Active Monitors - Please Advice

[Guest nickko]

hi to all,

please,

i need your kind advice on a pair of active monitors i am looking to buy.

my friend and sound engineer adviced me to buy without any hesitation a pair of avantone active mixcube.

he explained me many technical things about those monitors but i am afraid to say that i do not understand why these monitors are so special.

please can you tell what those monitors offer with simple words ?

ok, i know that it is dificult to choose by your own an active monitor system but i beleive that are some basic guidlines i must follow.

i know also that krk makes some really interesting monitors like the rockit 5.

please, kindly advice and let me have your comments.

have a good afternoon.

[john]

A huge amount depends on what active speakers you go for, digital or analog, what exact benefits you get.

At it's simplest with active monitors you do not need to buy a separate impedance matched amplifier, or any cabling between them. Additionally you reduce the opportunity for noise to corrupt your audio signal due to that cabling. With digital active speakers the entire signal path can be digital right up to your speaker inputs, which hugely reduces the amount of noise reaching your ears. That additional clarity can really help pinpoint issues with the mix and reduces the chances of you wasting time treating issues that are in fact caused by your monitoring set up.

As to what to go for... what budget are we talking?

[Guest nickko]

hi again,

many thanks for your quick responces dear friends.

the avantone active monitor system was reviewed in the sos (sound on sound) uk magazine.

i don't know if i can post direct link to that review but do a search for avantone sos review and you will find the exact review.

yes, i know about the basics for the active monitors but those avantone have some special benefits especially with mixes.

ok, i trust my sound engineer friend but it is a much better i think to have as many possible answers and advices from members like you.

please, let me give you some more details about the music i compose/create.

for the moment i am working with sony acid music studio 6 and magix music suite and i use a lot of samples.

i can say that i am an electronic musician or better saying i want to be an electronic musician.

for the moment i use for monitoring my trusty pioneer pro headphones sem-550 special edition and cost me three years ago 100 euros second hand.

yes, i know that it is dificult to mix with headphones but because i am working with samples i think that i can manage to do a proper mix.

please, you can download some tracks i have uploaded some time ago in the song -critique under the title tea and rain (newer) and tea and apples (old), i think tea and apples music can be found on page 7 or 8 in the forum song-critique.

my budget is up to 500 euros which is about uk pounds 450.

i hope to give an idea about what i am looking for but please again check those avantone monitors because i reply on any sos reviews since i dicovered the magaizine four years ago.

i forgot to tell you that i want to buy also an audio interface, the tc electronic konnect or the motu 8pre only for monitoring purposes.

thanks again for your kind replies.

Edited January 26, 2012 by nickko

[TapperMike]

Go back before it swallows you whole. Just kidding.

A good monitoring setup should sound tolerable for anything you throw at it. Home stereo systems and speakers can color the sound by "enhancing" regions of the sound spectrum. And while all speakers and amplification systems color sound to a greater or lesser degree you don't want that type of coloration when handling a mix. This is due to the fact that coloration can hide things that an engineer needs to hear. When you mix it's time to take off your musician ears and put on your engineer ears. Sometimes a 3db boost or cut here or there doesn't sound apparent in a home speaker system but sounds overt in headphones or a car stereo situation.

A few things people don't quite get when choosing speakers is room size. Even with near field speakers a large room with under powered speakers is a bad idea. Same goes for a small room with huge speakers. Now here is the kicker. If you are into dnb or dubstep and have a small room and speakers to match your aren't going to get the natural bass response one would expect working with subs. Like in those obnoxious super car radio's. There is a tendency to push the bass frequencies up to get some "thump" Well that can spell disaster when someone running subs listens to the mix or someone listening to the mix on headphones. Everything will turn to mud or disappear. There is no such thing as a deep, deep, heavy loud bass with a fast attack.

So when you get your monitors. Get used to them first. Do a lot of listening to a wide variety of music. It will help you adjust your ears to the speakers. While you are doing all that listening try to do side by side with the same song and different environments. This is how you learn the characteristics of your monitors.

[Triode]

Avantones are a remake of the classic Auratone speaker. They have a single speaker driver in each unit where most speakers have two to cover the whole frequency range (high sounds and low ones). The result is that they have a narrow range of frequencies which is helpful for making your mixes work on crappy portable radios but not much good for hearing whether the music is going to sound decent on a hi fi. One single Auratone was often used to monitor the whole mix in mono through one speaker cone.

"Active" means there is an amp in each speaker so you don't need an amp. If you're looking for active small speakers you could go for a pair of Genelec 1029's on ebay. Or another good basic set although not active would be a pair of Yamaha NS10's.

[DaveH]

Sorry, don't know anything about the one's he's recommended. I do own a set of KRK 6" though. Picked them up a little over 3 years ago....very pleased! Hopefully someone else will chime in here, sounds as if your friend has a lot of techincal knowledge about the one's he's recommending. Good luck!

Tom

I've been using the KRK's also

 

Sound great