Studio monitors for my Eleven Rack

[richpjr]

I was originally going to go for a FRFR speaker (like a QCS K8) for my Eleven Rack, but have changed my mind and am looking for a set of studio monitors. I currently have a set of JBL LSR2325's hooked up and they sound decent at low volumes, but really don't have much volume or bass. These will be primarily used for playing my guitars through the 11R and listening to music - very little mixing work. Price is always a consideration. Though I am pretty flexible on price, I'd prefer not go up into the Adam A7 range if I can avoid it. I really only have a Guitar Center near me to listen to anything at and their selection is pretty limited, so it's tough to audition much. This will be used in an untreated 12x12 office, for what that is worth. So any suggestions? KRK RP6G2? RP8? Yamaha HSM80? Mackie MR8mkII? Or ???

[Dr Git]

I have KRK 8's and used it with my 11Rack and axe FX, and like it....still do today minus the 11R as the Axe Fx was all i needed
http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p113/drgit57/DSCF2859.jpg

[weshunter]

i have yamaha HS50's and i really like them for monitoring in general, including the 11R

[richpjr]

i have yamaha HS50's and i really like them for monitoring in general, including the 11R

Do you have a sub with them? Some of the online reviews referred to them as sort of shrill and fatiguing - I take it that isn't your experience?

[Den]

I'm using Yamaha HS80M's with my Axe-FX and they sound awesome!

[richpjr]

I'm using Yamaha HS80M's with my Axe-FX and they sound awesome!

How are they for listening to casual music?

[Snap]

A studio engineer friend of mine just bought a pair of the Yamaha HS80's and they sound great. Good bass response and they seem a little less mid-rage hyped than the Mackies and a little less muddy than the KRK's.

[weshunter]

I haven't cranked the 50's but in my room, which is bassy, they sound good at medium volume -- when I get a bigger and properly treated room, I might get the sub -- I think the 80's are supposed to have pretty good bass response from what I've read

[weshunter]

They're not great fir casual music listening though

[Den]

How are they for listening to casual music?I use them all day long as monitors for listening to music as I work, and they're great for that as well ... no listening fatigue, no harshness. One of the nice design features is the ability to tune these monitors to your room, so you can set them up to give you what your ears like best. I'm impressed with how much bass these can deliver as well.

[richpjr]

I use them all day long as monitors for listening to music as I work, and they're great for that as well ... no listening fatigue, no harshness. One of the nice design features is the ability to tune these monitors to your room, so you can set them up to give you what your ears like best. I'm impressed with how much bass these can deliver as well.

Okay, this is nice to hear as those were definitely on the short list and not too pricey. Do you have them on a desk or on stands? They will probably be too big for my desk.

[Den]

Okay, this is nice to hear as those were definitely on the short list and not too pricey. Do you have them on a desk or on stands? They will probably be too big for my desk.I have them on the desk about 2' from each side of the computer monitor at an angle facing me which puts the tweeters about the same height as my ears. I set them up on some foam pads to isolate them from the desktop, and then adjusted the settings on the monitors to minimize the bass a bit since they back up to a wall.

If you read the reviews online, I think you'll find a lot of people very happy with these ... and most agree they are a lot of speaker for the money.

[weshunter]

i did a lot of research before i settled on the Yamahas and I feel like I definitely made the right decision

[richpjr]

i did a lot of research before i settled on the Yamahas and I feel like I definitely made the right decision

But you don't agree that they are okay for listening to casual music with?

[weshunter]

well they're okay, but not as good as a decent consumer hifi system

they're built to be honest and revealing - the idea being that you what you mix to sound good on them will sound good on anything - and they do that well. but something like those KRK 8's will make stuff sound good, better than it sounds on other systems. that's not what most people want for monitoring, but for listening, that's exactly what you want.

[mwc2112]

I have the HS80s as well. I would agree with weshunter's assessment. They are pretty decent for casual listening, but that's definitely not their strong point. Sounds great with my AxeFX as well as a few software modelers I've tried (namely S-Gear and Amplitube 3).

[richpjr]

well they're okay, but not as good as a decent consumer hifi system

they're built to be honest and revealing - the idea being that you what you mix to sound good on them will sound good on anything - and they do that well. but something like those KRK 8's will make stuff sound good, better than it sounds on other systems. that's not what most people want for monitoring, but for listening, that's exactly what you want.

I think I need to go spend some time auditioning them. My needs are kind of conflicting - I won't be doing much mixing, so something that sounds better for casual listening is a plus. But I want it to sound good with my Eleven Rack, so that goes the other way!

[richpjr]

So I had a chance to do a real quick audition on some of the monitors today at GC.

I tried the HS80m and man, those were painful to listen to music through! Very forward and way too bright. Now the source was just ACC files from my iPhone so they weren't exactly audiophile material, but it was music I know very well. I know they weren't tuned for the room and the room layout itself sucked, but for something I am going to be doing a lot of casual listening with in addition to playing on the 11 Rack, it was kind of disappointing. Perhaps my brain just needs to get used to them (again, I'll be doing very little mixing on them)?

They had the M-Audio CX-8 on sale (clearance?) for $199 each. I had high expectations for them as the few reviews I had seen of them were pretty good, and that was at the old price. With the price drop they seemed like a steal. They weren't set up so the guy at GC opened one up. Something was clearly wrong with it, as soon as he cranked it up it got real distorted sounding. He opened up another one and it had a blown speaker - from the factory! 0 for 2 killed off my enthusiasm for those.

I was running out of time so I did a quick listen to the KRK RP6G2. Those were decent sounding and reasonably priced - not exactly high end audiophile but easy to listen to, but not much of an upgrade to the JBL LSR2325 as far as sound quality, though they did get much louder - something I want.

I quickly tried the new Mackie MR8mkII and those pleasantly surprised me as I had heard so so and flat out bad reviews on the old versions. They seemed a little "darker" than the other monitors and mildly boomy, but I didn't spend much time on them.

I was messing around in my last few minutes, switching back and forth between the monitors listed above and suddenly I heard musical nirvana. I was wondering how the KRKs suddenly sounded so good when I realized I had accidentally selected the Dynaudio BM5A MKII's! Damn, if only I didn't have two kids in college! :( I could stretch the budget to pick them up, but that would really kill the discretionary fund!

I will go back again when I have more time and bring a high quality CD, but they really don't have a huge selection at the one near me. I am still confused - pony up a lot more money to move up in class or...

[KarlH]

As someone who sold a pair of ADAM 7s to fund a guitar purchase, and now owns the Yamaha 80s, I have to say the Yamahas sound pretty damn good when using the 11 rack. The ADAMs, while had a clearer soundstage, aren't as good as the Yamahas for a big guitar sound when just jamming on the 11r.

IMO, YMMV.

[Snap]

Umm... If studio monitors give you a clear enough picture to mix then they are definitely good for "casual listening", whatever that is.
A flat, accurate representation of sound is normally what most people should strive for unless one is under the impression that all music is supposed to sound like a smiley face EQ from a Bose system?

Also, it's probably good to reference or audition monitors with songs that you know very well in WAV quality format.

[richpjr]

Umm... If studio monitors give you a clear enough picture to mix then they are definitely good for "casual listening", whatever that is.
A flat, accurate representation of sound is normally what most people should strive for unless one is under the impression that all music is supposed to sound like a smiley face EQ from a Bose system?

Also, it's probably good to reference or audition monitors with songs that you know very well in WAV quality format.

I will definitely go back when I have more time and bring some high quality reference material to audition them with. I get the accurate representation, but to my amateur ears, the HS80s were borderline painful to listen to. Very bright, almost to the point of being shrill. I will give them a long listen as an awful lot of people with much more knowledge and probably better ears then I have are very high on them. Having said that, when I accidentally selected the Dynaudios, there was nothing unpleasant about them at all...

[alp]

I will definitely go back when I have more time and bring some high quality reference material to audition them with. I get the accurate representation, but to my amateur ears, the HS80s were borderline painful to listen to. Very bright, almost to the point of being shrill. I will give them a long listen as an awful lot of people with much more knowledge and probably better ears then I have are very high on them. Having said that, when I accidentally selected the Dynaudios, there was nothing unpleasant about them at all...

I wonder if the tiny switches on the back panel of HS80's were set to noon. Before HS80's, i had M-Audio BX8's and found them too bright as you have described. It was a nice move to go from BX-8 to HS80 for me. I have much more listening pleasure now.

On the other hand, studio monitors are not/shouldn't designed to sound good at all. Let me say that my cheap home stereo gives much more listening pleasure, also when i monitor my Eleven Rack through that, it is much more amp like, easy to tweak etc. But the point is, patches i tweak through my home stereo do not always sound right on HS80's but patches i tweak on HS80's are always safe when monitoring through cheap home stereo.

[richpjr]

So guitar center has HS80Ms on special - buy one get the second for half price. That comes out to $524 for a pair - mighty tempting to jump on a pair, especially with their return policy.

[weshunter]

If you get the yamahas and then you make 11r sound good, then you can know it really sounds good - one way to think of it is that the yamahas are honest - dial them in and you'll really have a good sound

[shasha]

I'm of the same exact opinion and went with the HS80M's as well. I auditioned everything they had at GC several times when we were doing a voice over studio for a friend of mine. Once we got them set up in his studio I ended up going back and picking up a pair for myself.

What did it for me was that I was able to hear things in songs that I had been listening to for 30 years that I had never heard before. With that said they are not the most pleasant for casually listening to music as others have noted. But for monitoring I don't want something tuned or colored, I want something that I can pick out each instrument in the mix with and gives me a good basis. I thought that the KRK's (this is from memory) were too bassy and boomy and after A/B'ing with everything the Yamahas just stood out as revealing the most of whatever was feeding them.

I have heard people talk about them being too harsh for long listening, but I never experienced that. I don't think that it's my old man ears either; I can hear up to almost 18kHz at about the same volume as people a lot younger than me. It's got to be cranked up and I have to be in the right spot, but my ears definitely work and it hurts really good. ;)

[richpjr]

So I went to GC today and spent some time listening to the HS80Ms and the Mackie MR8mk2. The Mackies surprised me in a pleasant way - much smoother and more balanced than I remember the MR8s being. The guy at GC hadn't listened to then yet (had to open a box and set one up) and he was pretty impressed with how much of an improvement they were over the MR8s. I then spent some time with the HS80s and they are definitely brighter and more forward, but seemed a little less "congested" if that make sense. In the end, the extra detail (and the fact they were on sale) swung me towards the HS80Ms. Can't wait to try them with my Eleven Rack.

[Rod]

I use the KRK 5's and they're great....My music room is small but they have a very big sound ...Don't let the size fool you... They can get very loud and stay clear