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Hi all,

I'm in the market for some studio monitors for mixing Rock and Pop under $500. I don't necessarily want the monitors to sound great, I just want them to help me make tracks that will translate well.
I've decided to go for 5" speakers because
(a) they are much cheaper
(b) I don't think I really need a lot of bass, I'm not producing EDM, and not many people that listen to my mix will have speakers that can recognise the bass clarity I will be able to get with larger speakers. (Also, I don't want to invest in a sub.)

My room is medium sized. (7mx3m/23ftx10ft) It's not acoustically treated, but I might get around do treating it one day. I mix at low volumes, so reflections aren't a MAJOR concern.

I've been browsing forums nonstop for the last couple of weeks, and initially, my impression was that HS5's will really expose all the bad things in my mix, which will help it to translate as well as possible on other systems.

After deciding to buy the HS5s, I stumbled across the LSR-305s. A lot of people say they far prefer the JBL's because they have better bass and sound better overall. And they are slightly cheaper. The extra bass is attractive, as even though I said I'm happy with the bass from a 5" speaker, I could still use a little more. However no one that I can find has commented on how the JBL's translate! Would it be worse since it doesn't highlight that bad stuff in the same way as the Yamaha's do?

Thanks a lot!

P.S Also how about Equator D5s? I see them mentioned on almost every forum, but most people seemed to say they preferred the JBL's to the D5's.

Comments

pcrecord Sat, 10/25/2014 - 14:15

I own a pair of yamaha HS8, for the price, they reveal enough of the mix to make good corrections, if use the correct way.
What you need to know is that both model your asking for (JBL and Yamaha) have bass ports in the back of the speaker.
If you are mixing against a wall those are note good choices. These monitors need space behind them to build bass or you may need to add their sub units to complement them.

A big part of the sound also comes from how your room react to the monitors. If you didn't take care of threating your room yet. Think about taking care at least of the early reflections...