I purchased a pair of Focal Solo 6's last year. They obviously sound really good, and I'm hearing things in my mixes that were more difficult to hear when I was using my Dynaudio BM5A's (that could also have a lot to do with my new room/treatment though). My mixes are translating quite nicely too. I just am not enjoying listening for any lengthy period of time.
I think they just don't agree with me. I get ear fatigue
very quickly. I'm quite sensitive to certain frequency ranges, and I think maybe they are accentuated by these speakers. I don't monitor loud. Actually, I think I compensate for the fatigue and listen too quietly most of the time lately.
My room is very dead. It's small, so I treated it heavily with 703 panels. Maybe too much?
At any rate, are there mellower sounding speakers in a similar price range that are worth looking into? Or cheaper even? I don't have any place near me that would allow me to test anything unfortunately (besides hi-fi stereo shop). I'm kind of pissed at myself for not properly evaluating these things before the return policy expired. Spending that much on something is a massive investment for me.
I learned one thing in 2019...
It's impossible to make recommendation on monitor speakers
But the story of my monitor-speaker journey may inspires you, may helps to look at it from a different angle.
When I decided to start out with home recording, my mentor advise was to get a pair of NS10.
But it was 2001 Yamaha decided to discontinue the NS10.
They were sold out overnight.
Naive as I was I bought a pair Genelec 8040.
Today I know I did not buy them because I liked the 8040.
I bought the Genelecs because I knew my Mentor was using them too.
Narcissistic as I was I used them many years.
My thinking was, if someone who wrote several world hits uses them, they are good for me too.
I couldn't be more wrong with that opinion.
Today I know the concept of the 8040, is how someone should not build a speaker.
The waveguide colors the sound.
I'm pretty sure I lost a bit top end in my hearing because of this Wave-Guide construction.
In my last room I had the luck to be pretty straight over the complete frequency range.
But levelling the low end, still was a pain in the ass on the 8040.
Not to forget to speak about the fact, that the eighty forty is not translating impulses well.
It's all soft, like butter, except the top end, its sharp like a knife.
When my neighbor gave me for free a pair of Yamaha NS10 I was shocked about how bad they sound.
I did try to stand them, I did try harder but never came to the point to understand why they are there.
They sound awful.
I did put them in the storage for quite a long time.
In the meantime I bought German ME Gaithains which are satellite speakers.
Extremely phase accurate. Translating impulses very well.
My mixes got faster and easier.
Learning how to make them sound great on the bad sounding NS10.
Now I use three speaker-systems, one sounds like a kitchen radio, and one sounds too good to be true.
And the NS 10 sounds just wrong...
If it sounds good on all three systems... I can be pretty sure that it sounds good under cans too...in the car too....
But the first balance always starts on the Yamaha NS10.
This story may amuses old dogs, but it's my way...hope someone is inspired to try bad sounding, but impulse true speakers first...