Monitor Speakers

[flux]

Am thinking of upgrading my monitor speakers from the very basic set I presently have, research in my price range
suggests that it's between the KRK VXT8 or the KRK 10-3 as best choice. Does anyone have any experience with
these?

I like the idea of the 10-3 because it's a three way speaker, and also has a 10" sub, but it seems that comparatively
the VXT8 is of much higher quality.

Could anyone suggest which of the two I should go for (or maybe any better alternatives)?

Which monitor speakers do y'all use, and which aspects do you like about them?

Cheers

[garyb]

for mixing, you should use a 2way speaker, otherwise the crossover points for the midrange are right where the important vocal range is. a 2 way's crossover point for the tweeter is pretty high. a crossover point between two speakers always is messy and often has holes.

krk is generally a nice competent speaker. they're generally good enough to provide the information you need, but you'll always need to learn the speaks that you have. no monitoring system is perfect and your budget means you won't have anything super special. still, a speaker of that quality itself will NOT be the reason that you have bad mixes.

actually, you really need to improve the environment, the actual room itself, to have the best results. the anount that you are planning on spending is the most you should spend without improving the room.

[Mr Arkadin]

Could anyone suggest which of the two I should go for (or maybe any better alternatives)?

Which monitor speakers do y'all use, and which aspects do you like about them?

Speakers are so personal you will get as many different recommendations as there are people on this board. For my money PMC TB2s are always great - you might consider them for £1650, with new KRK VXT8 actives at £919. I have to say I wouldn't pick KRK's at all, not a fan. The jump in price might be a bit much for you - but PMCs are speakers for life: if you get it right you'll never soend any more money on speaker upgrades. I still use my TB1s that I bought twenty years ago and am looking to get some TB2s for another studio soon. I knew nothing of PMCs until I saw/heard some in a dubbing theatre that I worked at. Once bought I never bothered trying other speakers, I knew I had found the ones I wanted. The only thing better for me would be one of the bigger PMC speakers! Spend the extra now, save in the long run.

[pranza]

garyb said it all. most important things in few words.

i would add that krk is muddy and detail-less, good for drunken parties at best
try audio note ax two with some amplifier, at least nad c320 level and be happy
or buy a pair of thready screaming but still better (sounding more natural and useful for mixing) than many monitors yamaha ns10 and sell for the same price if not satisfied

[flux]

Thanks guys for your responses most useful indeed when I've got the monitors next stage will definitely be looking further into room treatment, and of course beginning the process of learning the speakers.

[flux]

Garyb thanks for pointing out about crossover placement, particularly on 3 way speakers. This particular set (KRK 10-3) apparently has total range of 35Hz-25kHz with crossovers at 400 Hz and 3.75 kHz - are these particularly bad crossover points?

Another set I am considering is the new Tannoy Reveal 802 (2 way, 8" low/mid) - total range 42Hz - 43kHz with crossover at 1.8 kHz - could this be considered a better crossover point?

I make music with a lot of low sub-bass (dnb, dub, etc.), so it would be great to have monitors that could reach low and also slightly emulate a club sound system at higher spl, to inform my mixing stage. Is it reasonable to expect one set of monitors to be competent covering both sub-bass type music as well as acoustic guitar music? - or am I asking too much in this regard, and instead should look for monitors in terms of genre?

Cheers!

[auntybiotic]

cant beat a set of ns-10's for the 'truth' - sound good on them, sound good on anything

[garyb]

a two way is always preferable for mixing, and i'd go with a 6" woofer. generally, i prefer the tweeter to be crossed over pretty high, like 5k(not lower than about 3.5k), and then the woofer is pretty much full range. that way any mistakes that are the result of the speakers will probably be out of the important ranges. it's easier to make a pair of speakers with lower crossover points, since a cheaper woofer can be used. i wouldn't want a crossover anywhere near 300-500hz personally because that area is the biggest problem for me in my work. i think 1.8k is pretty low since it's right at the top of the vocal range.

if you really need the extended low-end, i'd use a sub, but beware that the sub is well matched to the tops.

for mixing, it's generally best to have a fairly neutral pair of speakers. what you're looking to hear is that the mix is balanced. a club system will naturally hype the bass(and other areas). if you try to add a ton of bass to the mix over the reference speakers, the mix will be overly boomy on a club system. in big studios, mixing is generally done on smaller two ways(or even just a single driver like the old Auratones for tv and radio). there are usually also some big speakers with subs for tracking and/or impressing the clients.

if the room is untreated, then this advice isn't so critical. you'll never hear things correctly in that case. no matter what, you'll need to listen to your mixes in a lot of different places on different systems to learn the strengths and weaknesses of your gear and your ears.

[auntybiotic]

as ^ for listening on various sytems to verify a mix or master....even if you have a clean/treated room and a great monitor set it's always PARAMOUNT to have a listen in the car or on an ipod to verify ....that's how most folks will listen to it, regardless of how good it sounds in ones studio - that's really why yamaha ns-10's are the bomb - they speak the absolute truth and you can guarantee if your mix sounds good on those babies it will sound good on anything

[flux]

auntybiotic thanks for the suggestions, from all I've heard about the NS10s I would love to get a pair, I'm just concerned that as they're no longer in production it would be difficult to get a second-hand pair that hasn't been abused. also from research I've seen that they're very accurate and revealing for mids, but not so much for bass - would you recommend them for monitoring e.g. dnb, dub etc? what kind of price should I expect to pay, and which of the variants would you recommend? (any suggestions for amps that go well with them would be great too!)

garyb thanks, you've given me a lot of food for thought. tried to find some monitors with similar crossover points as you mentioned, so far without any success, would be great if could you point me in the right direction with a couple of example models! what kind of music do you make/mix?

a lot of the monitors I'm considering (8" or so woofers) apparently have good bass extension similar to that of sub territory, my thinking was that monitors with larger woofers would be better than a separate sub in terms of timing issues between bass and mids etc, along with placement issues - is this a valid perspective, or would a 6" monitor plus sub be a better approach?

[auntybiotic]

good thing about the ns-10's is you can still pick up replacement cones / tweeters for them...i actually sold mine a couple of years ago as i v.foolishy decided to go for a 'modern' active monitor set up.. big mistake....but i used a Soton 100w per channel amp with them which was nicely transparent and underwhelming....i found that if you could make a mix sound good on this setup then generally it would translate well onto everything else. I did add a sub from time to time but only for stuff requiring extreme low end...in my opinion they actually have good bass if you are using them as nearfields at reasonable volume levels...they also have a reasonably flat response so you hear all of the 'bad' stuff very clearly..
but like marmite, they work for some peeps whilst other peeps hate them

[hubird]

Always use nearfields for elementary mixing.
I use ADAM nearfields (two-way), but I also have the chained-in-line Adam subwoofer.
I only activate the woofer when checking the lows (at afternoon...those lows are gorgeous!).

A friend of mine (ex-Ulanbator, still working commercially) also has the ADAM midfield system along the nearfields, would like to have them, as they're great for overaal sound checking, but you can't have it all

love to check my mixes on my mobile soundbox Jambox by Jawbone tho...

[garyb]

don't worry about the crossover point THAT much.
for all my talk, my Blue Sky System One speaks have a 1.5k crossover point.
the info i gave is pretty much true. there's only so much that's available in a reasonably priced production monitor.
mastering houses have custom speakers.

the 5" Genelecs cross over at 3k.
the ADAM 5" cross over at 3k.

as i said, the room is MUCH more important than the speakers. try to get them as far from the wall as possible. the best mix spot is probably near the middle of the room.

i mix everything from Reggae to Jazz to Folk and everything in between.
a sub, properly setup, is much better than a big woofer. the reason is that the smaller woofer will reveal transients much more accurately. also, you won't spend amplifier power for the woofer on super low frequencies that eat power like mad. remember, in mixing and mastering, you need a fairly flat frequency response so that the music will play on almost any system. leave the hyping of frequencies to the playback system since the playback system is designed to do that. don't try to mix club material so that your studio sounds like the club!

[flux]

garyb "for all my talk, my Blue Sky System One speaks have a 1.5k crossover point" - lol!

I hear you loud and clear re room treatment and flat mixing! Thanks garyb, I was just hoping (evidently unrealistically!) for the possibility of the best of both worlds in one solution, i.e. monitors that after offering an effective flat/balanced mixing/mastering stage would be capable of also allowing me to slightly emulate club sound system dynamics on (post-mastering) playback just to get a general feel.

once I've got at least a decent(ish) pair of monitors I'll definitely delve into room treatment, and look forward to hearing the post room treatment improvements!

a quick look up of the Blue Sky System One tells me that they're closed-box design (hence perhaps why it seems you're much more relaxed than myself when it comes to lower frequency representation! lol), my research so far suggests that closed-box generally offers tighter control over bass representation than ported. could that be considered a fair statement?

[flux]

Mr Arkadin thanks for your suggestion, which variant of the PMC TB2s do you mean, I take it at the price you mention you mean the passive ones - the 'PMC TB2+' - in which case, any suggestions for well suited amps also?

do you think the PMC TB2+ would be accurate lower down in the sub type frequency range for monitoring e.g. dnb, dub etc? would you say your TB1s are? (if they are anything to go by as an indicator of how the TB2s might be)

yes they are out of my price range, but I'm considering waiting and saving up for the right monitors, as you suggest - buy right, buy once! I found the TB2+ somewhere for £1,260 per pair. next down from them in my considerations are the Genelec M040 AM at £910 a pair (they have an interesting downward port - anyone any experience with these?) or the Genelec M030 AM at £605 a pair (but would also need to get a separate sub for these as they only go down to 58hz). I heard some Genelecs a good few years back and they did stand out to me as very flat, yet present enough.

on the other hand the KRK VXT8s have come down in price and are currently £610 per pair - is that good value at that price point? others I've been considering are the KRK 10-3 (3 way, 10" woofer) at £580 per pair, or the new Tannoy Reveal 802s at £360 per pair (which according to their advertising have a good control of bass suited more towards electronic music)

[garyb]

yes, a closed box won't go as low, but the low end will be "tighter". since there's a sub, this is fine, actually helpful, that the tops don't go to sub frequencies..

the reason that there's no magic bullet in speaker design is that the room's reflected sound is as important as the direct sound off of the speaker. reflected sound is responsible for muddy, indistinct, or overly hyped response. the room needs two things.

1. bass absorption(bass traps). this is because 90 degree corners amplify low end in the room. even worse is where three walls come together. all square rooms need bass traps badly, if you are to hear what the low end actually sounds like. you can easily mix bass properly on a small two way if the room shows you bass frequencies honestly, and that's even without a sub. remember, mixing should always be done at a low to moderate volume. since the ears are less sensitive to low end at low volumes, mixing for a nice even response at a low to moderate volume will mean that the bass will be loud a high volumes, assuming that the playback system can reproduce the bass range properly.

2. diffusion. a diffuser scatters the sound as evenly as possible. this eliminates reflections that hide things you want to hear. it also eliminates holes in the stereo field. basically it's like the frosting on a light bulb which diffuses the light so that the light source doesn't leave hard shadows. if you want to be able to accurately determine the placement of a sound in the stereo field, you need diffusion.

[auntybiotic]

On a slightly tighter budget (below 500 dollars) I can also recommend the ALESIS M1 ACTIVE MkII. Very clear, nice flat response, & great for mixing.
They are front ported but you can block them to reduce bass in small rooms (if your speakers are placed within a foot or so of a wall)...& unblock them to check on low end as required...
Also active, so you can rid of an amp in the chain and rely that they are representative
I have a set in my control room - love em and you can then for about 350 euros these days..
I shut up now and wish you luck in your search