which nearfield monitors?

Posted on

www.dorian-music.co.uk
Member Since: Apr 04, 2008

hey everyone.

Im looking for some new nearfield monitors to add to my home studio setup but dont know where to start looking!

I want to try and minimize how much I have to try my tracks on other equipment - such as my car's stereo which is dieing - mostly what happens now is i get the track sounding good on headphones and my Edirol MA-7A's, then play it in my car and its awful so then spend the next 2 months making a change, then burning to cd, then taking it to car, playing, noting down whats wrong and going back.. I want my car's crapness in my studio basically! so i dont have to spend years trying it out in the car.

I create guitar/rock/indie tunes (ash or foo fighters in terms of rockiness and guitar levels!) and just basically use my monitors plugged straight into my pc.

To get a "real" sounding sound, should I get some kind of amp or can I just get some better monitors to plug in instead? if so, what monitors would be good for this type of music?

Am I right in thinking the Edirol MA7A's are not too good at giving a true representation of the sound?

Many thanks

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MASSIVE Mastering, LLC
Member
Since: Aug 05, 2008


Aug 26, 2008 05:12 pm

1) Headphones aren't going to help.

2) IMO, most definitely, you should use better monitors. The absolute, without a doubt, paramount, most important piece of gear you will ever possibly purchase is your monitoring chain - along with the room the speakers are actually in.

They're the only connection between the electrical impulses of the recording and the electrical impulses of your brain.

You will only ever be as good as your monitoring chain allows you to be. Your monitoring chain will only ever be as good as the room they're in allows them to be.

Now I might be the wrong guy to make suggestions - I'm pretty freakin' picky about monitoring and very wary of most speakers out there that say "Studio Monitor" on them (as if that made them better). There are few below a few $k that I find reasonable.

That said - In the "Extremely Budget Friendly" category, I don't think there's much out there that can compete with a pair of B&W 602's (specifically, DM602 Series 3) and a decent amplifier (A Rotel high-current model, almost any Bryston, etc.). You'd have to get them used (they discontinued the 602's in favor of the terribly inferior 685's), but you can probably find a pair of them and a used Rotel 1070 for under $1k. ADAM A7's, DynAudio BM5a's would also be reasonably good choices (both active, so no additional amplification) at around the same price. It wouldn't be out of the range of possibility to find a set of B&W Matrix 805's in that price range either... Rare, but worth every penny if they're in good shape.

But as mentioned, any of those are only as good as the room you put them in. In an untreated or improperly treated room, you're going to have the same translation issues you're coming up against by using such limited-range speakers. Broadband trapping and lots of it.

And positioning, calibration, etc., etc., etc.


Good translation is the "holy grail" of any engineer. And you can not tweak what you can not hear accurately (period). You can spend years fighting with speakers that don't perform in a space that doesn't perform - or you can bit the bullet a bit and be way ahead of the game.

Byte-Mixer
Member
Since: Dec 04, 2007


Aug 27, 2008 01:26 am

Good advice there.

As an addendum, if you have the means, try to get over to a music store and give a listen to the different monitors they have. Take your favorite CD or something that you -know- should sound a certain way, and give it a listen at the shop.

As MM said, your monitoring chain is of utmost importance, and you need to make sure that the speakers you end up getting work well with -your own- ears, so you can try to get as good a translation possible.

We can give you recommendations within a budget range all day long, but in the end, what matters most is if the speakers work well with your ears or not. Granted though, you can learn to compensate for the weaknesses in your monitor chain (getting to know your monitors) but it's a good idea to minimize that as much as you can.

-J

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