For me it's gotta be speakers. Headphones are just for fun or isolation.

Speakers are used most for mastering. I will put on a pair of headphones if I am listening for click problems or for the sound of a fade or noise problems. Headphones give you a distorted sense of what is in your mix. They isolate the two channels which is not what it sounds like coming out of two speakers. Best to use the best speakers you can afford. I suggest the Mackie 824s as the bare minimum. Hope this helps.

What are the thoughts about EQ'ing those speakers to Flat in the listening sweet spot? I have several Rane 31-channel EQ and can spare one for this task.

Listening to the 'real world' our 'ear-brain' shares information...some info to the left ear gets heard by the right and vice-versa. In fact it uses this info to decipher spacial relationships etc. Headphones are unable to recreate this ability since the two ears are cut off from each other. only a poor simulation is left. Properly set-up speakers do a better job but even so, they are still imperfect.

The usefulness of headphones lies in their ability to 'zoom in' on details particularly in the low midrange.

What are the thoughts about EQ'ing those speakers to Flat in the listening sweet spot? I have several Rane 31-channel EQ and can spare one for this task.

You will then hear the EQ's more than the source, this is not good!

I don't belive in EQ'ing monitors to do right, it has never done it for me.
To hear most of the details you need a very simple and clean signal pass a 100 times more than 20-20K/0.5db.
We know your monitors but what do you have in front of them?

Originally posted by bgavin:
What are the thoughts about EQ'ing those speakers to Flat in the listening sweet spot? I have several Rane 31-channel EQ and can spare one for this task.

This used to be a popular thing to do in the 1970's and 1980's but I have since learned that you can't really compensate or fix problems of the time domain (your room acousitcs) with only tools from the freq. domain (eq's)

Those Rane eq's are ok for PA/FOH work, but are not good enough to do what is necesary without creating other non wanted artifacts of their own. On top of that, they would be another layer getting in the way of hearing what is really going on.

In the 70's and 80's a lot of acoustical designers thought that they could correct various room deficiencies with electronics. This has since been proven to be FALSE.

The room has to be designed from the ground up to sound good. All an equalizer will do is exacerbate the problems already there. The Rane EQs will work well for sound reinforcement but not for setting up a good monitoring environment in a small room.

The services of a trained acoustician are needed to properly test and design a listening space and most of them are willing to come out to your studio and look over the situation for a small fee then give you an estimate of how much it will cost to have them design a good space for you.

Most acousticians today use test equipment to "profile" the room and there maybe an additional charge for this service. They will use a TEF analyzer and other equipment will then give you a computer rendering of how your room behaves to audio stimulations (read audio monitoring).

You can usually find them listed in the phone book yellow pages or on the web.

Hope this helps.

speakers it is then! The 824's are RIGHT on the list to get, I love my friends pair. thanks to all!