Hi and merry christmas to all 
I m trying to learn about speaker designing , and understanding studio monitors
, IMO studio monitors are wayyy overpriced , most of them (low and mid price ranges) use some middle class drivers (around 100$) and some active XO and most of them are using lm3886 or some AB class amps , as you go through higher price products , drivers and amps get better but still overpriced IMO , from what I read most of them use well known brand drivers specially made for them but of course by specially , mostly just means they may made some few changes and sell them just to that brand , it doesn't mean it s better than other drivers , all I m saying is , it s not impossible to build a very good studio monitors and ofcourse less cheaper than most of products ,
for example genelecs are famous for their flat responds and from what I heard they use vifa drivers and dsp with an ab class amp , but they cost around 2500$ for a single 8" GENELEC 8250A unit , and they don t have good reputation along diyers because of the cheap built ... and I m sure most of diyers can build a similar product better than a GENELEC 8250A (not the same cabinet ofcourse) for less than a 1000$ right ?
anyway , in general I think most of studio monitors are rip off , but still some areas are unclear for me ,
-from what i understand and see some hifi loudspeakers are much more complicated than studio monitors , almost all of the studio monitors are in rectangular cube cabs that most diyers and loudspeaker designers avoid , why ?
-am i missing something or there s nothing special in designing a nearfiled studio monitor (i mean to compare to a loudspeaker design in general) beside the fact that they aim for flat respond and no colorations ,that you won't see in most mid class monitors anyway.
some big mastering studios use hifi speakers as they main monitors , like Abbey road studios that use B&W 800 series , so there s not some big difference between studio monitors and hifi loudspeakers , right ?
-I saw some studio monitors (mostly mid and far field monitors) use PA drivers like GENELEC 1038b (aroound 8000$ for a single unit) and ADAM AUDIO S7A MK 2 (24000$ per unit) , or they use PA and hifi drivers together like John Janowitz Mark Seaton studio monitors for Nick Barnetts , what s the benefits of using Pro Audio drivers and if they have better dynamic responds why they don't use them more often ?
I have a lot more questions and unclear stuffs in my mind , but enough for now 😀
Regards
Ahmad
I m trying to learn about speaker designing , and understanding studio monitors
, IMO studio monitors are wayyy overpriced , most of them (low and mid price ranges) use some middle class drivers (around 100$) and some active XO and most of them are using lm3886 or some AB class amps , as you go through higher price products , drivers and amps get better but still overpriced IMO , from what I read most of them use well known brand drivers specially made for them but of course by specially , mostly just means they may made some few changes and sell them just to that brand , it doesn't mean it s better than other drivers , all I m saying is , it s not impossible to build a very good studio monitors and ofcourse less cheaper than most of products ,
for example genelecs are famous for their flat responds and from what I heard they use vifa drivers and dsp with an ab class amp , but they cost around 2500$ for a single 8" GENELEC 8250A unit , and they don t have good reputation along diyers because of the cheap built ... and I m sure most of diyers can build a similar product better than a GENELEC 8250A (not the same cabinet ofcourse) for less than a 1000$ right ?
anyway , in general I think most of studio monitors are rip off , but still some areas are unclear for me ,
-from what i understand and see some hifi loudspeakers are much more complicated than studio monitors , almost all of the studio monitors are in rectangular cube cabs that most diyers and loudspeaker designers avoid , why ?
-am i missing something or there s nothing special in designing a nearfiled studio monitor (i mean to compare to a loudspeaker design in general) beside the fact that they aim for flat respond and no colorations ,that you won't see in most mid class monitors anyway.
some big mastering studios use hifi speakers as they main monitors , like Abbey road studios that use B&W 800 series , so there s not some big difference between studio monitors and hifi loudspeakers , right ?
-I saw some studio monitors (mostly mid and far field monitors) use PA drivers like GENELEC 1038b (aroound 8000$ for a single unit) and ADAM AUDIO S7A MK 2 (24000$ per unit) , or they use PA and hifi drivers together like John Janowitz Mark Seaton studio monitors for Nick Barnetts , what s the benefits of using Pro Audio drivers and if they have better dynamic responds why they don't use them more often ?
I have a lot more questions and unclear stuffs in my mind , but enough for now 😀
Regards
Ahmad
Here is the thing about studio monitors:
What you are tryng to do is get the very best median that you can create. In my experience (which is too many years for me to even contemplate for reasons of sanity) you are going to need a 2 way (8 inch plus dome tweeter) near feild monitor. You can spend anything you want to spend and still wind up with the room itself as what is going to mess or not mess up ypur mixes. And all of that is gong to happen between 45 and 150 Hz given a reasonably flat near field equilateral triangle listening position . A good starting point? Event monitors of that config can be had for about a grand and even a few hundred used on eBay. All of them are flatter than your room will ever be. Get used to the speakers you are using lisyen to all of your comfort zone ref material. Treat your room, listen treat listen treat etc. Then mix compare etc. Super expensive monitors are throwing money down a rat hole until you get to the mastering level, And that is best done in another room and with a whole different approach.
What you are tryng to do is get the very best median that you can create. In my experience (which is too many years for me to even contemplate for reasons of sanity) you are going to need a 2 way (8 inch plus dome tweeter) near feild monitor. You can spend anything you want to spend and still wind up with the room itself as what is going to mess or not mess up ypur mixes. And all of that is gong to happen between 45 and 150 Hz given a reasonably flat near field equilateral triangle listening position . A good starting point? Event monitors of that config can be had for about a grand and even a few hundred used on eBay. All of them are flatter than your room will ever be. Get used to the speakers you are using lisyen to all of your comfort zone ref material. Treat your room, listen treat listen treat etc. Then mix compare etc. Super expensive monitors are throwing money down a rat hole until you get to the mastering level, And that is best done in another room and with a whole different approach.
I really didn't answer the question did I ? Hell yes you can. 8" woofer dome tweeter crossover around 2-3 kHz. With help of the people here there is no doubt that you would wind up with a better monitor than most of the overpriced units. In fact I would love to slay this giant right here and would be willing to test and contribute and now I would not be worried about editors and advertisers, just truth. Man I'd love to see the diy recording studio monitor slay this beast the way my friend Justin Frankel has slain and brought the price down on a well known DAW (cough cough P.T. cough) with his "Reaper"
thank you peteleoni for reply 🙂
so i m not wrong , i know a thing or two about recording , mixing mastering , room treatments and ... i start playing recording , mixing stuffs years ago , my discussion was about designing studio monitors , I talked to several people in this forums and other forums about how in my opinion studio monitors are nothing but MAYBE a better designed loudspeakers compare to some speakers (regardless of the electronic parts) , and i saw a lot of reactions like no there s some secret behind studio monitors and this won't worth it to design one and it will cost way more than buying one , but I stood by my opinion and still think regardless to room treatments and electronic parts there s no secret behind studio monitors and still think most of the products out there is a complete rip off ,
unfortunately I away from home and my equipment and I can not start any project for now but I decided to atleast research and talk about this subject until I gather enough infos without anything unclear left in my mind ...
anyway , so what do you think about PA drivers use in main monitors ? I saw some monitors that do use PA drivers (very expensive ones) like GENELEC 1038b (aroound 8000$ for a single unit) and ADAM AUDIO S7A MK 2 (24000$ per unit)
so i m not wrong , i know a thing or two about recording , mixing mastering , room treatments and ... i start playing recording , mixing stuffs years ago , my discussion was about designing studio monitors , I talked to several people in this forums and other forums about how in my opinion studio monitors are nothing but MAYBE a better designed loudspeakers compare to some speakers (regardless of the electronic parts) , and i saw a lot of reactions like no there s some secret behind studio monitors and this won't worth it to design one and it will cost way more than buying one , but I stood by my opinion and still think regardless to room treatments and electronic parts there s no secret behind studio monitors and still think most of the products out there is a complete rip off ,
unfortunately I away from home and my equipment and I can not start any project for now but I decided to atleast research and talk about this subject until I gather enough infos without anything unclear left in my mind ...
anyway , so what do you think about PA drivers use in main monitors ? I saw some monitors that do use PA drivers (very expensive ones) like GENELEC 1038b (aroound 8000$ for a single unit) and ADAM AUDIO S7A MK 2 (24000$ per unit)
I'd say you'll be very very hard-pressed to beat a pair of Behringer B2030A speakers. £250/pr, and have plenty of adjustments built-in. They don't go especially loud, but manage to get impressively low bass out of a compact package. IMHO, everyone should have a pair of these.
I m not trying to beat anything , some of them ofcourse have good value for the money but most of them don't have that value , I heard Behringer B2030A , they have a decent bass but they r far from flat , and that s what important in studio monitors , u can not do a serious mix with them , or at least it s too hard , they r good to setup an entry level home studio , just to hear what you r recording IMO , and again with 250 euro you can build a FLATTER (maybe not that much bass but flatter) and more decent pair of monitors , but again they have good value 😉
from sos review on Behringer b2030a :
"Of slightly more concern to me is the way these monitors, and some other budget monitors I've tried, seem to filter out some of the more subtle elements of a mix, leaving the principal parts sounding rather exposed"
SOS Behringer B2030A Truth
take a look at this one , may cost a little more but will sound wayyyy better
Mark K The ER18DXT
Actually I would avoid speakers with adjustments, its the room that needs the adjustment given a reasonably flat monitor. Adding adjustment at speajer levrl adds one more vatiable And I guess i wouldnt use pro drivers in a studio monitor quite the opposite! At this point I would not use anything else for a great hi-fi speaker *but* the real deal is we must *approximate the average system* in the studio and that means the approach that almost everyone uses from Tannoy down to Behringer of simple cone 2 way speakers is quite correct. And yep some of the Behringet studio monitors are adaqusye but watch out for hyped low end because you will mix bass light. Of course that is where the catch is from 45 to about150 hz, speaker placement room resonance. Both are best fixed and well ...fixed.... in the room itself.
Abbey Road are not using B&W by choice.
They are using them because as a business Abbey Road is losing money.
So much so that Abbey Roads owners tried to sell the building to developers who were going to turn it into something profitable like a car park, a super market or build expensive apartments on the plot.
As it happens just before the sale Abbey Road Studios was declared a national monument and has to stay a studio.
So now they use B&W because B&W pays them to use their speakers and related amps.
I spoke to one of the ex-engineers there who left shortly after and according to him the B&W system is nowhere near as good as the Quested Audio monitoring it replaced.
In my own experience studio monitors are a lot cheaper than the equivalent HiFi models.
Lets see now .......hmmmm we have this one guy who has written for SOS saying one thing and this other hack who has been doung nothing but recordung mixing mastering and had writtenabout the same gear for Mix and EQ and PSW saying something else (-: I think you should probably not use highly dynamic monitors as your main reference but I agree with my colleague at SOS about listening for detail. Ideally ? Use both, but mix *mainly* on simple 2 way reasonably flat cone speakers. Detail? Horns buddy horns. Oh yeah. I read SoS too. ( -: Pete l.
Those Behringers are nice, however I've seen a pair which had an incorrect (too loud) tweeter level. When that was fixed they were more than decent.
By the way, it is silly to compare the pricing of studio monitors to typical hi-fi speakers. The sales volume is lower (especially for the absolute best), the technical demands are generally higher and the parts used are often better.
For example, a Genelec 8260A, which costs about $5000 a piece has a very high price-performance ratio in my opinion. It has everything one could want from a monitor: flat response, well-behaved directivity, sophisticated DSP, class D amps, cast aluminium housing, high quality drive units.
By the way, it is silly to compare the pricing of studio monitors to typical hi-fi speakers. The sales volume is lower (especially for the absolute best), the technical demands are generally higher and the parts used are often better.
For example, a Genelec 8260A, which costs about $5000 a piece has a very high price-performance ratio in my opinion. It has everything one could want from a monitor: flat response, well-behaved directivity, sophisticated DSP, class D amps, cast aluminium housing, high quality drive units.
I m very happy with a pair i got for "dirt cheap" price , considering
the cost of a brand new one...
Monitoring systems - studio speakers. Welcome to the world of QUESTED
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Can't blame you, Quested monitors are really nice.
I am very happy with the Quested (MC2 Audio) amp I bought off the engineer.
He got it out of the Abbey Road mastering suite when B&W started to put money on the table.
Just out of curiosity which tweeter is in them?
I know ATC used Vifa D27TG-35-06 and PMC use ScanSpeak D2606-922000
but all I know of Quested is that he uses Morel but not which model.
Is it an MDT-30 perhaps?
I know they are topnotch products , but my point is any DIYer with a decent knowledge and abit of equipment can build something with same results with much less money .
mm , interesting ....
don you think DIYing one is less cheaper ? I mean can't we achieve that results with DIYing and less spending ?
by highly dynamics you mean pa ? I think hearing every detail in dynamic is very important for mastering , and ofcourse using both PA along with 2 ways hifis ...
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interesting , what about the woofers ? and since we r on it what about this one ? it s a Barefoot Sound MiniMain i think the tweeter is a Scanspeak Revelator don know about the other drivers , would be great if anybody knows what they are , and if I m not wrong I read somewhere that ring radiators are not suitable for nearfields ,what about that ?
and it says it has duel 12" subs but i think one of them s a passive radiator , as the cabinet is sealed, right ?
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For ATC the answer of what woofer and midrange is very easy: They use ATC drivers.
I think they might be using their own tweeter by now too but if so it is not (yet) available to the public.
PMC and Quested use Volt mids and woofers.
In the Barefoot both woofers are powered, Thomas uses electronic tricks to get the bass extension, possibly a Linkwitz transform or a variation on that theme. The woofers are internally bolted to each other to achieve force cancellation.
I think they might be using their own tweeter by now too but if so it is not (yet) available to the public.
PMC and Quested use Volt mids and woofers.
In the Barefoot both woofers are powered, Thomas uses electronic tricks to get the bass extension, possibly a Linkwitz transform or a variation on that theme. The woofers are internally bolted to each other to achieve force cancellation.
Detail that horns add is >2% harmonic distortion, adding artificial contrast to everything.
Classic 8" woofer with 1" dome in large faceplate on flat baffle places acoustic centers too far apart for crossover >2kHz without significant vertical lobing. But yes, behavior of room when mixing for 45Hz-150Hz or so is killer. Best defense is good use of referenced measurement microphone to measure and see what is going on, and remedying situation before using mixing space.
Regards,
Andrew
Classic 8" woofer with 1" dome in large faceplate on flat baffle places acoustic centers too far apart for crossover >2kHz without significant vertical lobing. But yes, behavior of room when mixing for 45Hz-150Hz or so is killer. Best defense is good use of referenced measurement microphone to measure and see what is going on, and remedying situation before using mixing space.
Regards,
Andrew
Spot on for the tweeter.🙂
The woofer is from a british brand named Volt
that i didnt knew before getting thoses speakers.
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