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anonymous 20 February 2009

My friend got these monitors off of ebay, and apparently they hook up through speaker wire and not through quarter inch.

So does he need some type of reciever? Will a standard stereo receiver work? What exactly does he need to purchase to hook these up to his sound card?

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anonymous Fri, 02/20/2009 - 19:48

What's your line out coming from? Soundblaster or lower?

If so, get any stereo receiver with something like 150W RMS, that's 75W RMS per channel, the ns10ms are 60W "program" rated so be careful but it's better to have an amp that can go there without distortion, amp distortion kills faster and is less noticeable than speaker distortion. Tough, blowing ns10's isn't hard from what I've heard.
Connect the sound card via a 3.5m stereo jack to dual RCA into the CD or Video channel of the receiver then speaker wire out.

If you have a better source of line signal, like from an interface with 1/4"TRS monitor outs, then you may want to get some paired mono blocks in the 75W RMS range or whatever.

Got a budget?

anonymous Fri, 02/20/2009 - 19:51

The sound card that is being used is an m-audio delta66.

We also have a m-audio firewire interface, not sure if they would be goin through that at all...

Budget would be... cheap as possible :)

We didn't really account for having to buy the amplifier as well with the monitors, so saving money here is a big plus.

Davedog Sat, 02/21/2009 - 04:05

So, have either one of you ever HEARD a set of NS-10's or did you simply buy them because of something you read on the innernet? Did you NOT know they werent powered?

The reason I ask, is these are NOT a set of monitors for beginners. They are NOT going to sound GOOD....at all. They are going to be accurate in certain areas of a mix, but they are not going to flatter anything you put in them.

Just in case you've never experienced these.

jg49 Sat, 02/21/2009 - 06:35

Davedog, you mean you listen to monitors before you buy them? How retro! I suppose if you listened to them first, you might have noticed the amplifier, but maybe not.
If you bought these locally new maybe you could return them for a pair of powered monitors KRK aren't bad and have a decent pricepoint. If you bought them used, try reselling them.

anonymous Sat, 02/21/2009 - 08:45

Me? No. I own a pair of Event TR8's that I listened to pretty thoroughly and picked out before I bought them.

My friend got advised to buy the ns10s by an established producer in the hip-hop industry... He bought them without consulting me first.

Anyways, from what I've read they are not the best sounding monitors but translate the best to most home stereo systems. Sure there is going to be a learning curve mixing on them, there is on every monitor.

I do not believe he wishes to sell or replace them, so now what he needs is an amplifier.

Would you guys happen to have any suggestions as to what type of amplifier he should get? He is looking for something as cheap as possible.

Davedog Sat, 02/21/2009 - 13:55

NS-10's for hip-hop.

Yeah. The learning curve here is gonna be really steep.

NS-10's are all about the mid-range. Kinda like fancy Auratones. From what I can tell with hip-hop the only thing in the mid-range is the voice. Another thing is NS-10's dont play well with a sub.

As far as an amp to power them, go to your local pawn shop and buy the biggest and heaviest reciever you can find. Heavy will indicate theres a transformer or two in it and it'll at least have some fidelity.

Get something with at least 150 watts per side.

Mix on the NS-10's at around 85dbs. This isnt very loud and its where you'll find you'll be able to hear most of the frequencies. If you're doing rock then mix em as loud as you can stand em and the guitars will get really good.

If I was your friend I'd take em back or sell em and buy something else. Especially for hip-hop.

There are no lows in NS-10's. Not hip-hop lows anyways.

anonymous Sat, 02/21/2009 - 22:28

Ahh...
I was saying 75wRMS because I thought that would be enough. More headroom is always good.

I've also been thinking about this. Maybe Ns10's could be good for hip-hop given the likelihood of the beats be pre-fab and it just being a vocal studio. Getting the vocals tuned just right and sitting in the mid range of the mix would be a job you described these as being good for?

If beat creation is involved, then that's different, but if it's just samples and pre-fabs then it could work.

Davedog Sun, 02/22/2009 - 11:17

Greener wrote: Ahh...
I was saying 75wRMS because I thought that would be enough. More headroom is always good.

I've also been thinking about this. Maybe Ns10's could be good for hip-hop given the likelihood of the beats be pre-fab and it just being a vocal studio. Getting the vocals tuned just right and sitting in the mid range of the mix would be a job you described these as being good for?

If beat creation is involved, then that's different, but if it's just samples and pre-fabs then it could work.

You might be on to something there.

My point was more about the fact that the buyer may be already tuned into something that produces extreme low bass and the direct opposite will be the picture with a set of NS-10's. I owned a set for a couple of years as a second set to my JBL 4311's and after a few months I couldnt even listen to them for more than a few minutes without getting frustrated with em. Although at the time, guitars were big and Marshally and I was getting that edge in them with the Yamahas....so they did have a use. But after a few fine tunings on the Yahamamas and then switching back to the JBL's I was able to easily recognize the translation on the JBL's so I quit using the NS-10's entirely.

I think I traded them for a couple of Symetrix compressors. Which I wish I still had.

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