DPTrainor


Hope this is appropriate forum for this question.  I am looking at Active Studio Monitors.  Many vendors to choose from, M-Audio, Presonus, JBL, on and on and on.  My price range is $500 +/-,  Looking for recommendations.  I imagine this is subjective and/or biased, but some guidance would be helpful.  Thanks, in advance.

What is your room setup like-Size, ceiling height, stuff in the room, etc....   This is stuff that will help with recommendations

DPTrainor

I imagine this is subjective...

You need to spend as much time as possible listening before buying and eventually choose something that you believe you can live with.  Sometimes a particular speaker (Tannoy) sounds impressive initially but becomes tiresome after a while.  Sometimes you check out a particular model that lots of people have recommended (Yamaha) and find that it sounds awful to you, even with some of your favourite music playing through it.  Personal preference plays a large part.

I agree with Digi2ns

The best monitor for you is a mix of the monitor, your room and the type of music you record.  If you have a big room and are mixing hip hop or club stuff you will want to hear the deep bass, but if you have a small room and are recording acoustic stuff a 5" monitor may be better!

Andy

Yes, thanks guys.  Andy, I have a rather small room (5' x' 9') with high ceilings.  Its an office at entry way of my condo, with built-in desk and shelves in back.   Thats where I work on mixing. Its a tight fit, not ideal.  When band members come come for recording, we do it in living room.  Music is mostly "Americana"  with Acoustic/Electric Guitar, Vocals, Bass and Drums.  

Lots to choose from in that price range per pair. 

I picked up a pair of Mackie MR-5's with 5" drivers. I believe I paid about $300 for the pair. I would recommend that if you get something in the 5" range to add a sub to the system. I grabbed a 10" 100w sub for around $250. 

That set up would put you slightly over the budget of $500 but, I didn't add the sub until about a year after I had the MR-5's.  I saved the money until I found a nice sub on sale and then I grabbed it.


E-bay may be a good place to start looking for a deal. It changes all the time so check there often until you find the right deal at the right price.....don't forget to calculate the shipping costs into your total price.....

Hey Dan,
     +1 on the Yamaha HS80M's.  I just traded in my KRK V8's with a 12" sub for a pair of these and am not looking back (the krk's originally cost almost $2000) and my only regret is that I cannot go back in time and pick the Yamaha's over the KRK's on my original purchase.

     The HS80M's are going for $249 a pair EACH (sorry) from a few vendors on Amazon and Guitar Center was more than happy to price match down to $240 each from their price of $349.

     I'm still finding my sweet spot with them so I haven't any mix I'm willing to post yet, but what I've done so far translates much better, with a lot less EQ work, than anything I did with the KRK's.

     Don't get me wrong, the KRK's sounded great.  And that was the problem, for mixing, you don't want monitors that sound great but monitors that sound accurate.  It is up to you to make your mix sound great. 

     One other thing is that the Yammies have got plenty of volume to tick off your condo-neighbor's if you wanted to.  I usually mix at an SPL of 85db and had to set the monitor trims to a little less than half at 11:00 to get to that level.


      Just my nickel's worth of insight.

I work with the  Yamaha hs 80 m here and it´s a gift for the money.
This monitor´s have a flaw, and this is the bass area under 200 Hz. 
It takes a long time to get a routine in mixing the bass area with this speaker. For me it´s OK, but I´m recording and mixing Rock aso with handmade bass .
If you are creating EDM or so, the HSM 80 are defiinitely to washy imo.

If I had the choice again,
I would buy the Yamaha MSP 5 or 7, which are overall much better   
monitor´s then the HSM´s imo. If you have the change to hear them,
  take the opportunity.   


Good luck
Pragi

Might as well put one more plug in for the Equators.  I have a small room, and I must admit that having slightly smaller monitors (I went from 6.5 woofers to 5") has really helped.  there is much less crap flying around in my room, and what I originally perceived as a lack of low end seems to be a simply more focused, and therefore easier to work with, low end.

I am very, very happy with the D5s.  The more I work with them the more I love them!

DPTrainor


Yes, thanks guys.  Andy, I have a rather small room (5' x' 9') with high ceilings.  Its an office at entry way of my condo, with built-in desk and shelves in back.   Thats where I work on mixing. Its a tight fit, not ideal.  When band members come come for recording, we do it in living room.  Music is mostly "Americana"  with Acoustic/Electric Guitar, Vocals, Bass and Drums.  

Wow That is a small room.


One thing I would say is dont loose focus on what your doing.  Keep the mixing and the tracking seperate in your thought process.


Your concerns in this post are with monitor selection.  Im not sure anything to powerful would be a good choice in a room that small.  I would assume a 5" to 6 1/2" woofer would be plenty to keep from saturating the room with sound bouncing everywhere.


Are you able to add acoustic treatment to it?  Id think that would be very important in your situation at this time adding good monitors.

Yes, I am in a "closet" so to speak.  It is what it is.  But, it has a nice built-in desk space where I have two LCD displays.  And built-in shelves above to place studio monitors.  Yes, I can add sound damping material on walls as needed.  This is the situation / compromise that I have to deal with.   I have been searching web and found this one possible choice:  Focal CMS40 small near-field monitor, that seems to have got plenty of good reviews on Web. Given tight space, this may be one good choice?  Little bit more than what I wanted to spend, but, given small space, may be appropriate?

   http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/CMS40/

And also use headphones as well when mixing down to evaluate low end frequencies?