Assuming that the room you are using is not a bathroom or a closet, the monitors you use are the most important part of your studio without exception. After the monitors, the importance shifts to the room, and then the other studio gear. .
The more money you spend on monitors, the less time it will take you to develop a good ear and learn to make good mixes. If your priority is only to make demos that your band will use for personal reference, you can get away with a pair of 400 dollar powered near-field monitors. But most home studio operators eventually want to learn to make professional sounding albums and maybe record other bands. The longer you wait to get a pair of high-end monitors, the longer you will have to wait to be able to accurately hear what you are doing. If you can’t hear what is in your mix, you can’t make a mix that will satisfy you.
Personally, I learned how to record with a friend and we started out with a pair of KRK K-Rok speakers. They were about 400 dollars. We made a few demos on these. When we wanted to add more equipment to the studio, we asked the right person what we should add and they told us to add better monitors.
After a brief stint with a pair of JBL unpowered nearfields, we added some Genelec 1031’s. These are internally powered and they are probably the most popular nearfields among professionals after the Yamaha NS-10’s. They cost about 3500 dollars for the pair in 1997. Because we added these pro monitors so early on in our careers, we were able to jump much further with our skills in recording and mixing than if we had not upgraded our monitors until later. And now that I am a mastering engineer and know much more about this subject, I can clearly see that this was an essential move to make.
Let me now go over the differences between monitor sizes and types. In a traditional professional studio, the control room will utilize two different types of speakers. They will have large sofit mounted speakers in the walls above the console and they will have one or two pairs of nearfields on the console deck.
The larger speakers are mounted in a recessed and padded hole (sofit) and they are powered by some high current amplifiers. They are loud and clean and give you a far-field reference. They are kind of like a mix between home hi-fi speakers and PA speakers.
On the console deck will almost always be a pair of Yamaha NS-10 nearfields. These are unpowered so they require a separate amplifier. They were originally released in the 1970’s as home bookshelf speakers. Studio owners started using them as a way to hear their mixes on a speaker that showed them how small home speakers would reproduce their work. They are not the best sounding monitors at all; they are very midrange heavy but they are very good for this type of reference. Another benefit to using them is that if you learn to mix on them, you can work at any pro studio easily because they will surely have these speakers. Something else they say about them is that if you can make a mix sound good on the NS-10s, it will sound good anywhere. And for the most part, this is true. If you will have two pairs of nearfields in your studio, make these one of those pairs. Now you will definitely need a pair of more high fidelity nearfields than the NS-10s and if you can only have one pair, skip the NS-10s.and get a pair of really good quality active monitors.
Active monitors have power amps built into them and they are very popular these days. The benefit to self powered speakers is that they are more portable this way but also they have a different amp for each driver in the speakers. The manufacturers usually claim that active monitors are better than non powered monitors because the amp/driver systems are perfectly matched. In some cases, this is true. In others, it is not. But because of the availability and convenience of these types of speakers, you might as well grab a good pair. Just make sure they are a very good pair.
I suggest that you either spend about 1400 US dollars or more on 2 active monitors or buy a used pair for slightly less. I also recommend that you buy speakers with 7-8 inch woofers or larger. Smaller drivers will not be able to give you adequate bass response and you will never be able to get a balanced mix no matter what you do.
One pair of active monitors that I can recommend that are not very expensive are the Mackie 824’s. They are really a close copy of the Genelec 10/31s but they probably go a bit lower. These are probably the least expensive monitors you should check out.
Another company to look into is Dynaudio, a Danish company. They have an active pair called the BM6A that sells for about 1600 US dollars and has a 7 inch woofer. It is probably slightly higher fidelity than the Machies but wont go as low because of the smaller woofer and smaller enclosure size. If you consider these you may or may not want to add a subwoofer later on. They also have a larger pair called the BM10 that has a 10 inch speaker for more than 2000 dollars per pair.
Of course Genelec has fantastic speakers in their line and they are very worth looking into if you want to spend about 3500 dollars. Also there are ADAM speakers and many others that are as much as the Genelecs or more. There are many, many brands on the market and if you have 2500 or more to spend you can find a lot of models that you can listen to. Any speaker in this range will be good and will work for you. Once you get into this price range, it’s a matter of personal taste but any monitor will be great.
There is also a gigantic array of cheap active monitors on the market. Just stay away from them and you will be far better off. But because most home studio owners are probably on a budget, this is why I recommend the Mackie speakers. They are about the best you can find for the price. And you will not need a subwoofer. And this is a good thing. Let me explain more about subs.
Adding a subwoofer to your speaker system can be great but it can also be problematic. I would say that half of the time, the studio owner can get a subwoofer that will work well in their room and with their monitors. But other times they just make mixing more complicated and confuse the listener.
If you have bought a very small set of speakers and you do not want to replace them with bigger speakers because you are already familiar with them, you might want to add a sub to your system to get good bass response. But if you are starting out from the beginning, or do not have much invested into speakers already, you should consider buying a pair of monitors that have good low end response so you wont need to buy a sub. This way you can skip the problem of matching a sub to your nearfields.
If you do decide to add a sub, you will want to get the most expensive and powerful subwoofer you can afford. Follow the manufacturers’ instructions on setting up the sub and try to just use it to add enough bass to bring up the missing low end without making it obvious. It’s just there to add the very lowest frequencies that your nearfields can’t reproduce; its not there to give you a home theatre experience. If you set it that way, you will ultimately end up with mixes that have too little bass. Remember, the more bass you have in your monitors, the less you will put into your mixes. And when you have speakers with very little bass response, you will end up with bass heavy mixes.
The biggest problem with subs is that they have a crossover frequency point where the nearfields stop making bass and the sub takes over. This crossover spot is often a place where there is a hole in the overall frequency response. And it’s usually around 70-90 HZ. This is exactly where the most important low end belongs in most music. So because of this, studios with mis-aligned subs often have worse bass problems than those without subs.
If you buy an expensive sub and you use a subwoofer set-up reference CD and do some experimenting, you can make it work well if your room is good. I don’t want to scare anyone from adding a sub. I am just saying that if you are going to do it, do it right. If you do, you will be satisfied.
I could go into much greater detail about speaker types, recommended wattages, tweeter materials, etc. But honestly, I don’t think all that is very important for the home studio owner. Like I said, as long as you spend a decent amount of money on some quality speakers and try to get the very best you can afford, you should be fine. If they have the power to go as loud as you need without distortion, have an extended low end, are not fatiguing to listen to for long periods and are at least 14 or 15 hundred dollars a pair, they will work for you. Whatever you do, stay away from anything cheaper than that and try to spend more if you can. And then of course you can buy a 2000 dollar pair on the used market for 1300 and that would be an even better thing to do. Also now that Genelec is making a new line of speakers, you can get a pair of 1031’s on the used market for very cheap. If you do this, you will never need to upgrade again unless you want to.
Another final comment is that you can also but a pair of unpowered monitors and couple them with a nice hi-fi amp. In this case, don’t use a PA amp like a Crest or Crown if you can help it. Better to use an old hi-fi stereo receiver with at least 80 watts or buy a nice newer hi-fi amp with more power. Dynaudio offers un-powered versions of their active speakers and there are many other brands. Tannoy makes good un-powered speakers too.
If you know your budget, you can do a couple of weeks worth of internet research, and then try to listen to as many of the speakers you can and then grab a pair. If you have a good local dealer, make sure you can return them if you are not happy.
Monitor shopping is always a fun and challenging experience. Good luck!
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