Finished Thread.

OMG tell me its not true!!! You are not really going to buy a set of monitors!!

Will the earth spin off its axis? Will the sun rise in the East?

No more chasing the ever elusive bass artifact that isn't really there. The world will be a better place.

There is only one way to choose monitors and that is side by side comparison in the a good room with music you are very familiar with. So make a CD of a bunch of different styled commercial music and a few of your own and listen, listen, listen. Narrow it down to two or three go home and come back again for a listen before buying.

The earth will spin off axis the day I get a job :lol:.

GF I'm glad to see you moving on.
If you do go to listen to a bunch of monitors, I'd go early in the morning. My ears seem to be more sensitive in the morning, maybe yours are different though. Make sure to keep an open mind and don't go on colour or something.

You could say you want to shop for monitors like a woman shops for clothes. Try it all on (then pick the first thing you had, before seeing it cheaper elsewhere :twisted:)

Thanks guys, yeah I knew you'd say that jg haha. I am off work wednesday so that will be my designated GC day. From research and others' first hand experiences I have narrowed it down to the Mackie, the Rubicons, and the Alesis model. Actually the Alesis model looks very promising and I might end up getting those contingent upon the fact that they don't sound like asshole.

I am basing my opinions on others' experience with how well things translated to other sources from using different models, as well as going with trusted brands. The most important aspect I am looking for is frequency response, because the way I see it is that every monitor needs some getting used to, but if certain frequencies aren't being displayed, then you have %0 chance of learning the curve in those regions. At this price range I was impressed with the response of the Alesis monitors at 45Hz-22kHz. The only other one with that kind of high end definition that I looked at is the Rubicons, and those sag in the lows department with only a 57Hz rating.

However, the Rubicons pass the Alesis in HF response because they go to 27kHz, but the human ear can only hear up to around 18kHz without much strain, 20kHz goes after thirty or so years, and beyond that is for the dogs. So what's the deal, to me it seems like a 'this one goes to eleven' moment.

The Mackie is on my list mainly for brand recognition and stability, that sort of thing. The bass is what you'd expect at this price range only dipping down to 60Hz : and the highs stop at 20kHz. Pretty vanilla if you ask me, but a fallback model nonetheless.

OK enough blabbing? I am really looking forward to this Wednesday! BTW, do you guys have any info on the three models I will be testing, just so I can go into the place with as much knowledge possible?

In the FWIW category and not worth much more, I like the 624's better than the 824's.

You might as well listen to the Tannoy Reveal 6D's too if you are going to spend a day at it.

Yeah. Listen to everything on the shelf including all the units you cannot afford. Take your own stuff you like to listen to and that you know really well.

The Rubicons are smooth in the highs and the bass is a little week, but not bad.
Yamahas are all nice except the NS10's< YEAH I SAID THAT.....
The Tapcos should really surprise you.

The Alesis and the Maudios arent very good.
The KRK's are probably the best 5" lowend monitor there is.

DO NOT....i repeat DO NOT listen to the sales staff. Listen to your ears on your music you like. DO NOT tell them what you can spend. Spend all day listening to all the speakers...ALL THE SPEAKERS....big and small and inbetween.

Sweet info Dave (can I call ya Dave? or is it Mr. Dog?) I am just worried about what to do when I go. From what I can gather is the people in the recording department don't like me too much. The rest of the store likes me, we're on a first name basis as usual, but pro audio just doesn't like me.

I come in fairly frequently and try stuff, ask about stuff, A/B stuff but never buy. Now there's nothing wrong with that but I still feel self conscious. A lot of times during conversations with the sales staff in this particular department in the back of my head I know the salesman is giving me a line of total BS. Sometimes I dismiss it but sometimes I call him out on it. They love that shit.

Honestly I would just feel bad about asking the guy to set up a bunch of different monitors one set after the other, play a few songs through it and then swap it out for the next pair. When all is said and done just be like "well that was fun, thanks dude, cya" I honestly would feel much better about being able to do it myself. Like its the fact that I need to make the salesman my manservant for a good three hours then just leave. I'd much rather be in a room and set up and take down the monitors as I please and spend as much time without feeling like I am wasting the guy's time.

I'd just add:

A) A store that is serious about selling studio monitors should have a decent sounding room and a switcher.

B) Listen all day at a reasonable volume with only brief high volume evaluations. After a couple hours your hearing will be somewhat fatigued. Come back the next day to listen to your top 3 or 4 choices, with fresh ears.

C) If you're a chronic 'lookie lou', you won't have any trouble getting the salesman to leave you alone (if they have a switcher you can operate)

Congrats & Good luck!

Guitar Center being serious about selling quality monitors? That's almost laughable. What am I looking for when I A/B these? I don't know what I should be looking for. I'm not sure what a good monitor set 'sounds' like. In my mind, as inverse as it would seem, I would want to go with the one that sounds worse. OK maybe not exactly, but whichever ones shows the flaws most clearly, is a better way to put it.

Go back and read Prof Dawg's post. Take some CD's that YOU know real well. Then you listen for as much detail and clarity as the little monitors can muster. For instance, one of the five or six CD's I would take would be the first Boston album. Another would be the 2009 Vienna Phil New Years concert.

You need to take whatever YOU know to sound good and detailed.

One of the reasons for using commercially recorded music that you feel is well recorded is that there shouldn't be too many flaws. So whatever sounds best to you is what you are looking for. The reason for bringing in some tracks you have recorded (these should be raw tracks no compression, no EQ etc.) is they should sound a lot like what your rig does in the room. I have A/B'd speakers for hours at GC, on several ocassions, before buying a pair. If you want to make a friend in Pro Audio try and pick someone with experience to work with maybe the manager explain that you are new to this. Take your time, if you go back the next day make sure that they know you were working with salesperson X and make certain they get credited with the sale. Bite the bullet and buy the monitors there. They should price match whatever internet price you may have found. The only cost increase might be sales tax, but for 5% you can make a connection that might prove invaluable.

I think I said all this already? Sorry you don't think much of the KRK's? But speakers are like underwear. Otherwise ou might get your panties into a bunch.

I like Hanes
Remy

RemyRAD wrote: I think I said all this already?

Yeah, I wanted to get your personal opinion, but since you haven't been on much lately I thought I would ask the rest of the forum as well in case you didn't sign on for another month :)

stay away from mackie mr series. yuck. get dynaudio bm5a monitors or the new m-audio DSM monitors

Another month? I might be away for a few days at a time since I am re-outfitting my remote truck. They usually don't go more than 2 days, sometimes three. All right so I want to take a vacation to the eastern shore. Then I shall be in the water.

Splishy splashy
glub glub glub

i have had 3 of those monitors the rubies, the mackies and the krks. geez...even though they are cheap...i have to say my fav is the rubicons. depnds on your room/ear. however, the monitors that get the MOST use in my studio are the cheap pc speakers that i check EVERY mix through.

of course, once you get new monitors you are eventually going to start looking at room treatment, then better d/a conversion, then better a/d conversion etc... ad infitinitum

good luck and have fun and don't f&*king care about what the salesman is thinkickng. its his JOB to show you every set of monitors in the store if thats what you want. take all day if you want- its not goihng to change the fact that he should have gone to college

An old sound guy I used to work for would always bring in his digital master of "2001 A Space Odyssey" as his listening test.
Me I used to like "Franenstein" by Edgar Winters or maybe a Supertramp song.....now I use "99.9F Degrees by Suzanne Vega.

Yeah, I too am beginning to like the idea of those Rubicons. The only thing holding me back is their sub-par bass response. The bass end is so important in the kind of music I am going to be doing that I feel it will handicap me in the long run. What do you think?

Remy, I will indeed try the KRK's tomorrow, in honor of you :)

First. I wouldnt call the Rubicons bass response "sub-par"...Its certainly not outstanding but its very usable especially if you arent used to ANY monitor. What they will do is this. The highs are so really good that your soundfield and imaging will be much much better and your panning will be something you can take to the bank for placement in the stereo field.

I almost bought a set for my third pair simply for the separation and the highs.

Before you even come close to buying anything, make sure you know what the sample songs you're gonna take with you, sound like.

Go to the best Hi-Fi shop in town. Tell them you're looking to buy some mix monitors... and you'ld like to hear your sample toonz on some REAL audiophile speakers.

Listen to 3-4 of their nicest speakers they'll let you listen to.

DO NOT listen to anything loud. Listen to the music almost as softly as you can, to a moderate talking volume.

REALLY listen to where the low end is... how clear the high end is. Listen to things in the stereo field. Listen to the sound of "S"'s and "P"'s.

Too many times guys listen for thump and bump and buy a set of monitors cause "they kick ass"... which is exactly the wrong type of monitor to buy. Monitors are NOT meant to sound GOOD. They are meant to sound ACCURATE... which is presumable what a $30k to $50k pair of high end audiophile speakers will more closely emulate.

Good monitors do not have a lot of LF thump. They WILL have some, but you need to also understand that you won't get a lot of thump out of anything like an 8" driver anyway. What you want is accuracy, above all else.

I'd just like to say thank you to everyone that has contributed thus far. I think the problem is that I really don't know WHAT it is that I want. Or whether or not it is an achievable goal.

The way that it makes sense to me is that I want the low end of the range to be as accurate as possible. I understand that that does not mean that it will sound good and I also realize that it will be harder to achieve that 'pump' or 'thump' sound. What I hope to achieve from this is to be able to EQ the kick, bass, and guitar so that they are clear and do not step on eachother. Right now I am shooting in the dark with the low end of a mix, whether or not I get it right is up to others' ears and not mine. I would hate to spend $300+ on monitors and have the low end definition be not much better than what I have currently.

I am also aware of the importance of the high range in mixing, so don't think that I am a noob lol, even though I may or may not be a noob in the monitor department these days. I'd like to think that I respect the HF's in my mixes, like take for example my mix currently going on in the song/critique section. I boosted the highs on pretty much every track. I also like the HF range very much also so I am looking for a monitor that will show me those accurately as well.

Wow, I am rambling. Hopefully some of that was coherent. Anyway, now you know what is going through my head and why. I realize my questions may or may not be able to be answered with anything other than 'go listen to them' which I am definitely going to do. I am going to keep an open mind, although I can't help but gas over the Rubicons. Sexy beasts 8-)

And that was, I think, the longest way of saying "I have no idea what I am talking about" that I can think of :D

one more thing- bring music you know by heart to test the monitors with. 3 or 4 of tracks you've heard hundreds of times.

song4gabriel wrote: one more thing- bring music you know by heart to test the monitors with. 3 or 4 of tracks you've heard hundreds of times.

I've got about 50 on an iPod playlist and I've got the built in EQ set to 'flat'. I've got a couple of different styles of music as well as a few of my own recorded tracks with a few subtle differences. I want to see which monitor set brings out those differences the most, as they are known differences to me.

Ideally you would use music that was not compressed for your testing purposes.

TheJackAttack wrote: Ideally you would use music that was not compressed for your testing purposes.

Hmm, dammit. That changes things a bit. Will it be horrible if I can only use MP3's?

I rip my cds at 320 kbps so they're not exactly crushed by digital compression. But they're not exactly WAV or AIFF files either...

You just answered your own question :)

Not "horrible", but why waste your time on a critical assessment of a major purchase w/ "good enough"?

Seriously dude, I know what it means to you to throw $300+ down on a set of monitors. You'll be happy when you do it, if you do it right.

Guitarfreak wrote: I think the problem is that I really don't know WHAT it is that I want. Or whether or not it is an achievable goal.

We all started out at this point.

We all got past it.

I purchased the Alesis M1 Actives when they first came out. IMHO, by far they were the best bang for the buck, and STILL are. I have no idea about the Mk II's at all. They may be crap for all I know. I kinda' took a stab in the dark when I bought them, but to me, they sounded fairly smooth across the audio spectrum... including some decent bass.

I've got them down in the studio now, and they sound exceptional, and the control room is still under construction. So don't forget that your listening environment is a critical part of the equation.

If at all possible, take 3-4 physical CD's with you to that Hi-Fii shop to listen to some high end audiophile speakers.

You'll likely hear the music in a brand new way. Not that you want to duplicate this in a set of monitors, but you will get an idea what your favorite/most familiar with tunes are capable of sounding like on really good speakers.

One more time, THIS is what you are trying to emulate; flat response.

I didn't imply that monitors won't sound good. They won't sound GREAT from a dance club or live venue standpoint. They'll sound good, but not really thumping. You'll hear the thump, but a small driver isn't going to kick air like 4x18" subs.

You want to clearly hear everything in the mix, even at low volumes... especially at low volumes.

Another thing you may want to do is book two hours in the best studio in the area to do your initial listening test. Listen to some Auggie's or Boxers in a properly designed control room. It's a very "eye opening" experience.

Like everyone has said, over and over again in many different forums... No matter what monitors you get, you'll have to get them home and listen to them for several days and do dozens of mixes before you actually begin to learn them and their characteristics.

OK well that was a fail. I got all the way to GC and their monitors weren't hooked up, and apparently they didn't have the cables to hook them up either. The guy told me to come back next Wednesday and maybe he would be ready by then. Jesus I wish we just had a nice audiophile shop around here. Anybody know how to find out if there is one near where I live?

Well you know the whole problem with GC is exactly what happened to you....same thing happens out here on the West Coast and i suspect almost every GC.....they never have anything hooked up....they never have what you know you want in stock.....and they don't care....
Thank goodness for online....but then you can't go demo stuff online....

Exactly, that is the exact reason I started buying stuff online. There's no salesmen trying to talk you out of your purchase, no one steering you towards certain brands, and no sales tax. Only downside is you have to know what you want prior to purchase. Which isn't such a bad thing.

Read, read, read....reviews, specs, forums....if you do that you will come to an intelligent conclusion on your own based on your budget, tastes etc...
...I really think if you understand the technical specs and compare those to the options of the equipment that is in your price range you can really make a good choice that fits your needs and then order online...one thing to remember is that speakers of any kind have always been all over the place in terms of appeal, hype and quality....people think different speakers sound better than others, with no real data or technical expertise to back up anything....most of it is just plain BS.....studio monitors built by reputable companies to real specifications typically can be trusted more than Larry with some boxes out in his van....or Darryl at the GC sound room who has specific hearing loss at specific frequencies he doesn't even know about....so make sure you do your due diligence with the technical aspects of the equipment you can afford and don't look back...if you do that you will always (well ok usually) be very happy with your choices....

That's very good info. Based on stats, reviews, and forum advice I am totally ready to lay down the money for the Rubicons. Maybe the KRK from what I've heard about their bottom end. But from visiting forums also, I have been told to listen before you buy. That's what's stopping me at this point. The guy at GC says they don't even carry Rubicons, so that's a moot point.

I emailed a contact of mine that owns a studio nearby and asked him where he gets his stuff from or if there is a nice shop somewhere around. I eagerly await his response! Hopefully I can get out of this whole Guitar Center situation quick because they don't seem very serious about selling monitors and I am just getting frustrated.

Here's what happened when I walked in, and this goes to show you why I don't like the guys in that department and why they don't like me. The guy says hello and I say that I want to try out some monitors. He asks me what kind of room am I in, I say bedroom, he says get the Mackie MR5's. (...awkward silence) "why?" then he went on rambling about how the tweeter is great and it will help you hear those effects like flanger and chorus and stuff on guitar. "well can I still try them out?" "No, we really can't do that" It was at that point when I said I'm not going to buy anything without trying it first. He gets frustrated and walks me back to the room where the monitors are at and shows me that they aren't plugged in. and I'm thinking "you have a store full of XLR cables, pick some up" but I don't say it. And at this point I realize he is wearing a Mackie shirt...

Anyway, I'm not going to ramble on about this, that's beside the point. Guitar Center doesn't know pro audio. I want to go to someplace that loves audio and loves what they do. Or else I'll just bite the bullet and buy a pair without trying anything. I trust that these particular monitors are quality units with good sound reproduction and I wouldn't mind getting either of them.

Finished Thread.

One thing you must realize that is more important than anything else mentioned here, you will have a learning curve with ANY set of monitors no matter what the specs. The best thing in your favor is you dont have a predetermined set of responses to monitors since you havent been using them at all. This will make it much easier for you learn on whatever you choose to buy whether you have heard them or not. The reason so many have suggested going to a fine audio store and hearing the best is because you have no experience with critical listening and hearing something that is supposed to be at critical listening level will help you determine what you need to hear with yu selection.

OK... Bear with me on this one. I just noticed that music123 is offering the KRK RP5's factory B-Stock for 59.15 each. I also bought my FireBox factory B-Stock and the first time I plugged it in it buzzed so I had to jump start it with the adapter. Other then that it has worked fine.

What do you think? I could technically get both for a little over $100 Then with the money I saved I can look into a good pair of cans to reference. What do you think the risk is? This option seems very viable at this point, what do you guys think honestly?

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I stand by my RP5s. They are very decent little monitors. They are easy enough to move, since I am more mobile as of late, and they are fully responsive. Also, they are hard(er) to get fatigued on then other monitors i have used around the same price range.

I think for that price it's starting to become a no-brainer!
And I'm sure GC has those.....right?
Hmmm maybe not in stock...

Go for it!!!!!

I'm going for it! First things first, I can't for the life of me remember which cables I need to hook them to my FireBox...

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OR

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Be sure there balanced TRS or XLR
....not the second choice (TS) which isn't
I take it your interface has balanced outputs?!
and the KRK's have XLR or TRS inputs