Those who tell you to spend whatever you can on monitors?

Mo shitz & giggles

OK because no speaker is anywhere near perfect you won’t find a much of a common denominator here except I either really enjoy listening or working on any of these.

First stuff I just enjoy listening to and really don’t work in the studio.
Magnepans with the real line source ribbon, yeah they are big yeah they are dipoles but at 54 years old I can say I have owned one pair or another of Maggie’s for over 49 years. The ribbon tweeter is probably one of the 5 best tweeters ever made, it’s nothing like those planers and AMT’s most studio monitors call ribbons ( a real ribbon is a piece of metal, not metal glued, printed or some other way of attaching it to a diagphram). Over all yeah they color the sound but they strike a balance between enjoyment and critical listening, example lots of recordings that make me cringe on the studio monitors are listenable on the Maggie’s. With the smallest driver 4ft long they present big not pinpoint little boxes, bass is fast till it gets flappy really like fast subs.

If I win 1.3 Billion tonight one of the first things I will buy is a pair of speakers from a company founded by a deaf man: A pair of the big Soundlab electrostatics. You think the ATC S dome is the last word in midrange transparency? Go listen to some electrostatics, it will change your idea of what a speaker can do. Unlike, Quads, Martin Logan’s, and others these go low enough a sub isn’t absolutely needed but like ATC you something fast.
Like others they have made hybrids with clone Woodward that I might own someday but you can hear the difference.

Vandersteen 2c- colored as hell, the first order crossover makes them impractical in the studio unless you like replacing tweeters, but here is the thing top 2 bottom these things are the most consistent multi way I know of for the $ and one of the few passive radiators designs I like. Unlike most the passive radiators are tuned with weights so each speaker gives the same LF response.

Let’s go pro.

ATC, it’s the drivers duh! Almost electrostatic performance, haven’t heard enough of the 12 but I really like the 20’s. The one thing I would ask Billy to do is make a 20 and a 12 for bad rooms I.e build versions with Wave guides! Yeah I know they perform better as is, but guys what made your mark with your drivers in mid horns for live.
A sub catagory old big ProAcs with ATC drivers ( Studio 3?) everything but the Audax tweeter was ahead of it’s time.

The Ultimate Rock and Roll monitor, the B&W 800 series took over the classical world and someone thought “well what if we took 2 801 matrix’s and put them in one cabinet? They did and it’s a really transparent speaker that plays loud ! Funny story the first pair I ever heard was at a high end dealer in Chicago that a kid was setting up for burn in he was in his 20’s I was 12? He figured big speakers need lots of power, having no idea of what efficiency was sets them up with a 500w McIntosh with the amp and pre almost wide open, told him he didn’t want to do it as I read the spec sheet, but who would listen to a 12 year old? Well he hits play on the CD player and you would have thought we were at a Springsteen gig with a truck load of old Clair S4’s ! As I reach for the pause button his boss comes in screaming ! I was right. The 2 rooms at Smart each had a pair for mains and zi know where one pair is.

Quested and PMC. I put these together because for the most part they have used the same drivers in very different types of bass loading. Quested vented PMC Transmission Line. Most either love or hate TL bass, I can take it or leave it, I haven’t really ever played with it much because it’s a lot of math and to go low cabinets need to be big! For the most part the LF is Volt and in the larger Systems the Mids are Volt, what Volt brings to the party is mids that sit in between the standard ATC and the S series ATC.
The woofers are a trade off I can live with more distortion than ATC, but with Volt 10’s and larger you can get down to 20 hz.
Some very special Questeds s7, if vocals are your acid test your want a pair, the 2205, it’s a shame the dual 5in in these are no longer made because you will swear these things have an 8! Big boxes to sit on a meter bridge, if a pair ever appears on the market when I have cash they will add to the collection.

TAD / Pioneer RM-0
I have often complained how most of the big Japanese companies don’t know what to do with pro audio, well TAD is a stranger Japanese beast. The original TAD is very very old school studio monitor company, think big mains Big wood horns with a 2in Compression driver and in this case a 16in woofer. Yeah compression drivers are higher distortion devices but these nut case’s decided a Beryllium diaphragm was a way to overcome those issues, it did. The one word for My big Exclusive Series clones is authority this is a 2 way where a good recording of Mahler feels like your in the hall unlike anything else, they are not the last word in detail but the 4002 / 4003 is another of the world’s greatest tweeters.
Over the years the guys at TAD realized not everyone would be willing to put a pair of speakers the size of a washer and dryer in their homes ( you have to love my wife) so they started to design a series of nice little dual concentric drivers like the little KEF’s . The TAD versions are well regarded in the very esoteric HIFI world and as esoteric Pioneer DJ needed a studio monitor, so they called on the pro guys at their sister company TAD, they came up with an affordable version and the RM-05 was born. A little stark and crisp and it’s a shame the Pioneer DJ guys didn’t understand what they had but you want something that is as transparent as you can get for the $ find a pair. In fact their is a strange internet seller that claims to have 1000 of them at around $50ea that there is a 50/50 channel is a scam, but I might risk $100 on a pair.

KEF, the British oh the British. I grew up on the concept of the BBC Ls3/5a and other BBC designs far from perfect but yeah these are very workable speakers. The KEF examples are reasonable priced Harbeth, Rodgers etc no. KEF also had in the 80’s the 103 and 105 were damn nice floor standing speakers that yeah I mixed on.
The LS50, these have never been billed as “pro”, you can buy them at Magnolia/ Bestbuy. Many here have them for HIFI, try them in the studio you will be very happy, the mainstream pioneer RM-05.

Tannoy, not new Fane built Tannoy but old Tannoy, let’s Start with the Dual concentric, I didlike the HF, it’s not my taste honestly I think the compression drivers suck, but I like the results of everything I have ever done on Tannoy dual concentrics. if it’s one of the HIFI or that weird pro box with the super tweeter much better. This is a completel contradiction for a guy who’s first love is big line source but damn there is something special about dual concentric point source. Look if Ward was down the street I would show up at his place with a bunch of compression drivers the live rack with 8 ch of class H amps and BSS DSP a bottle of Whiskey and convince my fellow nut case “let’s play with the big Tannoys”
Because yeah we can make him better, but hey hey he is better than you think as is. The Revels, first the actives suck, the AB lumps suck big time. These are cheap as hell little speakers that really can sound damn good, but you have to use a decent amp. Ken Schneider, Damn it zippy at Full Co loved these cheap little things, never understood it because well why the hell would you ever put a pair of at the time $300 speakers on a $5k amp? Every time I heard these cheap things it was with an equally cheap amp, Zippy convinced me to try them with a Hafler transnova yeah new at the time the amp was about 1.5 times as much as the Speakers and Damn these things opened up, so I took them home and tried them with the Audio Research that was powering the Magnepans, now most of the time for instance any of the Alesis passives the ARC just showed how bad they were, but while it didn’t lift it to the level of the Magnepans or even my Genelec 1030’s the little reveals did sound even better with the ARC!

Genelec and Amphion very different but I put them together because the wave guides on both can overcome a lot of room issues ( I’ll include my 3 active Quested F11’s as well. I prefer things a little more laid back than the Amphions and my F11’s and more aggressive than the old 10 series Genelec but I am not allowed to tell you the who’s who I sold 1031 , 1032 1030 and even 1029’s to they were the perfect freelance speakers and it had to do with the wave guide, not as tight as the Amphions wave guide just directional enough to tame most rooms, they make it easy to move from place to place without having to spend a day learning the room or in the un- or poorly treated world of video and surround control all the HF bouncing every where.

Meyers and Presonus Scepter, strange grouping right? Well both come from gods of live sound speaker design and processing, can’t tell you how many HD2’s I almost bought till sellers admitted they needed new HF diaphragms, well that means sending them back as a pair to have both HF drivers replaced and calibrated, and they ain’t light. Besides the fact that John Meyers original PA design was a dual concentric the Achellies heal of both of these is the damn distracting hisssssss. I mean if the Presonus didn’t his I would declare Dave Guniess the best reasonablely priced designer ever, it’s just too distracting.
Now Meyer Got it right with the Aime, don’t let the JBL look fool you ( even if for years Meyer used modded JBL drivers) these are not rebadged or modded 708’s.

Erik you’re forgetting Yamaha.
The original vertical NS10m is nasty as shit. The horizontal NS10m tamed the tweeter a bit but the later 90s variants are good monitors. Too bad they’re rare and worth a ton.
The NS1000 is a beast of a speaker even today.
The Yamaha MSP series, especially the 7 and 10, were the best bang for buck monitors around. They used real woofers unlike the HS series, where the woofers are literally stamped from recycled beer cans. Nobody bought the MSP7 and MSP 10 because the Hs8 was a little cheaper and made shitty mixes sound better.
Those HS series are decent but the detail isn’t there and every mix done on them bad out of control dynamics.

JBL
JBLs are weird because the old ones all kinda suck in some way and then for a brief period they had real talent working on their speakers to make a flagship M2 that’s only like good but had great trickle down tech. The 305 sucked less and the mk II fixed the vibrating face plate. Not using JBL parts means it sounded raw like an NS10 or NHT instead of sheened over. The bigger 30x series have trashy crossovers but the 305 is some nasty acidic thing. The 705 is too much bass out of too small a speaker but the 708 was also a gem and used great drivers but shit amps. Guys have bought the i series instead of the p and just recreated the crossover digitally and used multichannel Emotiva and Bryston amps with better results than those awful crowns.

Kali
Ex JBL team making cheap acidic monitors with a resonant front port. The first revision of the LP6 was pretty much just a JBL 306 with a much better crossover and worse than a 305 but not unusable like a 306. The second revision Ive recently heard and it uses a better, more raw sounding and looking woofer and slightly less horrible amps and is good. The 8” ones were resonant. I’m sure the IN-5 is cool if you want MORE mids and the IN-8 may or may not be okay but I wouldn’t have my hopes up.

KRK/Focal
Ugh. Weird. So old KRKs used focal parts and were detailed. KRK 6000 like my avatar was great but the bigger two ways were scooped. The focal kevlar tweeter they used is out of production and fragile. The current ones use Chinese drivers but the woofers are heavy like old B&W, they’re prob just clones, and the tweeters are still fragile. The old Rokits are butt but the new 5 is are decent except for the resonant port and tweeter having no detail. You can cover it up and it barely changes the sound. The v6 are hit or miss. Current one is pleasant but not great tweeter detail and 2k is soft.

Focals are all weird and mismatched drivers except for the alu/mag hybrid ones that are super veiled. Like you put a blanket over the speaker.

Fostex
Great drivers. Wtf speakers except for the little 6301 that’s great for what it is.

Dan yeah I forgot the old KRK’s but you are right replacement drivers are non existent.

Yamaha, Well none of the NS10’s ever did it for me, the cabinets all need acoustic caulk and the drivers just suck. But of course there is one Yamaha that we all should try once, the NS 1000. The story is the guys at Yamaha pro were insulated that the NS10 pulled from some cheap rack system was the standard that Yamaha speakers would be judged by. Yamaha had the design talent and manufacturing capabilities to build world class speakers ( yet the club series is all generic Eminance ) so they set out to build a true state of the art speaker and they did! be domes for the HF and mid, a fairly nice woofer, think a very fast JBL 4410, it can feel very stark almost bright and needs a better amp than any of the Yamaha pro amps ( anyone ever notice how if you believe listings for any older Yamaha Amp listing that amp is the best for NS10’s).

Fostex, when it comes to speakers Fostex is so full of contradictions. This is a company that has drivers that some refer to as “ the slightly less wealthy man’s TAD” yet they haven’t made a huge statement system in almost 35 years. In the world of SET HIFI their full range drivers have a bigger following than Scientology. What we know them for is the PM series, honestly if you want the cheapest useable powered monitors go Fostex, very flawed but you can learn them. Now they also have these powered boxes with a weird sculptured cone that were in the Genelec price range I have never heard and nobody I know of and trust has said they have. Not that crappy little 3/4 in plastic compression drive you find in cheap stage wedges and PA boxes is FOSTER not FOSTEX.

The only really modern JBL I really like is the big LSR’s and the 708’s Old JBL hey I grew up on them, I know the sound heard a pair of LS100’s a week ago with a a big McIntosh and thought the sound I grew up on and what made me start modding and building.

Martins Kahlis sounded damn good for the money in an untreated room, the used pair I trie at GC afterwards didn’t, go figure Still for the money I would probably try again. And

Adam is owned by Focusrite now. Hedd has the newer, lower distortion drivers.

Like many things Presonus, I’m guessing this is a quality control issue. I’ve never heard Sceptres so I don’t know, but I’ve heard a lot of people say they are a great bang for your buck and others say they have issues.

In general though, I think it’s time to start talking about Presonus as mid-level gear in some cases. They have really stepped up their game over the last few years. Faderport series are awesome. Their new Quantum series I’ve seen in some real studios around town. Fast and reliable with great software integration, and if you have your own preamps who cares about the rest?

And then there is Studio One. Big fan.

I think they get kind of a bad rap because the entry-level stuff is, well, entry-level. And the quality control issues.

What kind of dynaudios do you have? I have some core59s arriving Tuesday and hope they won’t be going back 😊

Thunderbolt interfaces are going the way of the dodo like FireWire too.

News to me too, TB ticks all the boxes, and what comphter manufacturers are ditching TB ?