Need monitor suggestions

[Lt. Bob]

I'm helping a dear friend who almost died here recently after doctors sorta bungled his care after a heart valve replacement.
He's in Austin and really hunkered down because of his underlying health conditions (many) making him a prime candidate to die from Covid.
He's a great drumber .... we played together in that Louisiana Hall of Fame band I've mentioned.
Someday I need to post some recordings of that band.

He's really talented ..... writes great songs ..... just a talented guy and artist and he expressed a desire to get into recording because the band he plays in, while popular around Austin, just can't do what he wants when he writes songs.

So he wants to get into recording so he can do his own thing and then have me and other better musicians he knows add to his recordings. ...... I've recommended the Tascam 24 for him as he's technologically challenged and it's basically a mixer like he's used a zillion times with a recorder added on.
And it'll go into 'puters so it will still be useful if he progresses down that road.

I'm really up on gear BUT one thing I'm not up on is monitors.
I have a surfeit of good to great speakers and so I haven't really kept up with monitors.
He'll be recording in a large room so I'm gonna want 7 or 8 inch woofers.

I also want to keep the price down to 5-6 hundred a pair.
I see Adam has a pair of 7" for that .... also Krokit and JBL and Presonus ..... plus there's prolly a bunch of others I'm unaware of.
Really ANY of them will prolly do a passable job but I'm curious if anyone has any strong feelings about any monitors you really like or hate.

[Greg_L]

I've been using the same KRK Rokit 8s for well over 10 years. I think my mixes sound good and they haven't broken after all this time of a lot of use.

[JD01]

I've got KRKs too. 5" version. They've got plenty of options on them for him to tune them to his space.

[Lt. Bob]

KRK's it is prolly then.
can't ignore the quality of greg's mixes and I like the idea that they have tuning options.

[WhiskeyJack]

KRK's it is prolly then.
can't ignore the quality of greg's mixes and I like the idea that they have tuning options.

I think the tuning options only come on the newer generation models. So if they are buying new great but if for some reason they are going to try to by used or second hand they will likely need a KRK greater the 2nd Gen KRK's. G3 or i think they are up to G4 now.
Struck from the record

Oh and this is also a nod for the KRK's. I have had the 5's for a while now and i'm happy with them.

[Greg_L]

My ancient 8s have the tuning options.

[WhiskeyJack]

My ancient 8s have the tuning options.

Oh wow. Ok it might just be my peasant little ones then. I stand corrected.

[Lt. Bob]

these will be brand new so it's a moot point.
Now I'm deciding between the https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... io-monitor
and the https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... io-monitor

Looks like a no brainer to my tastes as the larger ones have more power and go lower but I don't want to casually spend someone else's money

[JD01]

That's a lot of money for an extra inch

[Lt. Bob]

and another 70 watts .... and another 6hz lower ... from 42hz down to 36.
He's a drummer so that might make a difference but I'm undecided ...... convince me!

He's given me a budget of a few grand but I still want to watch his money.
The Tascam 24 is gonna be about a grand.
I think it's a good choice because at first he'll be working with something he's familiar with and when he goes to Reaper down the road it would serve as a 24 channel interface.
It's also a good all-in-one package for live recording which he will want to do.

He also wants a keyboard workstation .... one like my FA-06 would cost around $1300 but I think I'm gonna try to find him a Roland XP50 or XP60 ..... save him some money and I literally know those things inside and out.
I can step him thru any button usage to accomplish even the finest editing on it and he knows nothing so I'm gonna be his guru and XP's would make it easy.
OTOH if he got a FA-06 that'd force me to finally study the damned thing which I have put off.

I really REALLY want to help this guy .... he's had a rough year.
He lost his beloved wife Anne Marie who he loved since they were in school .....married her back when we were playing together 40 years ago.
She died of cancer and his grief was almost insurmountable .... then about the time he was clawing back from that covid shut down his gigging which was one of his only refuges ...... then he had to have a heart valve replacement and without dragging out the story that went about as bad as possible but it does look like they have him on the road to not being dead.

When I mentioned maybe he should get into home recording he said he'd wanted to but had no idea how to or anything about the gear and when I told him I could fix him up he just lit up.
Daily calls and emails ...... he's so excited and it's the first thing he's had to be excited about since Anne Marie's death.
I think it's gonna be so good for him and I'm thrilled to see his excitement ...... I really want to do right by him and I'm trying hard to make good decisions because it's all on me.
I don't want to fail my friend.

At some point I'll prolly suggest he join R&R ..... he's one of the funniest fuckers I've ever known.

[Armistice]

I'd go bigger over smaller. I find low end had to get right on my 6.5" speakers.

[Lt. Bob]

I'd go bigger over smaller. I find low end had to get right on my 6.5" speakers.

yeah ..... I'm pretty much leaning that way

[CrowsofFritz]

When did you all get your KRKs? What iteration are are they? I heard the amp designs of the rockits have gotten worse from old models. Remember that Gibson has purchased them recently. Good engineers have actually moved over to Behringer.

Kieth R. Klawitter, who designed the old KRKs moved to Behringer and has called the recent Behringer monitors his best work yet.

[WhiskeyJack]

When did you all get your KRKs? What iteration are are they? I heard the amp designs of the rockits have gotten worse from old models. Remember that Gibson has purchased them recently. Good engineers have actually moved over to Behringer.

Kieth R. Klawitter, who designed the old KRKs moved to Behringer and has called the recent Behringer monitors his best work yet.

Mine are Pre Gibson KRK.

[Lt. Bob]

well that went in an unexpected direction.

Nick, my guy at Sweetwater, said he wouldn't go with the newer KRKs.

He thinks the newer ones are voiced for hip-hop and that's what they're good for but even though they have a lot of features he doesn't feel they're goodd for more neutral sounding music.

So we ended up deciding on JBL 308P MkII's ..... actually $100 a paor cheaper than the bigger KRKs.

I like JBL and, in fact, have used passive JBL 4208's for years. Even bought a second set 'cause I like them so much.
And I have read good reviews on these so.

[Greg_L]

When did you all get your KRKs?

2006 for mine

[JD01]

Mine are pretty much new KRKs. But I'm in a tiny inherrantly compromised mixing space. If I'm making subtle changes to the bottom of a mix, I have to be really careful and listen to a lot of reference tracks.

In fact, my progress with mixing the bottom end of my mixes has completely stalled in the last couple of years until Greg took a look for me recently. I can still barely hear what he did on either my reference cans or my monitors, but it all comes together very obviously in the mix.

[Lt. Bob]

I imagine that ANY of the new powered monitors would be fine.
They're are gonna be better than anything he's listened to in a long time.
He doesn't even have a stereo.

And I have tried telling people for years that the word 'monitor' is meaningless and just a marketing term.
Everyone seems to think that monitors are inherently flat and stereo stuff is inherently hyped and that's just not so.
It's nothing more than a name they stick on the speakers and everyone goes, "ooh monitors ..... flat".

First off the idea that stereo stuff is inherently hyped is total bullshit .... crappy stereo stuff can be but good stereo speakers never are.

I've been an audiophile for 50 years .... the goal of every single speaker designer that makes serious stuff ( and it doesn't have to be super expensive ..... I have audiophile approved speakers as cheap as 150 a pair ) .... anyway the goal is always to be as flat as possible.

Thing is ...... it's extremely difficult to design truly flat speakers .... if it were easy, by now there would be a couple of pairs of speakers that all audiophiles would have and no need to make more.
But there's ALL kinds of shit going on from phase interactions in the crossover to 'lobing' of tweeters to room interactions making one come closer to ideal in some rooms but not in others to impedance changes depending on the frequency being reproduced which makes different speaker and amp combinations totally change the frequency response you're getting.

How inert is the cabinet? ...... it's almost impossible to get them totally inert so where in the freq response are you gonna allow the cabinet to insert its own colorations and how do you alter the drivers or crossover to compensate for that?
AND how do you design the dispersion? Does the tweeter need to be at ear level? Below ear lever?
Above it?
How do you balance the size of the sweet spot ?..... do you want it to have a wide sweet spot so it sounds the same over a wide seating position or do you focus it into a tight spot to enhance imaging?
And there's a lot more considerations and design trade-offs than just these that I've mentioned.
When you read constantly about the efforts of very good speaker designers to get as close to the ideal as possible and never really getting there even in speakers costing a LOT!, you realize the idea that a pair of $500 speakers is flat is laughable.

Every freakin' speaker has it's own sound ..... every one of them.
And these 'monitors' are no different.
They're not flat ..... any pair of say $250 well designed stereo speakers is just as flat which means not at all.

However ..... powered 'monitors do take away the variable of selecting an amp to drive them and they have been designed to match well with the amp which has been designed to match well with the drivers. That's if, of course, they actually went to much effort.

I use all passive so I have to choose which amp and pre-amp to go with.
My Crown sounds pretty good with only one set of my speakers.
My old Alesis reference amp from 20 years ago sounds monstrously good with what I have in my studio right now but sounds kinda wimpy if it's an 8 ohm load .... but right now it's running into 4 ohm and fucking sings!...... but you don't have to do any of that with powered monitors ..... just plug them in.

But the key is to learn how your speakers sound and mix to that.
Back in the day almost every studio had a pair of Yamaha NS-10s or whatever they were called back then.
They started popping up everywhere.
The new ones may be ok but let me tell you ..... the early ones sounded like shit ...... and everyone agreed that they sounded like shit.
No bottom end and really midrangey and cheap sounding.
But everyone used them and everyone got to know how they sounded and a lot of albums that sounded very good were mixed on those shitty little things.

So 'learn your speakers' is the key.




.

[Greg_L]

So 'learn your speakers' is the key.

I've been saying that since the dawn of time. None of this shit matters unless you're an elite professional mastering engineer. For the rest of us, just learn your shit. When you know your speakers and know your room you can make mixes that sound great everywhere in one shot.

[Lt. Bob]

So 'learn your speakers' is the key.

I've been saying that since the dawn of time. None of this shit matters unless you're an elite professional mastering engineer. For the rest of us, just learn your shit. When you know your speakers and know your room you can make mixes that sound great everywhere in one shot.

Yep ..... you've said that as long as I've known you