A General Statement on the importance of great monitors

Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2004 8:04 am

I know that on occaission I tend to push for very expensive monitors when the topic comes up, so I thought I might list some reasons to consider going for the very best you can.

1. The most important reason to get great monitors is you will spend an amazing amount of time listening to them. Whether you do audio as a profession or as a hobby, you probably love music. Having monitors that do not cause ear fatigue will add to your productivity and your enjoyment.</li>
2. How can you make microphone and preamp selections if you can't hear what they really sound like? In a good set of monitors it is very easy to hear very fine details that differentiate mic and preamp combinations.</li>
3. Your mic placement will be better because you will hear subtle differences between one location or another.</li>
4. You will make better use of the acoustics in your tracking environment, because you will actually hear subtle reflection and resonance issues. Then you can solve them before hitting record. Or even better you can take advantage of them to use natural acoustics to place instruments in a mix. (reducing the need for excess EQ and panning)</li>
5. Mixing will need less EQ and you will really hear just how muddy that excess reverb makes the vocals etc. Having an accurate sound stage is 100% dependent on the accuracy of your monitors.</li>
6. Your monitors will probably outlast you in the industry. Speakers are probably the cheapest and easiest thing to refurb when they get old. Any competent speaker reconing tech can rebuild a speaker to "like new" condition for $100 or even less. (I just had a 35 year old Altec driver for a Urei 813c repaired for $35). try that with any other piece of vintage gear!</li>

A good rule of thumb when starting out is to spend at least 40% of your total budget on the monitoring chain (amp + speakers). If you can spend more, then do it. You are better off with a great set of monitors and an SM57 then your are with a perfect U47 and a crappy pair of monitors. The reason is that with the good monitors you will clearly hear exactly what your current gear can do and you will know when it's good and when it sucks. You also be able to hear small differences in future mic and mic pre gear that you evaluate and make better buying decisions.

Some of you might say "Oh but what about all the pro's out there using NS-10s?". You should note that most pro studios power NS-10s with an amp like the Bryston 4B per speaker. Thats $3000 of amplifier per channel! Oh and they also get to listen to the reference monitors that are probably $30,000 custom Westlakes or equivalents. The NS-10's are used for mix reference and not generally for tracking.

By the way this advice holds for home stereo speakers as well.

Good Luck and Have Fun!

Steve

Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2004 6:56 pm

I will say I just moved from Alesis M1MK-II's ($399/pr)to Adam P11A's ($1800/pr), and although they do not quite represent 40% of my studio budget, I AM amazed at what I wasn't hearing before...

Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2004 12:36 pm

Quote:

Originally posted by sdevino:
......with the good monitors you will clearly hear exactly what your current gear can do....

Steve,

I agree with everything you wrote except for the term "exactly".

I guess you're more of an optimist than I am Wink

, but I usually approach the argument from the opposite perspective. Speakers are by far the WORST performing audio gear. The very best speakers in the world have much worse distortion, compression, and impulse response characteristics than even mediocre electronic gear.

So, if you think of you're entire recording system as a chain, the speakers are overwhelmingly the weakest link. Therefore, they require the greatest attention (and money, unfortunately) if you hope to come anywhere close to hearing an "exact" representation of what your recording, mixing, or mastering.

Anyhow, I completely agree with your conclusions.

Thomas

Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2004 2:51 pm

Hi Thomas,
I agree 100%. Exactly was way too strong a word.

Thanks!

Steve

Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2004 3:44 pm

And, as I am discovering as I move up into more and more high-end equipment the room you have it all in is probably as, if not more important than the monitors!

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2004 5:44 am

Hi Steve... I know that hearing exactly what you're doing is the most important thing, ... well, I'm from Brazil, I'm building one Lab at home... I don't have too much money... but I wanna have good references... first, which "monitoring chain" do you advice for me??
I'd like to work with 7.1 surround format... But I'd like to have diferent kinds of monitoring... actually what I whant is something like this:
A really GOOD LR monitoring chain;
A good 7.1 surround monitoring chain;
client speakers, over a 5.1 system;
a whole bunch simple audio references, like sound systems speakers, computer speakers etc...
and I know that the best reference will be my car's sound system!!... (for comparing w/ those great and classic recordings) I know how that's important, but I'm not familiar w/ makers, price, diferences between them... etc... and over here, thing are much expensive, maybe twice the price in US... and things are more dificult to get.
thanx
Edu

Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2004 5:19 pm

YES, YES, YES, THANK YOU ,THANK YOU, THANK YOU....YOUR EAR IS NO BETTER THAN THE SPEAKER YOU USE,FOR A MIX.....WE NEED ALL THE HELP WE CAN GET...JUST LET ME SAY,J B L , UREI, AND WESTLAKE, WESTLAKE, WESTLAKE....THESE HAVE ALL WORKED WELL FOR ME IN THE PAST...

[ January 07, 2004, 08:53 PM: Message edited by: Dr.Blackwell ]

Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2004 5:35 pm

Dr. Blackwell,
Please turn off the caps lock. Writing in all caps is like shouting at someone.. and bad "nettiqute" . Thanks!

Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 5:21 pm

Quote:

Originally posted by sdevino:
I know that on occaission I tend to push for very expensive monitors when the topic comes up, so I thought I might list some reasons to consider going for the very best you can.

By the way this advice holds for home stereo speakers as well.

Good Luck and Have Fun!

Steve

Steve Devino,

Thanks very much for this article - the content of which seems to have disappeared in subsequent posts (which argue about Behringer v. Mackie mixers and such, completely off-topic!)...

Do you think the Genelec 1030A's are too sweet for tracking and do you think those would need a subwoofer?

Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2004 7:11 am

Genelecs are very popular with many successful engineers. I happen to find them irritating to my ears (too much high end) so I cannot work with them for very long, but this is just my experience, you may find you like them very much. To me they do not sound flat enough to be very efficient as reference monitors.

Again using a sub-woofer is a personal choice. I find it hard to correlate the bass that comes from a subwoofer to that which comes out of speakers. Since most of my customers are musicians who do not use a subwoofer for music, I try to avoid them.

I do like subwoofers on my home surround system though! Very Happy

Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2004 4:16 am

Steve, I went to a friend’s home studio to check his system with some test CD's, analyzer, and sound level meter.

When I pumped in the pink noise at first, and started to raise gain, there came a point where the top-end on the display completely flatlined, and the low end continued to rise. We trashed his set, and resorted to some old L-100's I picked up at a garage sale for $35 for the pair. Problem solved.

So, I guess my question is what makes a good speaker good?

His speakers were OK up to a point, then beyond a certain level were not linear anymore. It seems a quality reference speaker should have dynamic linearity at all levels.

--Rick

Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2004 7:08 am

Quote:

Originally posted by Rick Hammang:

So, I guess my question is [b] what makes a good speaker good?

--Rick [/b]

My opinion, what makes a good speaker? Simply, one that a person is happy with (I make no reference to sound quality here. They may or may not like it because of the sound quality)

For me, what makes a good speaker? While many speakers can sound good. Most of the time you are making compromises. You have to come up with a speaker that sounds right (to you), matches the rest of your equipment, and performs well in your room...all this for a price you can afford.

While most of the time speakers are a compromise. Some of the main qualities I look for are...good tone, clarity, low distortion and the ability to play dynamics at both loud levels...and low.

What qualities do you guys look for?

thanks...take care>>>>>>>>

[ January 15, 2004, 05:36 PM: Message edited by: gonefishin ]

Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2004 8:26 am

how come nobody talks about Quested monitors???

i'm about to take over a pair of Q108s from a freind - am i heading in the right direction?

where exactly do they stand compared to genelecs and such?

Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2004 8:59 am

Quested have been around a long while and I know people say good things about them, but I must say in fairness I've never met anyone who actually uses them. They're still sold though by high-end audio shops, though how they keep up with the Adams, Genelecs, Dynaudios I don't know.

Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2004 11:02 am

the questeds are about US$5000+ when new at that time... or so my friend claims - should be a worth while deal if i get them for less than half the price right???

the main reason why i am posting here is because he stores them in a controlled enviroment. He's out of the country and planning either to sell them or ship them over to where he's immigrating to- the later he doesn't like ; says that it's risky transporting this kind of equipment around...

basically i can't actually have a listen to them so i'm asking you guys what're your impressions on Quested speakers-

imaging, noise, mids, etc

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