IMO....
To echo what JR states: it's all about knowing your monitors in your room environ.
jwh:  front bass porting seems much more logical to me to mitigate frequency deceptions during monitoring and mixing.
Personally....I've never treated my room, ever.
I just knew my monitors and how they translated to all appropriate mediums prior to final mix....that's the key to me.

That's my take on it.....carry on.
 

I'm now also looking at the KRK Rokit RP8 G2, one says Bi-Amped Active Monitors
and the other one just says Active Studo Monitors, I think these are ok, but what's the difference ?
(The main reason I'm looking past the Yamahas are the rear bass ports)

Thanks
John   

As has been mentioned, phones and speakers aren't going to sound the same ever.

That is not what I said. I said there should not be a huge difference between the two.

I know all about Ethan Winer. I had a nice long thread some years back where he and I had a nice long chat.

I do have a lot of respect for him. I don't agree with all he claims on room treatment though. Not only its not often possible to treat a room.

That being said the idea that one needs to know their monitors well brings to mind the story of the NS10 example. Many audio engineers in the past would bring their NS10s to a studio because they knew them so well. It didn't matter how the studio sounded but it did matter to them what the monitors sounded like.

I totally agree that one has to know the sound of one's monitors.

This is really not a controversial question...my own ad populum and argumentum ad verecundiam fallacies aside, there's math behind this stuff....

I do know this. We in the Detroit area had a concert hall called Ford Auditorium that was purpose built to have good acoustics.  It didn't. A lot of money was spent through the years to "treat" the problems that it had. None were successful. It was torn down a couple of years ago because it was abandon as useless.  

Some of the very best acoustical engineers in the world worked on it but could not fix it. 
We at the same time had Orchestra Hall built in 1910 which has perfect acoustics. Which now is where the Detroit Symphony Orchestra resides.

Treatment can often help but also sometimes it can't.
If you do a search on this subject you may learn somethings. 

jwh
I'm now also looking at the KRK Rokit RP8 G2,Thanks
John   

I've been getting small over the last couple of years which is why I made the jump to powered monitors after much reading and contemplation.
No more need of a discreet amp which, for me, was a 20 year old, 40# JBL/Urei SR6615.....got a whopping 50 bucks for that old technology.
 
I've sold all kinds of stuff over the last couple of years and very pleased with the KRK's.
Monitor choice is subjective so I would get all the knowledge I could and try to listen before buying if possible.
 
Carry on....

John
 
By saying room treatment won't help is correct if your room doesn't have a cape cod style ceiling in it.
Any really well built studio is not built like a box (like someone's bedroom) due to phantom images.
 
I totally believe that some room treatment works.  I've proved it for myself.  But the room still is not right after treatment (I've also proved that for myself).
 
Lets not forget that some of the best mixes were done on the most crappy sounding monitors for a reason (not because they did not have the money).  But because the general public does not have monitors so why try to mix critical like that in a bedroom. 
 
Why bother? 

Razorwit

John

As has been mentioned, phones and speakers aren't going to sound the same ever.

That is not what I said. I said there should not be a huge difference between the two.

I know all about Ethan Winer. I had a nice long thread some years back where he and I had a nice long chat.

I do have a lot of respect for him. I don't agree with all he claims on room treatment though. Not only its not often possible to treat a room.

That being said the idea that one needs to know their monitors well brings to mind the story of the NS10 example. Many audio engineers in the past would bring their NS10s to a studio because they knew them so well. It didn't matter how the studio sounded but it did matter to them what the monitors sounded like.

I totally agree that one has to know the sound of one's monitors.

This is really not a controversial question...my own ad populum and argumentum ad verecundiam fallacies aside, there's math behind this stuff....

I do know this. We in the Detroit area had a concert hall called Ford Auditorium that was purpose built to have good acoustics.  It didn't. A lot of money was spent through the years to "treat" the problems that it had. None were successful. It was torn down a couple of years ago because it was abandon as useless.  

Some of the very best acoustical engineers in the world worked on it but could not fix it. 
We at the same time had Orchestra Hall built in 1910 which has perfect acoustics. Which now is where the Detroit Symphony Orchestra resides.

Treatment can often help but also sometimes it can't.
If you do a search on this subject you may learn somethings. 

Hi John,
My apologies if it seemed like my comments were aimed at you, that wasn't my intent.  Regarding your points I absolutely agree...other than perhaps the Ethan Winer stuff...his math is pretty good...but that's shades of difference that are probably mostly trivial, particularly on this thread (and Mr. Winer can certainly engage on that without my help ). Ideally phones and mains shouldn't be too terribly different and certainly construction can defeat even the best attempts to treat a room. In fact, bad construction can trump anything...no amount of treatment or room correction EQ gadgetry will ever help some problems.


EDIT: After a quick glance I see why John (the one with the forum ID of John) thought I was responding to him. I was actually intending my previous comment to go to JWH, the OP whose name is also John, not the user with the forum ID of John. Yeesh...this stuff gets confusing.  I am glad that (forum ID) John responded though.


Dean

Dean I think we are all on the same page just a little different nuance. That may be redundant. LOL

This is an issue that I have also experienced in my room. Here are a few thing that I did.  I admit that I am not a pro.  I love recording, its fun and the better I get at it, it seems to motivate me to get even better. because I have a budget like everyone, I really try to save cash if possible, but have also realized sometimes I need spend some cash, but spending it on the right things and identifying thos things sometimes is a challenge for me. :
1) You can go to http://www.auralex.com/praf/default.asp, use their personalized room analyzer. Sketch you room, email/fax to them and they will analyze and send you a recomendation of foam treatment (with Drawings) for free.  You can get the foam from a dealer. I purchased foam from http://www.thefoamfactory.com/acousticfoam/acousticfoam.html for far less than from musical intrument dealers and it made an Immediate positive impact on my mixes.  I spent about $200. My room is small also 10 x 12

2) I use a KRK 10" sub, and a pair of behringer truth monitors.  I originally purchased the behringers a few years ago because I didn't know the difference and they were cheap. However they do sound decent. I am saving for new KRK monitors as we speak. However since the room has been treated, my mixes pretty decent.  I am able to A/B the subwoofer. I can bypass the sub and just hear the monitors alone or hear the monitors with the sub together. I origianlly had issues with the amount of bass in the mix. It was always way to much or way too little before I got the sub.  I loaded a few commercially recorded songs similar to the style of music that I record and adjusted the sub volume to be appropriate for the room (post foam treatment). I saw an immediate improvment and now the amount of bass in my mixes is appropriate.  I have heard many times that using a sub is bad, but it seems to work for me.

3) I am learning as much as I can about proper EQing and shelving. Everytime I apply some of this learning, the mixes get cleaner. And the bass gets more audible/smooth.  (books and magazines are minimal cost, youtube, forums & websites are mostly free).

4) I am going to try the room analyzer just to see if it makes a difference. Its free and it just my time.  I posted on earlier, here is another one: http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?&m=1495170&mpage=1

5) I also have analyzed by power situation in the room to make sure I am am using clean power (power conditioners) and have invested in some high quality cables. Which seems to have eliminated all of hum and buzzing issues that seem to effect low end. This was something I didn't think of in the beginning of my recording hobby.

I am very much a trial and error kind of guy.  I agree my environment is not suited for recording.  Its my spare bedroom!  LOL!! But is all I have, so I have to work with it.  At some point I am going to get a very good pair of monitors maybe that will eliminate my need for the subwoofer.  But i got to admit, after I get a good mix going in the room, I like to crank it up a bit, and the sub is nice and punchy. So i also suffer from the "cool factor" of the sub.  :)

John T


It just struck me that a lot of this comes down to a question of what do do first, better monitors or working on the room. I think there are good arguments for either approach. However, in JWH's case, I recall from another thread that the monitors he currently has only go down to about 90hz. On that basis, I'd go for monitors first. But you could make a case either way.
 

Your right on - if you can have the chance down the road to make the environment right.  In my case however I work out of my living room and I doubt my wife will ever let me hang foam from my ceiling (if that would even help). 
 
So I don't consider monitors as part of my final mastered mix (thats what a pro if for as I've stated).  However, I did spend the money to get the best monitors and they did set me back.  So now I'm just giving my two cents of the bigger picture to someone ready to lay down some hard earned $.
 
I just can't see making monitors a priority, say over your sound card or something else of great importance when your on a budget and your in my kind of situation (thinking most people are).
Lets face it High End Monitors are expensive but are they even necessary?  
 
I'm just saying you really need to draw the line to weigh out the final results  of an important investment?

I think seriously high end monitors are possibly not relevant to the average home studio, yeah. But there are big gains to be made for small price jumps in the low to mid budget area. 

A lot of this comes down to how good is good enough? Which is of course a huge and subjectivity riddled question. 

Well, I've made up my mind, I'm going for the KRK Rokit RP8 G2 monitors, at around £400 I think that's not
a bad price. I agree with you John T, how much you spend on monitors is subjective, depending on your disposable income, do you treat your room ? Yes probably, but that will probably cost me about £ 600, luckily the (small) room I have is just for me, and when I showed my wife on my PC, what a treated room could look like, she said, "well it's your room", I suppose some people have garden sheds, I have my room lol.
I'd like to thank everyone for their input, so I'm off now to hit the button on my new monitors, and yes I have had a listen to them in the shop using a ref. C/D, again, thanks for the input guys, cheers

John

jwh.....
 
I think you won't be disappointed.
They are beefy muthers too.
First thing I did was check my own material mixes (coming from JBL4410's - 3 way and rear ported) because I've listened to them ad nauseum over the years.
The mixes translated very well, bass response is where it should be and I did not need to do any re-mixes.
I've grown to like the yellow.<grin>
 
Happy spending....

JWH: yeah, tweaking the room is an ongoing thing. I'm quite lucky in that I've got a fairly good size to work with (roughly 15x22 feet), but there are always issues. I've got some bass traps arriving in a few weeks and I've already got some panels to tame high end reflections. It will never be abbey road, but that doesn't mean it's not viable. 

You've always got to ask yourself what your goal is, I think. Are you trying to make a theoretically perfect studio, or are you trying to get some music done to a releasable quality that hopefully people will like? I recorded a brass section in my place that went out on BBC 6 Music last New Year's Eve. Does that mean it's a totally world class room for recording brass in? Hell no, not even close. But between the room, the gear, and my ability to mix what I record there, I got comfortably past the "good enough" mark. I'm always thinking about things I can do to improve the situation, of course, but I firmly and completely reject any talk of "it's pointless til you X", "I wouldn't spend less than Y" and all of that stuff. This is all incremental (and often exponential). Continuous small improvements really do start to rack up over time, and your understanding and skill grows with it. Taking a few months out to design a perfect studio is fine, if you want to become an acoustician. For someone looking to become a musician / engineer, it's probably something to save for later, and get on with making some music instead.

How do you find the sub? I've been contemplating investing in one. Would you say it makes a significant difference? Or have you not compared with / without?