Speakers for home mixing

stickyfiddle

What’s good? I’ve so far used DT770 headphones fairly exclusively but looking at mixing some upcoming band recordings for promo stuff, so I’m looking at some kind of speaker setup to use at least 50% of the time. 

I’m well aware that I almost don’t have the ability to properly prep a room from an acoustic perspective, but can certainly hang some blankets to help soften the room a bit. With that in mind, where would be a good place to start looking in terms of speakers?

Happy to spend a few hundred rather than aim cheap, but assume it’s not worth spending more given the limitations of the room.

I also have a pair of Fyne Audio speakers that are great for listening but I assume not quite the right thing for monitoring. Happy to be educated on all of the above…!

Winny_Pooh

Neumann KH80

A search of gearspace.com could help but there are so many speakers out there.

Reliable brands are Genelec, Neumann, Dynaudio, Adam, Yamaha

swiller

I owned a pair of KH80s and they are superb.^^
However...
For desktop nearfield monitoring I loud micro 250 the pair new. Really good and for monitoring similar deal to the KH80. Rich, detailed, deep. No need for room treatment as thats the appeal and equally comfy on a lounge coffee table as well as hard up against a bedroom wall.
For good mixes, nothing beats Yamaha NS10s. They sound shit but accuracy hard to beat.

JayGee

I love my Dynaudio BM5a Mk111s and they seem very happy in a regular home office without any special attention paid to positioning beyond basic geometry relative to where I sit when I’m using them…

goldtop

With most music listening done on phones, laptops and Bluetooth earpieces/speakers, I can't help feeling that high-quality monitors are irrelevant for everything except pro releases.

Surely by now someone does a plug in for lo-fi mastering?

(I also have the iLouds mentioned above - surprisingly good.)

Musicwolf

Another vote for the KH80's.  They are at the budget end of what can be described speakers that are capable for mix duties but in most home studio settings they won't be the weak link.  Aside from own abilities, or lack thereof, the limiting factor will be the size of the room / lack of acoustic treatment.

IntoTheRough

Yamaha HS5s have been my step up from total beginner monitors. Can hear a big difference compared to my old cheapo monitors. They can be found for a decent price second hand too

Danny1969

What your after is translation, Not enhanced quality. So you want a set of monitors that give you an ideal of how a mix will translate onto other speakers. That can often mean a set of monitors that aren't that great to listen to. I liked NS10's and some single driver Goodmans as they had brutal midrange. If you got the mids sounding right on these then it seemed to translate well to most things within reason. 

Nowadays though I wonder. Most people don't have hi fi's ... they listen to music on phones and BT speakers. I'm glad I'm out the game TBH 

menamestom

swiller said:

I owned a pair of KH80s and they are superb.^^
However...
For desktop nearfield monitoring I loud micro 250 the pair new. Really good and for monitoring similar deal to the KH80. Rich, detailed, deep. No need for room treatment as thats the appeal and equally comfy on a lounge coffee table as well as hard up against a bedroom wall.
For good mixes, nothing beats Yamaha NS10s. They sound shit but accuracy hard to beat.

The Ilouds do sound good, but mine broke. A tweeter went, which I couldn't replace.  I could send them back to Italy at my cost but it would have cost as much as a new set by the time I got them back.  They wouldn't supply a replacement part.

Also the connector broke where the speaker joins join, that big chunky cable connects to a flimsy socket with little strain relief.
Really poor design.  Like I said they sound good but very much average prosumer build quality rather than professional gear.

Winny_Pooh

Good monitors are needed specifically because of translation. What works on a set of full rangers is more likely to work on other mediums. Then have a "grot box" for checking your work, particularly the midrange and vocal levels. 

Back to the op. If you do have to use the narrow end of the room put a desk with monitors facing the couch and a big 10cm panel or two above the couch.

thecolourbox

My monitor speakers are Fostex PM0.4n speakers, they are absolutely atrocious speakers and they make even professionally recorded grammy winning productions sound like arse. they are really good for always making you feel you need to improve your mix. However they can also cause you to just give entirely because what's the point. 

andy_k

Good points about translation, but at the entry level, in an untreated room, all that really matters is familiarity.
I know my limits and have a couple of sets of Ilouds, which I treat as a relief from mixing on my Senn HD650s.
I have one pair set up as near fields on either side of a 27 inch IMac, and another set clamped to both ends of a mantelpiece immediately opposite me in my lounge / studio/ living room.
One thing I do like about them, is the Bluetooth connection, so it is easy to stream crap music from my phone, which is really the most often thing I do, apart from mixing on my 650s.
The main thing, is to get used to hearing well mixed stuff on them, and then aiming for the same thing with my own mixes.
I can't justify the next step up in the Iloud series, which has some form of room correction built in, and I am being continually bombarded with ads from Slate, for their studio emulating headphones, with the ability to hear mixes inside modeled real rooms.
I don't own a car anymore, so the car test isn't an option.

thermionic

Another trick I remember hearing about is try playing your mix back on your hifi setup - but stand in the next room, hallway, whatever, with the door open. If it grabs you in that situation, you’re on on the right track.

Bod

Unfortunately, regardless of which speakers you buy, the room and its layout will be the most important factor in how good they sound.

I have many limitations in my "studio".  It's setup in the corner of a room with no option to change it sadly, so that and other factors mean that there's a huge and wide 150Hz hump when monitoring.  I've attempted to compensate it using EQ, but I still have little confidence when mixing down that end.  A friend let me use his Sonarworks measurement mic but even though things seemed better in front of the monitors, it resulted in the worst mix I've ever done when listening in the car and one my earbuds.

I've ended up buy some better open-backed headphones for making decisions with the low end.

Avoid rear-ported if you're close to a wall and treat the room as much as you can/need.

Danny1969

I mentioned in the other stickyfiddle thread that you can avoid some problems by putting your mix position away from the walls, wheel your DAW table to  around 1 third of the rooms length and monitor at lowish volumes.

Once you know your spot though and get familiar with the speakers you can overcome all kinds of limitations. I have a couple of mix engineer friends who do sterling work in small spaces. 

One thing to bear in mind these days is you kind of have to make the mix work on a phone and that can be very challenging for songs that have a lot of instruments dropping out in sections .. leaving just the bass or the bass provides the chordal movement of static chords. You almost need to have an octave of the bass slightly synthed or fuzzed just so it's audible on a phone / ipad etc.  Difficult to do but listen to a lot of current mixes and they do work on a phone speaker.  

stickyfiddle

Danny1969 said:

One thing to bear in mind these days is you kind of have to make the mix work on a phone and that can be very challenging for songs that have a lot of instruments dropping out in sections .. leaving just the bass or the bass provides the chordal movement of static chords. You almost need to have an octave of the bass slightly synthed or fuzzed just so it's audible on a phone / ipad etc.  Difficult to do but listen to a lot of current mixes and they do work on a phone speaker.  

Cheers this is 100% something I’m aware of. My first real project is going to be my own band’s promo stuff, which will definitely end up in insta reels and YouTube and so on, and therefore almost entirely viewed on phones because normal people are savages…

AntonHunter

menamestom said:

...

The Ilouds do sound good, but mine broke. A tweeter went, which I couldn't replace.  I could send them back to Italy at my cost but it would have cost as much as a new set by the time I got them back.  They wouldn't supply a replacement part.

Also the connector broke where the speaker joins join, that big chunky cable connects to a flimsy socket with little strain relief.
Really poor design.  Like I said they sound good but very much average prosumer build quality rather than professional gear.

Really useful to hear that, thanks for sharing.

UranianWilly

Strongly recommend Genelec 8030. They're not inexpensive, but even as a not-especially-serious amateur engineer they markedly improved the quality of my mixes. The Yamaha HS5s they replaced (modelled on the legendary NS10s) have such an odd sound as to be an obstacle. 

dindude

I’ve had the following:

iloud micro - sound really good, especially for their size and pretty revealing, was happy to mix on them, had some limitations, mostly volume.
so went to the iloud MTMs at considerably more expense, didn’t get on with them as well for some reason, the sweet spot seemed really small with them.
Currently using Presonus Eris Studio 4’s - cheap and sound quite nice but not revealing enough for a serious mixing.

Problem for me is that stepping up to KH80’s or Adam A4v’s is hard to justify as mostly I need to use headphones due to late evening being the only time I get to do it.

I’ve ordered some Kali LP-UNF which have good reviews and at £300 (for the pair) seem like a good half way house between presonus / M-audio which are essentially computing speakers and serious studio monitors. I’ll update how I get on with them.

Vintage65

dindude said:

I’ve had the following:

iloud micro - sound really good, especially for their size and pretty revealing, was happy to mix on them, had some limitations, mostly volume.
so went to the iloud MTMs at considerably more expense, didn’t get on with them as well for some reason, the sweet spot seemed really small with them.
Currently using Presonus Eris Studio 4’s - cheap and sound quite nice but not revealing enough for a serious mixing.

Problem for me is that stepping up to KH80’s or Adam A4v’s is hard to justify as mostly I need to use headphones due to late evening being the only time I get to do it.

I’ve ordered some Kali LP-UNF which have good reviews and at £300 (for the pair) seem like a good half way house between presonus / M-audio which are essentially computing speakers and serious studio monitors. I’ll update how I get on with them.

The Adam A4V are interesting as they work with Sonarworks, which helps take the room out of the equation. Not cheap, but they would be my  choice.

Vintage65

Has anybody tried the Neumann NDH 30 or Sennheiser HD 490 Pro headphones? These are supposed to be tuned for mixing and mastering.