What to buy - Monitors

[brekehan]

It seems my old home stereo has some flaws that are beginning to show.

What are some suggestions on monitors to get for hobby bedroom producing?
Do they need a receiver? If so, what are some suggestions for that?
Do they typically hook up with regular speaker wire or do I need anything special?

I don't want anything super loud, because I am in an apartment, but I can make a little noise during the day and on the weekends. I mainly want to hear exactly what I put through them without added bass or treble.

A friend told me to look for Yamaha HS8 around $400 each. Wise choice?

[Josmoker]

Many studio monitors are active nowadays, so you hook them up via XLR or line cable, some even offer a digital connection.
Before you make a decision you should go to a store and give a few monitors a listen with a varied selection of music you know well. For that kind of money I would also check Event 20/20bas and Adam Audio A5X (and maybe also F7).

[Protocol_b]

Definitely check out Behringer Truth self-powered studio monitors. Sound & power are excellent for the money (they are a touch big & heavy but that's where the bass spectrum comes in). They're inexpensive (way less than $400 per) & awesome (IMO) - check out reviews on the web.

[brekehan]

I just have a 4x4 USB 2.0 Audio interface. What do you need to take advantage of other cable options. How much will it matter?

[Josmoker]

It hardly matters what kind of connection/cables you use. You just use what your interface on the one side and your monitors on the other side offer.

[JCJR]

A friend told me to look for Yamaha HS8 around $400 each. Wise choice?

Except for some of the incredibly expensive "niche market" huge pro studio monitors, un-powered monitor speakers have become a rarity nowadays. Most all of the low and mid-price monitors are powered.

If I wanted to snag some new "budget" monitors, HS8 and JBL LSR 308 would be on the short list. Got "new monitor fever" last year and spent some time researching the current items. Studying specs, comments, and there are some fairly well-done headphone-listening shootouts on youtube comparing the different speakers in fairly controlled conditions-- Performed by music merchants who sell all the models and would apparently have no axe to grind about which model you would buy from them. Most likely un-biased tests.

In the A-B testing between mic in-front of speakers vs direct line out of a sample mix, among the budget speakers, the LSR 308 had the least difference between direct vs speaker, to my ear, listening with etymotics er-4 in-ear monitors. Other ears might hear it differently. Except for less bass output, the LSR 305 sounded remarkably similar to the LSR 308 in those tests.

I rarely go to music stores but a week or two ago went to a music store with a good assortment of monitors, and got to hear the HS8, LSR 308 and 305. Not a well-treated listening room, and apparently everything is tested LOUD at that store. Both the HS8 and the LSR's sounded good enough that they would probably do just fine, as best I could tell at skull-splitting volume in a suck-acoustics room.

I couldn't guestimate from the conditions of the test, whether the HS8 or LSR would sound significantly better than my OLD JBL monitors in MY ROOM, but it is a fair guess they would probably sound at least as good.

Given the bad audition conditions, think I liked the JBL a little better than HS8. The HS8 seemed a little too-forward in the upper midrange compared to the JBL, but on the other hand, perhaps the HS8's upper midrange is "flatter" even though more forward than the JBL. Or it may have been my ears fooling me, because I'd already made a similar conclusion in the youtube video listening tests, and maybe my ears were confirming pre-conceived notions. It is real difficult to evaluate speakers once you get above a quality point where there are obvious flaws which stick out like a sore thumb.

If you don't mind some do-it-yourself work, and have some flexibility about what you can put in the bedroom, some acoustic treatment of the room could have better bang for the buck than new speakers. In fact, without a treated room, IMO it would be wasted money to invest a huge amount of money in high-quality speakers, because the room acoustics will limit how good the speakers can sound.

I'm not talking about building-in acoustic treatment to the room. Just that some portable box absorbers made of wood, insulation and fabric don't cost very much if you make them yourself, if you have the time to make them, and if you have enough available space in the room for them.

[brekehan]

Bought the HS8s and a HS8S today. Set it all up and holy crap my bedroom is now a club.
These have a lot of power!

I set them to about 1/3rd level on the back of each speaker via their individual volume knobs, left the sub cross over at 100hz. I've got to 1/4th cables to the sub, XLR from the sub to each speaker. I turned down the main output of my audio interface to -24db. Walked around the apartment outside and that's about as loud as I think I can get away with without constant harassment from the police.

Is it better to adjust the volume via my audio interface like that or to turn the volume down on each speaker? I don't see getting up from the chair every time I want to adjust volume being very feasible.

Also, there is a soft electrical hum, when nothing is playing. Not very loud, but you can hear it for sure. Could probably compare it to someone running a vacuum cleaner outside and a 3 houses away while you stand outside your front door. Can anything be done about that?

[thecontrolcentre]

You may have a ground loop. Are you using a laptop? Does the hum go away if you run it on batteries?

and yes, it's fine to adjust the volume from your interface.

[brekehan]

You may have a ground loop. Are you using a laptop? Does the hum go away if you run it on batteries?

and yes, it's fine to adjust the volume from your interface.

Desktop Tower. Plugged into the same surge protected strip.

[Dean Aka Nekro]

Make sure you're using balanced TRS cable (Its easy to just overlook it and pipe them out of one's interface and into the monitor's using a couple of unbalanced guitar 1/4" jack cables with just the tip and ring), That is another area where noise can become an issue unless like Dave/TCC rightly pointed out if you have a ground loop

You should be able to eliminate it via troubleshooting rapidly

All the best and hope that helps, Best to all as always

Dean

[brekehan]

Make sure you're using balanced TRS cable (Its easy to just overlook it and pipe them out of one's interface and into the monitor's using a couple of unbalanced guitar 1/4" jack cables with just the tip and ring), That is another area where noise can become an issue unless like Dave/TCC rightly pointed out if you have a ground loop

You should be able to eliminate it via troubleshooting rapidly

All the best and hope that helps, Best to all as always

Dean

Indeed, I am using the same ones I use for guitar. I didn't know there was balances and unbalanced. I'll have to Goggle that up. Store is closed tonight. It won't hurt it to use unbalanced for now right? I can run out in the morning and see what they have.