Go get some good hi-fi speakers. Seriously. Take a good CD to a hi-fi store (NOT Best Buy or some crap like that) and listen to all the bookshelf speakers in your budget.

Really?

I have an old Sony bookshelf system right now...

go get a pair of senhiser 280hd (not corect spelling)

then save your money for a pair of yamaha msp5s if your spending anything less your not getting good monitors. and sometimes if your spending more your not getting good monitors. just do a search and you find all kind of talk of monitors.

Just a question on this: Are M Audio monitors any good?

They're workable. I do have to do more test mixes on them than I would like, but they are not terrible. I am possibly looking to sell some BX8's, which would fall under your price range. Yamaha MSP5's may be better, but will cost you about $200 above some used Bx8's and won't have as deep a low end.

I'm not sure even $350 in bookshelf hifi speakers would be suitable to mix on, although I'm not very knowledgeable about that market. I would just be careful to get some that have decent extended freq response, and not too hyped with a bump in the highs and lows. I think it would be tricky mixing, myself.

These particular models are the ones I am looking at:

Alesis Monitor 1 Active MKII $349 @ MF

Event TR6 Tuned Reference 6 Active Monitors $399 @ MF

M-Audio BX8 $299

Behringer TRUTH B2030A $279

I have the Bx8's.. They are good.. They have a good low end. I am not sure what you are using yours for, but I use my for radio production, as well as live mixes with my Turntables.

Get the Bx8's fast.. I think they are being discontinued..
--
Brian

hotboxdj wrote: Get the Bx8's fast.. I think they are being discontinued..
--
Brian

M-Audio did a complete redesign on the BX series monitors, so the new ones are probably going to sound completely different from the old ones. The old ones (rounded front, non-kevlar woofer) are on clearance everywhere.

the yamahas have plenty of low end. its just not exagerated.

get a pair of behringer truths.

geeknik wrote: These particular models are the ones I am looking at:

Alesis Monitor 1 Active MKII $349 @ MF

Event TR6 Tuned Reference 6 Active Monitors $399 @ MF

M-Audio BX8 $299

Behringer TRUTH B2030A $279

I have the first generation Monitor 1 Actives. They do pretty well for the coin.

Samson Rubicons....The highs are really really good and the imaging is damn accurate. Must be the ribbon tweeter.

Wharfdales or ESI's.

BEHRINGER!

They're well powered, flat, tunable and go down to 50hz. The others in this price range color the sound. You don't want something with a ton of low end, it exaggerates your sound. The "average" consumer system can't handle less than 50hz and you should be rolling the low end off at this point anyhow. For those knocking the Behringer name, you more than likely haven't heard these.

i would also suggest the monitor one (mk2) by alesis. for 300 bucks i think you'll be able to also get an ra-150 for them. should be a nice monitoring system for that price.

For my humble little home setup, I just swapped my M-audio BX5's (which I bought off Ebay really cheap) for the KRK rp5's and so far I am very pleased. Much less hyped in the hi freq's than the M-Audio's. (though I have not heard the new BX5a's) They sound really flat by comparison. maybe a little less exciting for playback but I can clearly hear the bass and kick drum, which is a big improvement. I think mixing on these should be really easy by comparison. (or at least I hope)

I only got them two days ago and I am still evaluating them, so....

Good Luck!