A few points:

The Mackie HR824's which are the monitors that I use have a total of 250 watts of rms power built into each speaker which means a total of 500 watts for both cabinets. More than enough for most applications. Especially at around 85 db. I can get them pumping out over 105 dB SPL without the slightest sign of distress. Is that OK enough for you Mike? If you read the blurb on the Mackie site they do a lot to match the power amps to the drivers, active crossovers etc (IMO sound way better than passive crossovers working at high power) something that cannot be done with passive monitors and power amps.

I tend to agree with Danny that a lot of modern powered active monitors are excellent and have huge amounts of power. Perhaps Mike is thinking a little old fashioned and is not fully acquainted with a lot of current active speakers. I get to hear many. I am a Hi Fi enthusiast from way back and had 2000 watt power amps driving monitors so I know what that sounds like and it is good. But many modern day active speakers can rival that sound. That is what I am hearing anyway.

I know many cannot do this but putting the speakers away from the walls and on concrete stands make a huge difference. The bottom end has been transformed when I did this. Way less colouration and less distortion. Explain that one! Mids and highs sound different too as a result of the low end changing as much as it did. Like getting a new speaker! 

I also spend a lot of time mixing way down low in volume on a small mono speaker. This does not need a 2000 watt power amp to drive it. This will have more impact on your mixes than anything else in your studio. 

As I have always said listening to quality reference material in your environment takes the room and the speakers out of the equation big time. 

My car has an amazing system. It has complete control over the EQ but it is the bass end that I find the most useful especially in mastering situations. When I get the bass in my mastered sound the same as ref material bottom end in the car the clients go crazy over my mastering. So the car can be very useful. Do not rule it out.

Do NOT use the headphone outputs from anything to drive important and accurate monitor speakers. It is not wise. Reason. Most gear will shove the signal through some quite poor quality headphone driver circuit to just get the job done eg: driving phones. That headphone amp won't be great. You are limiting the final quality of your monitored sound to the quality of that silly little headphone amp. Use you main outputs from your interface to do that job through some sort of monitor controller if you don't have one. 

Hi Jeff,
 I went over to the Mackie website and saw something in the description that reminded me of that thing that Mackie does... that I'm not fond of.

 Here it is in a nut shell:

 "... we know how to make good-sounding amps. Using surface mount components"

 from: http://www.mackie.com/pro...amped_Amps_Detail.html

 I've got a few Mackie boards... the surface mount component construction made them incredibly feature packed yet incredibly affordable... and the surface mount technology has made them a service night mare. So, my older mackie boards have things that simply don't work anymore because it's cheaper to get a fresh board than pay someone to work with surface mount repair.


 I probably shouldn't have gone over and read up about the Mackie amp construction.  :-)


 best regards,
mike

mike_mccue


I have never figured out why people "can not" move their speakers away from the walls.


all the very best
mike

There are lots, lots of good reasons for many (most?) hobbyists.
For example: they don't have a dedicated studio room. If I move my loudspeakers (that means the table as well) two feet from the wall, I block the door. The table is in the only thinkable place in the room.
 
I'd say, if we talk about an average room that is also used for "normal living", not being able to position the loudspeakers properly ( far enough from walls) is more like a rule than an exception.

The Williamson is a great amp but there are some real issues now though. (BTW we had all these issues in the late 70's so how hard is it going to be today!)The output transformer is unusual and not available off the shelf from what I know. We had to get a transformer manufacturer to wound them for us! But they would only make 10 not 2 so I had to convince 4 others to do it. I was successful. 

The power transformer is a bit of a weird one too. The plate voltage is 500 Volts! with several amps behind it. You need a special power transformer to get those sort of secondary voltages. Some of us used valve rectifiers but I think I might have used a solid state rectifier. Try getting a rectifier to handle 500 volts at several amps. Not easy. Also the filter capacitors had to handle 500V DC. Also not easy. We had to import 630 V caps from Phillips in Holland. The guys that did use the valve rectifier also had to get a pretty hefty inductor choke made as well for the power supply. All not easy.

Then there are the KT66 valves in the output stage. I worked in Foreign Affairs at the time in the area of coding our messages into secret codes that other countries could not understand. The gear then used KT66's would you believe and we had a storeroom full of them. We also had an expensive valve tester so I could get matched pairs out of the stock. We were going over to transistors at the time in our coding technology so the valves were starting to become redundant. I managed to smuggle 10 matched pairs of valves out of there without being detected. I had the highest security clearance at the time so we did not have to show out briefcases to the security guys on the way out!. Just as well.

And you want to do all this for just a 40 or 50 watt per channel amp that could could you warm on a cold day! It did look good though. We had all our chassis made especially, punched and chrome plated. It did look pretty serious in the end.

But the sound, well OMG comes to mind! But later we found the Carver to be very close in its detail and incredible top end. I think the Carver guy designed all the Crown stuff originally and that was very good too. A class A valve amp is like driving down the highway with the engine at 7000 rpm and using the clutch to control your speed! When you want something to happen just so super fast the valve amp is already running at full power ready to act on it quickly!

I did have Quad electrostatics for a while there but crossed over to a sub and that was driven from a powerful solid state amp. The low damping factor of the transistor amps had a much better low end response especially when you want the woofer to stop moving!

Sorry to be going off topic but Mike and I enjoy talking about Hi Fi. But you know there is some merit in all this. Firstly I had what you could probably call the ultimate system but when the Carver power amp came out in the early 80's it was the first transistor amp to even come close to the Williamson. Every transistor amp previously was simply destroyed by it! We did some very controlled A/B tests back then. I even designed a built a special switcher that could switch input and outputs to and from two power amps. Not easy considering the valve amp could not have an open circuit!

But the Carver came along and replaced the Williamson (all 600 watts of it too!) and then later modern day active monitors came along and matched the sound I was hearing previously from tens of thousands of dollars worth of speakers and amps. It can and has been done.

The one thing I did keep from that era was my turntable. A special Hi Fi Technics direct drive with expensive arm and Shure V15 type III pickup which now requires $500 to replace the stylus with the real thing! I also have a very expensive RIAA preamp to die for too. Put those things together and you really have something that still sounds amazing. Dark Side of the Moon still sounds jaw dropping on this setup.

On room measurement software, this one is GREAT and FREE! The waterfall plots are really interesting too as it lets you see not only where your peaks and troughs are, but what your resonance time is like at certain frequencies. Allows you to alter absorption amount and type in your room to get closer to a uniform reverb response.

http://www.hometheatershack.com/roomeq/

droddey


Well, it's not free if you want to be conscientious. He's asking for donations and if you use it you should donate.

Is that not the case with pretty much all freeware? They all give you the option to donate if you wish. But it's not a requirement. Thus it's free. As a side note, you may wish to make a donation. This is purely optional. Regardless, it's still free..

That's great news John!!!

It seems like you should use the headphone jack for your headphones and your rear outputs for your speaker system.

That is how everything was engineered to be hooked up and that will offer the best match for each.

Thanks for sharing the info.

best regards,
mike

Headroom..... it's all about having headroom. This has been something I have been aware of for decades now when it relates to amps and speakers no matter where they are used. It was important in our band PA, it was important in car stereo sound, and even more so now in a studio situation. 

Mike's post #31 above said it well.  Not much needs to be added to that statement.  You want that power, not for the sake of power and volume, but the ability to have that power control the speaker cones effectively.  Head room. 

Insufficient power to the speakers results in cones not being moved properly and the result is distortion and clipping when the amp tries to reproduce those notes. Mostly the bass and kick. If you are having to run the volume knobs on the monitors up above 75% to get listening levels right, you are either deaf or your amps are under powered. 

On my MR-5's and my sub, there are level controls. On the MR-5's I have them set to the 50% detente point. Then, in the DAW, I link the masters and pull my master faders down to about 50% while working.  It's only when I hit the last few run listens to the mix before export and calling it done, that I slide the master faders up to "0"  


A side note on headphone monitoring. There are times when I have to monitor with headphones. Later at night, when my wife is watching TV or taking a nap, and of course, when recording with mics.  My saffire has plenty of outputs on the back .... but I'm thinking you can use a signal splitter to do the same if you don't have enough outputs. I plug my stereo system into the saffire outputs (7&8) and I can listen through the stereo if I choose..... which I never do..... or I can use the stereo as a nice headphone amp.....which I used to do all the time. I have since purchased a headphone amp to allow for 4 sets of headphones to be used when I record singers here in the studio. 

Using a splitter cord might work. You can try it. It should not hurt anything.....The only downside issue would be that when you plug in the second device that gets fed from that splitter... it might end up loading the output a bit more and will cause a signal loss of some amount. 

Nothing is free.  

In my case...I mentioned that I have a 4 output headphone amp...... here's why.... I needed to use 2 different model headphones in a session a while back.  Knowing the stereo, which I used at the time for the headphone amp had plenty of power, I employed a "y-cord" splitter.  The original headphone level dropped when I plugging in the second set, and the new set I plugged in had a difference impedance and the levels were much lower in it. turning the volume up on the stereo amp, simply introduced distortion. either set alone was good, and clean. together, they did not share the split signal very well. Together, they ended up loading the headphone amp outputs too much. 

Best case... it works fine and life goes on. Worst case it has some sort of issue which has no reasonable work around. If the second situation ends up being the case..... I would simply swap cables when you need to..... Label them and let them lay behind the interface. What's it take.... 5 seconds to swap a pair of cables? 



add: or buy an interface with more outputs on the back.

monitors:

i personally prefer passive speakers, with a separate amplifier.

but i'm just that way..
my guitar rig is the same, tube head, separate cabinets, no combos.

reason:

if the amp goes bad in one channel, you'r down on your entire rig.

if a separate system amplifier goes down, you can always rent beg or borrow another amp until you get the broken one fixed.

also, it's cheaper to ship an amp to get fixed, than it is to ship an entire speaker cabinet with the amp built into it.


also, suppose you really like your amp, but decide you're ready to upgrade to another set of monitors?

also, no matter how well they say things are shielded inside the cabinet, any scientist can tell you that  proximity to electric and magnetic fields are going to have SOME kind of effect.


to me, it's just easier to keep them all separated.

the problem with that, most recently, is that there just aren't that many really good passive systems anymore, most manufacturers have moved to a powered setup, because they know they've got you by the short hairs.

This is what I bought for the headphones....  http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/AMP800.aspx

I think it was around $50 or so.... 

JD1813


Oh, one techie question tho, for anyone --   and this is an area I am very ignorant about also --   the cabling I had to use from the Monitors into the Edirol box, was 1/4" (from the Alesis amp)  to RCA (on the Edirol).   I am fairly sure that it's this cabling that introduces some annoying hum over the monitors.  I used cheap radio shack cables cause they actually had ones that went from 1/4" mono, to RCA at the other end.   Should I be looking for like gold-tipped or specially-shielded cabling to try to get that hum under control?   Should I be looking at brands like monster cables for this connection?   It would be nice to get rid of that hum, although it definitely did not stop me from getting a really good monitor of the mix.   I don't notice the hum at all when it's playing; only during pauses or when it's stopped, do I hear that bad hum.   I can find no other electrical interference nearby to account for it.   That's why I suspect the cables.  

What you are seeing is the effects of an unbalanced connection.. most studio monitors support xlr/TRS inputs in addtion to RCA and it would be a solid upgrade to move your audio path to a balanced signal chain.
 
In the meantime, the pursuit of hum is part science, part detective and mostly annoying.. but replacing cables of a similar connection type isnt going to solve it... take a hard look at your power distribution system and grounding scheme.. a pwer conditioning strip is a good investment, hum eliminators can work in cases of noise injection into a system from outside sources, and DI boxes can fix a single connection.

I have to use RCA phonos to my NAD amp, and using a balanced cable with a adaptor (1/4" to RCA phono) presents no noise at all. I bought all my stuff from Sweetwater and use their lifetime cables (I have used Monster cables for stuff before - RCA phono to RCA phono - they can go bad also sometimes with a tight connection and pulling on them - and I use thick gauge wire to go to the speakers - because it is actually AC power which are monster cables in the end) and all of that except for maybe the adaptor can be bought from them, and I bought a maybe (I forget without looking at it) a Power strip (to clean up the electrical power going to anything including the stereo amp and computer) probably a Monster again although Furman may be better from Sweetwater also. Works well enough to not have noise or anything because electrical power coming in can be dirty and noisy and and the power conditioner gets rid of all that and all of that stuff with the balanced cables to the stereo or powered monitors whatever is used and such. If crossing cables from the stereo or powered monitors cross a electrical power cable it should be at right angles to each other or kept away from it all together.