded by a 40years+ experienced acoustician and teacher) and sound just awesome. For the (not that expensive) price, they're top quality.
 
I'm using Yamaha HS5 and am quite happy with them (except for a small white noise and sometimes a buzz, but may be the power cables).

When I have a good room for better monitors, I will certainly look at Prosodia's Boras. They're built by a small French company (founded by a 40years+ experienced acoustician and teacher) and sound just awesome. For the (not that expensive) price, they're top quality.
I had a little squeal, white noise in my hs5s. Turned out to be interference from the iMac. It disappeared when I moved it far enough away from the machine.
 
Adam T5V. You can get a pair new for £250 if you shop around.

In my homestudio I work with a pair of Adam A5X and I am very happy with them. Combined with the Sub7 subwoofer the frequency range is pretty flat down to 30Hz and the stereo imaging is superb.

I had the luck to work with some high-end Geithains in a professional studio and to be honest the difference did not scale with the price factor...

So if the Adam T5V are similar or only slightly worse than the A5X they would really be a bargain.
 
I say you're just adding another problem: shitty speakers with no bass!
Or you are seated in a shitty position. With bad acoustics the bass waves could be cancelling itself out. Try to walk around your room, see if the bass increases in different positions. Stay away from the corners though, this is where the bass is gathering.

For good payable monitors, also try to listen to a set of Equator D8's.

Cheers J
 
In my homestudio I work with a pair of Adam A5X and I am very happy with them. Combined with the Sub7 subwoofer the frequency range is pretty flat down to 30Hz and the stereo imaging is superb.

I had the luck to work with some high-end Geithains in a professional studio and to be honest the difference did not scale with the price factor...

So if the Adam T5V are similar or only slightly worse than the A5X they would really be a bargain.

Dunno about the 5’s, but the A7x’s are way better than the T7v’s. I’ve A/B’d them, and the T7v’s sound like toys in comparison.
 
PreSonus Sceptre S8 - coactual design compares favorably to 50 other high grade studio monitors I have tested (incl. 3500 EUR/piece Genelecs). No wonder - in order to have a strong start into the market, PreSonus licensed tech and design from boutique speaker manufacturer Fulcrum acoustics (read mindblowing, but if you must ask for the price, you can’t afford it).

They are the best speakers I’ve ever used. Period.
 
No, on the contrary. I am saying the bigger the room the better. All other things considered equal, of course. But room size is an important factor.
As for the room being dry, yes it is better of course. I was just saying that if you prevent only the mid and high frequencies reflections (because that's the easiest thing to do), then you will be left with bass reflections really standing out.

Well, if you *like* a dry room then it's better. I prefer a room that sounds like a room. Reflections aren't necessary bad in my view, just the ones coming from the front (the same angle as the speakers) - although diffusion is often good in lots of places.

Now, those rooms that leave only lower freqs - the ones in which your voice sounds weird - are exactly what I mean by creating more problems with absorbent junk thrown up arbitrarily.

As to bigger = better, okay, a room that's big enough to produce low freqs without them folding has advantages. And I guess you could argue for walls far enough away so the reflections are heard separately from the speakers, which would be about 23' (the Haas integration zone is 45ms, depending on freq). But there's a reason we don't mix outdoors: the room is a good thing!
 
You should consider factoring in the cost of Sonarworks or similar. Worth it even in good rooms and good monitors, but even more so when dealing with untreated spaces & cheaper monitors.
 
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