Along with a video monitor I understand a pair of studio reference monitors for audio is also recommended. Can anyone suggest features I should watch or avoid when choosing a pair? A friend of mine pointed me to Alesis for example; what would you recommend? I'd like to spend up to or around $200 but if I must I'd also consider going up to $300. Thanks for any help in advance.

I've used Alesis for years and they are very good. Mackie http://www.mackie.com/ makes some great monitors also. Speakers need to be listened to. Audition a couple of pairs of reference monitors side by side and pick what sounds good to your ears.

Jeff

Tannoy Reveal is also great monitors for that kind of cash. I have a pair of passive monitors hooked up to my system.

/Henrik

take a look at midimans ..street price 299

http://www.midiman.com/products/m-audio/studiophileSP5B.php

<<<-- Originally posted by Henrik Bengtsson : Tannoy Reveal is also great monitors for that kind of cash. I have a pair of passive monitors hooked up to my system.

/Henrik -->>>

I too have a pair of passive Tannoy Reveals. A very nice pair they are, and look pretty cool too.

I also got a pair of 8-inch Tannoys. Very clean and neutral. Running them off a Hafler amp.

Thanks for the suggestions. I don't know anything when it comes to audio, but will I need some kind of amplifier for passive speakers? I see the M-Audio speakers have a frequency reponse of 48Hz to 22kHz, whereas the Tannoy is 65 to 20. The active monitors from Alesis go from 50Hz to 20kHz. It appears the M-Audio is better in this regard. Other than that simple comparison I really don't know which I should invest in (other considerations to keep in mind for?). Either way it appears I'll have to pay closer to $400 for the monitors and shipping together if I'm not able to find a place locally where I can compare them. Anyone know of a good online retailer for audio equipment?

MusiciansFriend (www.musiciansfriend.com) and AMS (www.americanmusical.com) are both pretty good mail order companies. I've purchased gear from both and have been satisfied. You might also look at the Event 20/20s. They have powered and unpowered versions, and they are very accurate.

MIDIMan

You might try Sam Ash http://www.samashmusic.com/frameset.asp They also have many retail outlets. You might also try Zotz http://www.zotzdigital.com/ one of the sponsors of our community.

Jeff

I agree that the Mackies are very impressive.
However, I prefer the Yorkville YSM1-P. They sell for about
$700 CDN.

-Nori

this month i bought a echo mona card and the midi-man SP 5B speakers from
http://www.audiosyncrazy.com

within 30 min of ordering over phone i was emailed UPS shipping # ....

will be ordering another pair mid JAN for when i go to 5.1 ..yes will buy again from them

what area are you located ? look on midi-man site for local dealer ...

http://www.audiosyncrazy.com/default.asp?id=1557&pageon=Detail+Page&brandon=Midiman-M-Audio&catshown=1&showthumbs=yes&orderby=Model&token=10584

I use Event 20/20's and i LOVE them. Not just for video but for music production and casual listening as well. Tannoy Reveals are also really good.

I suggest you get a pair of POWERED monitors (the powered 20/20's are great), so you don't have to also invest in an amplifier. Unpowered monitors need amplification, powered ones don't. The only problem is that a pair of powered 20/20's costs like 4 or 500 US dollars. But it IS worth it and listening to music on them is soooo much fun :). You will hear things in the high end audio spectrum that you never even knew existed...

Tannoy Reveals are good, Event 20/20bas (powered) are good, Genelec 1029's are great and are powered, JBL also makes some very accurate inexpensive monitors, Mackies are also very good. Alesis M1's are probably the most harsh and least accurate of the bunch (sorry Jeff). DON'T SKIMP!!! If you spend decent money for a camera, NTSC monitor etc. audio is no place to cut corners. I use Genelec 1030a's with a 1092 (2x8) Sub and mix most of my albums on them, it's about a $4500 setup and worth every penny!

If you want a bargain, look for some Tannoy PBM6.5 or K rok's they're not the best but a very good value, as are the reveals. The Tannoy's are about the best bang for the buck.

Keep in mind that the best sounding are not nessasarily the most accurate, and inaccurate speakers will lead to lousy mixes that don't translate worth a crap. It's like using a non calibrated TV to do color reference checks, it may look nice at home but it probably won't translate to other systems that well. That being said, if the spec's are close then go with the best sound.

When looking at frequency response don't forget the most important factor the +/- db rating; for example a speaker that can go from 20hz to 22khz +/- 6db is not going to be as good as a speaker that goes from 40hz to 20khz +/- 2db by a factor of 40!! Because a 1 db increase or decrease in sound is a factor of 10x more!!! A speaker that is rated at 40hz to 20khz +/- 2-3 db (Mackie / Genelec) will be very accurate, outside of that you'll be getting home speakers that will not provide an accurate point of reference.

Also don't let power handeling (wattage) be a concern. Wattage capacity has nothing to do with how good a speaker performs aurally, i.e. a 1200 watt speaker and a 120 watt speaker will perform exactly the same at normal levels (1-20 watts), it has everything to do with how robust the voice coils are. If you are doing live concerts then it's an issue because of the high levels that your speakers are subjected to, and the heat the coils have to dissapate. I have used Yamaha NS10m's that are rated at 80 watts at 8 ohms with a 400 watt per channel (800 watts total) Haffler amp and have never blown them up and they sounded better than ever. If you can get powered monitors DO IT, they save a lot of headaches, and since the amps are built in they are design to be perfectly matched to the speakers.
my 2 cents.
Mark

I use both the SP5's as well as the SP8's from M-audio. They work really well, especially when backed up with sub-woofers. I purchased both models brand new, from Ebay at 100 bucks less than retail. I would recommend M-audio to anyone, especially with a Delta sound card.....VERY low noise floor...lower than the consumer cards like creative or Turtle Beach.

Thanks again - some good audio places suggested here that I'll probably go to for future needs. I shopped with Zotz Digital before, they were very good. I also appreciate the explanation Mark, that's the first time I've heard about the +/- dB. Good to know.

Something else I saw while surfing the 'net was to watch for the crossover specification, specifically for those in the 1.5kHz to 2.0kHz range because of dialogue. What's this mean?

<<<-- Something else I saw while surfing the 'net was to watch for the crossover specification, specifically for those in the 1.5kHz to 2.0kHz range because of dialogue. What's this mean? -->>>

The reason this becomes critical is that the bulk of the frequencies in the human voice falls in the range between 300Hz to 3Khz. A crossover in the 1.5Khz to 2Khz range falls squarely in the middle of the most sensitive area of our voice (and hearing). Unless it's a very good crossover it will cause problems.

Most passive crossovers use heavy filtering to achieve the nessasary crossover frequency. For example; if you are crossing over at say 1.5k then the filter for the low frequency driver attenuates all frequencies above 1.5k at 12 to 18 db per octave. likewise the high frequency driver filter is going to attenuate all frequencies below 1.5k at 12 to 18 db per octave. The problem is that at exactly 1.5k there will either be a slight rise or fall because the filters cannot cut the bands off at exactly 1.5k either accenting or attenuating the most critical frequency in the vocal range.

The best soultion is to look at systems that crossover at lower frequencies, the 120Hz to 800Hz range, they will still exibit exactly the same problems but since it's not in the most critical range it won't be nearly as noticible.

As a last note, the human voice, although relatively limited in range is the single most critical thing we as people hear, it details emotion, fear, love etc. That's one reason it's so hard to synthisize and so important to reproduce correctly, especially in ENG & filmmaking.

Mark

<<<-- Originally posted by Mark Austin : When looking at frequency response don't forget the most important factor the +/- db rating; for example a speaker that can go from 20hz to 22khz +/- 6db is not going to be as good as a speaker that goes from 40hz to 20khz +/- 2db by a factor of 40!! Because a 1 db increase or decrease in sound is a factor of 10x more!!! -->>> I

Just to clarify something; +/- 6db is a 12db range and +/- 2db is a 4db range, so my factor of 40x is incorrect. A factor of 5x is more accurate. Keeping in mind that to go 1db more in volume (twice as loud) requres ten times the amplifier power to reproduce, to go from a ~4db range to a ~12db range is ~8db. 8db x 10(x power required)= you get the picture....

This also applies in the crossover question above; if you only have a +1db rise at the crossover point that's twice as loud as it should be.

Mark
(~ = nominal)

Once again, thanks for the thorough explanations Mark. It's not one hundred percent clear to me yet but I do have a better idea what these specifications mean now, probably the best descriptions I've seen on any forum I've visited.

Finally found someplace that sells high end video and audio gear, going to take the suggestions in this thread and hear for myself which speakers to get. Like many other essentials in this field, I'll probably have to go over my budget.

Like most things in life you get what you pay for. There are some exceptions of course.

There is this weird thing in A/V that I have noticed; once you get a product at a certain level, a camera for example, to get one that is 10 to 20% better you have to spend 100% more?

Good luck on your quest, if you have a good magazine shop nearby look for a copy of Mix magazine, Pro Audio Review, or EQ, they are great resources for in-depth reviews of whats on the pro audio (not audiofile) market these days.
Mark

That was going to be another one of my questions but I'm glad you mentioned some references for reputable reviews.

That extra performance does cost lots more - the price difference is apparent in computing too, like the jump from 2.8GHz (~$400) to the 3.0GHz Pentium 4 (~$700).

Mark,

I just read over this thread and have a question. You state a 1 db change is double the volume. I thought it was a 3db change to double the volume. I'm doing this from memory (20+ years since college) so I'm probably off here. Can you verify?

Jeff

You know you are probably right, I was just pulling the 1db from memory which at this point seems to have failed me....

I just cracked open my dusty copy of The Recording Studio Handbook, John M. Woram; 1982 to be sure, and you are in fact correct.

To paraphrase Mr. Woram; the addition of two sources of equal volume ( 60db + 60db) will result in a percieved two fold volume increase but is actually only measured to be about 3db louder.

Thanks for catching that, I didn't mean to mislead folks. My point is that the difference between 4db & 12db is still pretty substantial.

Mark

(In Texas everything is louder...)

I am using a pair of KRK's...I think they are V6 or something like that....unpowered..they are small, punchy, clean and accurate.....you need a power amp with them . They ran about $300 for the pair, got them at Guitar Center, which is a cool place for buying proaudio gear. Got my mixer there as well.

One of the vendor links provided above was www.americanmusical.com for American Musical Supply. Anyone ever purchase one of their 'Non-factory sealed' merchandise before?

I think is the mail order wing of Guitar Center, if so I'd have no problem using them, great company.
Mark

<<<-- Originally posted by Mark Austin : I think is the mail order wing of Guitar Center, if so I'd have no problem using them, great company.
Mark -->>>

Actually, Musician's Friend is the Guitar Center mail order front. AMS is (for the moment) independent. I did purchase a non-factory sealed keyboard from AMS a few years ago. It still had the full warranty, and I never had a problem with it.

MIDIMan

I think I've decided on a pair of active Tannoy Reveals. I see they're recommended here and elsewhere. Funny how in the end budgets are always doubled. Want to thank everyone for their help and input, and of course more opinions are always welcome.