Hello I'm new to this forum though I have been reading this Mag for the past 5/6yrs now.I was wondering what is meant by "accurate monitors" because I have the behringer b2031 and when I think the mix is ok I check on my sony mdr-7506's and some of the tones aren't right or the pitch is off.I was looking to purchase the maybe the mackie hr824 mk2.I've narrowed my specs I would like 1- 8" woofer,2- tone accuracy,3- imaging, around $2000cdn to play with any suggestions? Please and THANX

Well, certainly you will hear a marked difference between your behringers and the mackies. Accurate monitors should convey the mix 'as is' without lending any tonal colouration or disguising artefacts or 'sweetening' the sound, as Hi Fi speakers tend to. Construction also plays a large part, as does driver choice and those companies that tend to design their own drivers rather than adapt 'off the shelf' models, tend to sound better (think genelec, dynaudio, pmc in the midrange bracket).

I suspect the inconsistencies in tone and pitch you hear through your 7506's isn't so much to do with the behringers per se, more that you are actually hearing faults in your mix through a pair of 'accurate' headphones. The same mix through a decent set of monitors would reveal the same faults, which is of course exactly what you want.

I would say, that unless you write dance music, or have a lot of airspace to fill, an 8" bass cone isn't neccessarily the best choice, as in a smaller room that amount of bass can cause problems. True, larger speakers usually go lower in frequency response, but there really isn't much in it in an average mix, and they tend to be much more expensive in a given range form a given manufacturer.

Have a look at the manufacturers I mentioned above as well as the mackies. Personally, I just went through the same dilemma as I had a pair of M Audio BX8's but knew I was missing stuff, as my mixes didn't translate, even with acoustic treatment. In the end I plumped for a pair of tabletop Genelec 8020's. A year ago I never would have considered buying a pair of monitors with 4" bass drivers, but they are quite astounding really, sort of like the first time I heard music in stereo back in the 70's. Now I'm happy as a lamb, knowing that what I hear is what I'm mixing.

Do take a range of familiar material with you to a shop and try and get them to let you do a listening test after shop hours when it's quieter if you can.

Oh, and welcome to the forum!

Welcome to the forun cmdr_hb.

Be careful - good accurate monitors don't sound impressive - in fact they can sound rather bland. But they will be telling you exactly what you are doing.

My monitors sounded horrible when I first heard them, until I realised they were telling me all about the room, the microphones used and how they were positioned.

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John - Sound-Link ProAudio
President - Federation Internationale des Chasseurs de Sons

You might find one of the smaller standmounted ATC speakers, scm 7, scm 20 or, even better, active ones !
The passive ones are equally good when you find a suitably powerful (can take 300w per side) amp to drive them.
Accuracy and imaging is what these are all about, not to mention a really crystal top-end.

Quote Lento:

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You might find one of the smaller standmounted ATC speakers, scm 7, scm 20 or, even better, active ones !
The passive ones are equally good when you find a suitably powerful (can take 300w per side) amp to drive them.
Accuracy and imaging is what these are all about, not to mention a really crystal top-end.

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Agreed - my short list is ATC, Harbeth, Klein + Hummel (I have a pair each of the two latter) with PMC following on just behind.

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John - Sound-Link ProAudio
President - Federation Internationale des Chasseurs de Sons

Yep. Got a pair of ATC SCM20ASL Pro in my room. They sound awfully boring most of the time, especially on my work.

Gunnar

There does seem to be a tendency amongst the manufacturers of monitors that the word accurate actually means... *chucking everything at you by an over exaggerated emphasis on the midrange*... I'd beware of this...The best actives i've heard at reasonable price are the Blue Sky media desks... They are execllent for long sessions being totally unfatiguing to listen to.

I note that some people find their mixes sound alittle sharp on other systems.I am not surprised anyone brought up NS10s would tend to push the upper mids on the Media Desks as they sound a little *dull* compared to most cheap monitors. They aren't, they just take some getting use to when coming from your usual cheap monitors.

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nibbled to death by an Okapi http://www.soundclick.com/tubilahdog

Steve

If I may ask ... do you use the BSMD to mix on.

I was thinking of getting a pair as it has the sub in tow.

Yeah,thanks for the advice I produce Rap Music so I do need to hear what's going on in the low end.I did do 2 mixes 1 with the b2031's and 1 with 7506's just to see which was "more accurate" aka translate better and it was the 7506's even at the bottom end.I know their not perfect but I was wondering is their any monitors similar to the the 7506's sound? since I'm very comfortable with their sound and gives me confidence with the way my mixes translate elsewhere,though I know it's not really practical to mix in such a manner(through headphones). THANX

Yes... Have been using them for the last couple of months. Nothing is perfect and at the price they are, you can hardly expect anything like perfection. However, they are IMHO, head and shoulders above anything around the same price point.

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nibbled to death by an Okapi http://www.soundclick.com/tubilahdog

Quote Stevedog:

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There does seem to be a tendency amongst the manufacturers of monitors that the word accurate actually means... *chucking everything at you by an over exaggerated emphasis on the midrange*... I'd beware of this...

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Absolutely - this is *not* an accurate monitor - none of the monitors on my short-list above are like this.

I must admit that I was please that Hugh said that the K+H O110 he reviewed recently "punched above their weight" as I had just purchased them before he reviewed them - phew!


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John - Sound-Link ProAudio
President - Federation Internationale des Chasseurs de Sons

Are the songs on your Myspace mixed on them .. cause they sound great ... great songs & musicianship too needless to say.

They're lovely those K&H.

Exactly as you said John - the first time I heard them (uni has a 5.1 setup which replaced Genelecs) I was a bit underwhelmed, they sounded a bit cheap & unassuming somehow.

It's only after a bit of time on them you realise you can hear EVERYTHING amazingly accurately.

Yes T 4 2 the very same... The studio started out as just something to muck around with in the living room.. Partly because i have a serious pair of speakers in there that i can trust. That becomea bit unfair when i started working seriously so moved to the front room.. I tried a couple of pairs of small monitors and just couldnt get on with them, was forever switching back to the speakers in the living room. I read a few reviews of the Medias, had really liked their bigger bros so thought try them...Night and day...

The best way i can thi nk of describing them is, having everything a pair of serious big monitors have but on a smaller scale, volume wise. We ran a couple of tests on them using pink noise etc... and they pretty damn flat right down to where the room resonance cuts in, which is 50Hz. The treble isn;t that extended, but then again, to seriously better them across the whole useful musical spectrum, you are looking at £1500 compared to £400...

If there is a mark of a good speaker... The listening test tracks i used to set them up ran from tracks to whole albums , just sitting there enjoying the music..

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nibbled to death by an Okapi http://www.soundclick.com/tubilahdog

If its ok Steve, I'll put your myspace link here http://www.myspace.com/tubilahdog

I just think the songs are worth listening to, also considering the BSMD they were mixed on.
Gil Scott Heron would have been proud of Star City.


My "studio" ... is a studwalled, totally untreated room
which kind of put me off getting them last year when I could have had them 2nd hand almost unused for £200 from readers ad.

How have you positioned the sub vis a vis the satellites.

Placed the sub in the listening position then, using pink noise and a meter, moved around the room to find the best comprimise between sound and practicality..

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nibbled to death by an Okapi http://www.soundclick.com/tubilahdog

I was gonna say I splashed out on a set of Adam S2s which are frankly amazing, . . . however wanting to save a bit of power and my neighbours sanity, I got my old Alesis 0.7s (that I bought for 50 quid) back from my mums with a Samson Servo 200 Amp. . . Funnily I find myself listening to the Alesis most of the time as they're pretty revealing and perhaps more representative of a 'home system'.

I also use a set of Sennheiser HD650s, . . . those along with the Adams really help me see into the mix. . . but I must say I'm about 85% of the way there with the Alesis - and sometimes wonder if i could have spent the S2 money better somewhere else.

All said and done I would say the room, the amp (be it inside the monitors) and the design of the monitors all impact on the accuracy. . .

As a rule of thumb I would say don't go bigger than a 5 or 6 inch cone with cheaper monitors as often the amp/crossover lets them down. . . the smaller ones in cheap ranges often sound good but without the bass extension.

Finally I happen to think that monitors with forward facing bass ports are good for smaller perhaps less treated rooms. . . they 'push a bit of air' at your face and give you a better impression of bass energy. Backward facing ones sound tighter perhaps but sub frequencies can also end up interacting with the room in odd ways before they get to you. . . making you scratch your head a lot. . .

Quote cmdr_hb:

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Hello I'm new to this forum though I have been reading this Mag for the past 5/6yrs now.I was wondering what is meant by "accurate monitors" because I have the behringer b2031 and when I think the mix is ok I check on my sony mdr-7506's and some of the tones aren't right or the pitch is off.I was looking to purchase the maybe the mackie hr824 mk2.I've narrowed my specs I would like 1- 8" woofer,2- tone accuracy,3- imaging, around $2000cdn to play with any suggestions? Please and THANX

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Just one caveat - checking the accuracy of monitors by comparing them to headphones isn't the way to go. There's a reason that it's not recommended to mix on headphones and that is that the 'phones introduce their own brand of distortion into the mix. Yes, the Sony MDR 7506's are industry standards as far as cans go and can be invaluable in evaluating the quality of a track, looking for noise, etc. But ANY phones are misleading when it comes to evaluating frequency balance, phase issues, etc. There's just too much interaction between the transducer and the listener's head.

Your Behringer monitors may or may not be any good for your music and mixes but comparing them to what you hear when you listen on headphones doesn't actually give you any information to evaluate that.

Quote Hagalund:

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...without lending any tonal colouration or disguising artefacts or 'sweetening' the sound, as Hi Fi speakers tend to...

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I kind of take issue with this statement! I spent a number of years working for a company that made HiFi, and Proper HiFi companies would be pretty put out at the thought that their hours of design and development to create UNCOLOURED and ACCURATE loudspeakers was so glibly dismissed.

To give you just two examples. PMC sell both pro and consumer products that are essentially identical, other than cosmetic styling. B&W Nautilus are the main monitors at Abbey Road, and are no-holds-barred reference monitors. And yet... they were developed for the consumer Audiophile market. Lower end B&W models share many of the design elements with the nautilus, and in my experience comparing such models with similarly priced "Pro" studio monitors does not show any real clear advantage to the "Pro" model in terms of accuracy.

But I guess what lots of people refer to as HiFi really has very little to do with real HiFi.

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