Hi all,
 
I had the great privilege of recording my son's 7 piece band all day today and having a friend of mine that is a pro sound engineer  helping with the entire ordeal (I'm just a hobbiest). Things went really well and I'm happy with how the studio and Sonar held up (one crash - mixing not tracking fortunately). I also learned a TON working with my friend - man I love watching pros work. :)
 
I use IK's ARC and my friend was stunned to hear the difference when I turned ARC off. We're going to try a few tests tomorrow taking everything we can out of the signal path, but I really think it's time to move up in monitors. I'm in new territory here. I can justify up to $1000 and it seems there are a ton of options compared to when I bought the Truths (some 5 or more years ago).
 
I plan to head out to Guitar Center for a listen tomorrow, but I'm hoping that my fellow Sonar-ites can offer some advice. I hear good things about the Adams and the A7x is in my price range. So is the Mackie HR924mk2 and the KRK VCT 8. I'm dragging my buddy along for his ears and opinions, but I'm trying to do my homework ahead of time...
 
thanks to any that have an opinion...
 
EDIT: I want to add that the room is heavily treated based on recommendations from Auralex. :) 

Yamaha msp7

It's too confusing.
 
$1000 budget and questions about $1400 speakers.
 
Auralex and room treatment mentioned in the same sentence.
 
Behringer Truth and IK Arc; at least that makes sense.
 
 
 
 
It's a difficult question to answer. What size is the listening room? When you are sitting in it are you listening to the speakers or the room?
 
More importantly what-the-frequency is all that Auralex doing to your impression of the sound? Is it working effectively on the bass resonance? Is it squelching the upper mid range? In other words, does the room sound clean and articulate in the low frequencies or does it just sound sterile and dead in the upper mid and hi frequencies? 
 
My gut feeling is that the Mackies you mentioned will give you the most "good" for the money... but in my personal opinion, you'll get  a better speaker value by buying better speakers than any mentioned yet.
 
 
The thing is, the room may or may not be worth putting great speakers in it. You may find that your current combination is approaching a best case scenario, and throwing $1000 to $1400 at it may leave you wondering why you did so.
 
I think the best advice at this point would be for you to bring home something like the Mackies as demo units (or something in that range) and test them in your room. Beware of having a wow factor reaction and try to imagine how you'll feel 6 months from now. I'd suggest being 100% transparent with the guys at your local store. Tell them you need to take them home and test them before you commit to keeping them. Throw down a deposit and try them out. Try out a few different pairs and see if the speakers really make a difference in your room or if the ARC/Truth combo is working nearly as good for $1400 less.
 
Good luck!!!
 
best regards,
mike
 

F.W.I.W. I have Dynaudio BM5A's. I love them and they fall right at your price point. I agree with what's been said above. Listen to them, drive 'em around the block, kick the tires etc.
 
Rocky

Love my Adam A7X's!!!

I'm happy with my A7's (not the x, also an ARC user), BUT I think Mike has given the best advice.
You might be getting the "best" out of your room now.
Demo it.
Guitar Center this time of year?
You're a brave man...
 
Tom
 

Thank you all for your thoughts!
 
The room is actually a great sounding room - at least from a live playing perspective. The walls are double-layers of drywall hung on channel strips with all seams caulked. I was able to pull off a double-wall on one side of the room. I know this is for sound containment, but I wanted to illustrate the efforts I've put into getting this right.
 
I used Auralex products for all acoustic treatment, and Auralex did all the room analysis for me. I've got a mixture of panels, bass traps, and diffusion. The drum riser is 4x6 construction, ported and filled with insulation, and sits on Auralex U-boats. Doing so really tightened up the kick and kept it in the room. I don't have much more I can do to the room, but I do think I can get more performance out of it as the ARC has shown me.
 
ARC is showing me three problems. I'm getting an artificial boost in the low-mids (around 200 - I'm going by memory here), and a boost in the upper mids. Also the bass just disappears the ARC is fully compensation by boosting a lot of the lower bass frequencies that are just missing in the original plot. Also, and perhaps the biggest concern, my friend pointed out the non-linearity of the speakers. When he would drop the volume, the mix would change. That was his biggest concern and point of consternation.
 
So, I hadn't thought about the idea that perhaps the ARC with the Truths is taking me places where a $1000 pair won't get me out of and that's a concern. However, even I got similar results to the Truth/ARC pair but got more consistent across volumes that would probably be a big help.
 
Again, I appreciate all of the input and I hope this additional information helps (should have included it all in the original post, but I was tired). :)
 

Hi all,
 
Well, I found one source of Mike's confusion. Been so long since I bought monitors that I forgot they are priced per monitor, not in a pair.
 
I took one of my Truths to my friends studio to have a listen and sure enough they just aren't that very good. I wasn't comparing them to his high-end monitors as that's not fair, but then even fell apart compared to his KRK Rockets. Everything just becomes a big blur through the Truths. We then went to GC and tried everything they had. I ended up falling in love with the Adam F7. They apparently weren't a great seller so I got their last new in the box pair for $299 each. The only monitors I liked better were the Adam Xs, but those were $699 a piece (not a pair, damn).
 
I'm going to hook them up tonight and see how they sound...

Hi James,
 I hope you enjoy your new speakers!!!
 
 Happy New Year. :-)
 
 best regards,
mike

Yea, enjoy.  Hope they help w/ the mixes.  Take the time to learn them.
 
@