low cost powered monitors?
 

Does anyone have recommendations for a pair of low cost <$150 (but effective) powered monitors for my video editing setup? It's a small room.
thanks
Greg

"Low cost" and "effective powered monitors" are two phrases that just don't fit together in the same sentence. You're going to be hard pressed to find monitors under $500 to $750 and even that's really pushing the lower boundary - that's closer to the entry-level price for each speaker rather than the pair if you're looking at proper monitors. The absolute rock-bottom minimum I can think of off-hand are the Behringer 2031a Truths at about $400 for the pair - not a recommendation for Behringer but they have gotten some favourable reviews for entry level monitors. If your budget won't sustain more than $150, get a good pair of closed-back professional headphones instead - Sony 7506, Sennheiser 280 or HD25 or similar. You shouldn't use them to mix on, good monitors in a decent room are a must for mixing, but they'll be fine for evaluating and cutting sound and dialog. What the heck, you need good cans for monitoring while shooting anyway, right?

Thanks Steve, looks like poor budgeting on my part, and that I may need to go higher - aside from the Behringers, any advice in the $500-$750 range?
Thanks
Greg

The best I know that are closest to your range are the Dyn-Audio BM5A at $1000 a pair. Another contender to listen to would be the Genelec 8020APM at about $750 a pair. There are a number of good monitors in the $750 a pair vicinity from Mackie, m-Audio, KRK, Event, etc but I think if you audition them you'll find the $250 <grin>.

Hi Greg,
You might want to consider the Yamaha MSP3's?
Average at US$149.95 at zzsounds (or your favourite online dealer)
http://www.yamahaproaudio.com/produc...sp3/index.html

Steve,

Just out of curiousity, rather than sticking to a specific price range, which monitors would you consider to be the minimum acceptable by YOUR standards and how much do they run? I'll be buying something eventually, but rather than pick something that fits whatever I can afford at the moment, I'd rather pick something that will do the job and then budget for it, even if it takes a little longer to get it. I'm just getting started with all of this, so I can afford to wait a bit to get something that will work well for me.

Thanks,

Larry

That's hard to say because there's so many different ones on the market, good, bad, and so-so, and I've far from autioned all of them. It's a topic that does have some immediacy for me because I've been shopping for a pair myself for some time now and finances have been tight the last little while so I still haven't purchased. Price isn't the sole indicator because to my ears, for example, a pair of Yorkville Sound monitors selling for $500 Canadian sounded better than a pair of KRK's that were $300 more. The best bet is to get a set of CDs togther representing material that you both know well and have a good idea what it SHOULD sound like and audition, audition, audition, looking for the cleanest and most accurate sound. I pretty well ended up with a short list of DynAudio BM6, Genelec 8030, Genelec 1029, DynAudio BM5 and finally have decided on a pair of JBL Pro LSR4326 with the accessory room equalization kit - the pair plus room kit lists about $1400 USD, right at a little over a kilobuck from B&H and right in the middle of the range defined by the above list. They have a good balance for both music and dialog and are very clean with no really pronounced colouration or distortion to my ears. In fact, they compared very favourably with the Dynaudio BM6 and a pair of K&H monitors running 4 times their price. The JBL 4328s also sounded great but I don't have room for them. Had the money coming in last November and was just a couple of days away from placing my order when some unexpected car repairs came up that ate up all the cash I'd earmarked for monitors so it'll be another couple of months. Bwaahhhh!

My particular audition package included Doug Spotted Eagle's "Tenaya", the John Dunbar Theme from "Dances with Wolves", Soundtrack to "Moulin Rouge", Diana Krall "The Girl in the Other Room", and Kraftwerke's "Tour de France" plus some excepts from audiobook readings for dialog and some clips from the original masters of a chorale performance that fellow forum member Dan Keaton was kind enough to send me a while back, if that gives you some idea as to the type of material I used to compare the various speakers.

How much are ElectroVoice Sentry 100EL these days?

Regards,

Ty Ford

Just did a quick google, Ty, and it looks like the few listings there are price them around $995 each.

Thanks Steve,

Your comment about finding the money once you hear the speakers is right on.

The dynaudio are good and I like the mid level ADAM as well. The K+H 0110 I tried last year were also very nice, but needed a sub,
http://www.atlasproaudio.com/kh.html

Then these:http://www.mackie.com/products/hr824/index.html

I have a real problem with anyone who wants low cost (and presumably accurate) anything when "low cost" just doesn't get you there.

Do you want your audio to sound "low cost?"

Regards,

Ty Ford

I know some composers who are using Sky monitors and love them. Just another option...

Alright, you could spend thousands of dollars on speakers and you would get really great, acurate speakers and I would agree with anybody in saying that. That said, this guy wants audio monitors for a video editing set-up, not for mixing feature soundtracks or for recording a cd. Am I correct in saying this Greg?

Bottom line, I have been in a few pretty high end facilities and I have never really seen high end monitors in any video editing suite. There is a reason for this, video editors aren't audio engineers (typically anyway). So a price range between $500-$750 seams like a good price range that will get you a pair of speakers that you might find in a lot of respectable suites out there.

I think a general rule to go by, especially if you have a small room and are only doing video, is to look at the smaller speakers in your price range. A lot of good models have been mentioned here. I have been curious about the blue sky monitors myself. For the money, I like the JBL lsr6325p. They should be around $600 a pair and would be great for video work. The Genelec 8020s are about the same size, but a bit more expensive. If you don't want to spend that much, go to your local guitar center or sam ash or anyother store that sells pro audio gear (go to all of them if you please) and check out what they have, but give a lot of monitors a serious listen before you buy any. You should be able to get by with a decent pair of headphones and a good set of speakers for video work at a reasonable price.

Good luck

Even for cutting video you still need to be able hear critically exactly what's going on. Not just what's being said, but the characteristics of the sound. While the OP may not be cutting a feature or making a commercial CD, he still needs to be able to evaluate the sound quality in detail, hear subtle qualities in the background ambience, match the voice tonality between different takes in a scene, match the tonailty of different takes recorded at different times and perhaps even with different mics (medium 2-shots recorded with a shotgun on a boom intercut with closeups recorded with the mic closer to the speaker or even with a lav instead of a shotgun), hear what's happening when the cut occurs in mid sentence (Does the voice quality match on either side of the cut? Is the room tone and ambience identical on either side of the cut?), evaluate levels and hear any flaws like clipping etc. and the list goes on. We may not need $5000 each monitors tailored for music mastering or of the sort used for mixing down and mastering the THX soundtrack on a theatrical release of 'Starwars' but just clearly hearing the words in the dialog isn't anywhere near enough either.

I'm confused, are you trying to disagree with me. My only point is that a theatrical mix and music mix is different from your average video. This is exactly your point too. So to max out you investment dollars, buy a small monitor that might not go down too low in the frequency range, rather than buying a large one and you'll be able to hear the kinds of things that you are talking about. Given that, there are plenty of fine examples in the $500 to $750 range that would fill the bill for Greg. That is my only point.

Listen to the KRK v4s, genelec 8020s, Adam artists, jbl 6325s, etc. etc. etc. etc. All perfectly respectable speakers. On the low end, the Yamaha msp5s are very nice. Just go out and listen to as many pairs of speakers as you can. Just don't worry about deep bass, unless you intend for viewers to play back on a high stereo or are planing for a theatrical release.

Wasn't really disagreeing with your post, just wanted to clarify for the benfit of other readers more than anything else. All too often we hear "it's only dialog so you don't reallt need high quality speakers." I'll agree with your list of speakers that deserve an audition, wit the possible exception of the KRK's. I don't have the model numbers handy right now but I auditioned about 4 different KRK models and I have to confess I wan't very impressed by them - they all sounded very harsh to my ears, especially when A/B'd with the likes of Mackie's 624 and 824 or the Genelec.