Looking for an upgrade from iLoud Micro Monitors

brucegill

I have a set of iLoud Micro Monitors, they've served me well. I have limited space, but thinking I could move my desk forward and put some stands behind it to free some space up. Rooms not big either, so again smaller would be better for me, though I appreciate size will effect what I can hope for (I guess?). 

iLoud Micro Monitor are struggling with the bass frequencies and the stereo imaging doesn't sound that accurate - When I record something and then check on my headphones (DT1770 or T1's), there's a big difference. Recordings will be guitar and also Synths and drum machines. 

At the moment the ilouds get their signal from my Focusrite 2i2 (mk2)

££££ up to £600 max? do I need to go that far?

chotu495

Genelec 8010 or 8020 well worth a look. Small too, so another plus.

Focal also very good, although much larger than the Genelec’s.

brucegill

thanks. Genelec on the list... Just need to work out all the different models. 

Just seen iLoud now do a new MTM

Fretwired

I have a pair of iLouds and I got a pair of matched Yamaha HS7 speakers which are a major improvement - £459 for the pair from Andertons. You could look at the bigger HS8 which get excellent reviews - my room is small so they were overkill.

I think someone on this forum had some for sale.

https://www.andertons.co.uk/yamaha-hs7-matched-pair-studio-monitors

octatonic

Sounds like the room to me.
Do you have any acoustic treatment?

Get another set of speakers and see if they do the same thing.

I have iLoud's here and they put out enough bass, although I don't mix on them I can do some design stuff on the Eurorack on them. My room is 6x4m and acoustically treated though.

brucegill

Thanks for the help!

I've got the eq set - Desk, HF flat, Bass -3db

Room is tiny, 3x3m at a push. ~No treatment - I wouldn't have a clue where to put any either? 

They're not lacking in bass at all, if anything there's too much at times. But say I make a kick drum sound on Digitakt, I get something I'm happy with, then try headphones and it doesn't sound the same at all. 

Excuse the mess!

Desk




Behind me:

wider view:

andy_k

I am no expert, but I think more expensive monitors, ie the next step up, will only magnify your problems. It will be difficult to get any sort of balance with the way you have your room set up.
I think you should try and get your desk more centred on a wall, the wall to your left maybe?, but then you are also constrained by room dimensions.
At the moment, you will be hearing a lot of misbalanced signal, and a headphone mix will be more honest.
There are some basic rules for setting up a desk and monitors within a room, and I understand that we do not live in an ideal world, so we have to accept, and work within our limitations.
I only mix at home, and my own setup is far from perfect, I don't even have a dedicated space, but I have my I louds clamped to a fold away mobile desk, and I treat them as something more like headphones that are not on my head-if that makes sense.
I think they are great monitors, for the price, and for the form, but I wouldn't be spending money on anything much better at this stage.
In your case, I would give them another go, after I had tried to get a more ideal positioning sorted out. imagine you removed the white shelves, and rotated your desk 90 degrees to the left. With the door shut, you could be more centred on that wall, and you would get a truer stereo image. The I louds have mic stand sockets on their bases, so I would rig up something that could give them more isolation-maybe stands, or maybe some sort of brackets off the wall. This would allow the bass response to be heard more accurately, if I needed more below the 50 that they reproduce, I would try a small sub, but then the room acoustics would be much more important.
Some form of shelving unit could be built to create a more rectangular space, and ideally you want to be centred on a shorter wall.
Better speakers will be pretty much wasted in your existing space, and will simply exaggerate any shortcomings I am afraid.
Like I said, I am not an expert, but I have heard the difference a fairly good room makes, I checked my mixes at my Uni when I did a degree recently, I made a point of trying to understand how to relate my Headphone and I loud mixes compared to the Genelecs they had in the studio, it was an obvious difference, but I soon managed to make the allowances. I made my decisions based on a headphone mix, and the I louds just made it less tiring on the ears.
Good luck anyway.

brucegill

Thanks @andy_k ;

Will see if I can have a shift about..... So limited for space unfortunately. Might be easier if I didn't have one of the kids drum sets and the other kids guitar in there - as well as my guitar and everything else. and I have to work in there too.....

Fretwired

andy_k said:

I am no expert, but I think more expensive monitors, ie the next step up, will only magnify your problems. It will be difficult to get any sort of balance with the way you have your room set up.

The IK iLoud monitors are lightweight when it comes to bass although the stereo imaging is good. That's why I upgraded.

Looking at the pics I would try the monitors on the desk - that's how they are designed. What settings are you using on the back?

brucegill

Fretwired said:

andy_k said:

I am no expert, but I think more expensive monitors, ie the next step up, will only magnify your problems. It will be difficult to get any sort of balance with the way you have your room set up.

The IK iLoud monitors are lightweight when it comes to bass although the stereo imaging is good. That's why I upgraded.

Looking at the pics I would try the monitors on the desk - that's how they are designed. What settings are you using on the back?

@Fretwired Just been shifting the room around... 

They were set - (desk) Flat, HF flat, Bass -3db as I found the bass was over the top a little.

When they were on the desk they always seemed too low?

Now that desk is on the one wall i didn't photo. Drums have been shifted to the kids bedroom. Already sounding better. Need to get my ear tuned to it though. 

andy_k

More bass=more critical room setting, I have my I Louds clamped to a desk with the mic holders, set away from a wall, with everything set flat, I can't remember what the desk setting does, maybe a slight bass cut??
If you have yours set -3db, there is definitely enough bass for your tastes. I think they go down to 50hz, which is plenty low enough for anything other than dance or club style music.
Obviously there are better speakers, but nothing much comes close at their price point, the revised V2 versions are twice the price and have some funky room tweaking going on.
It will take a while to adjust, but I think you have done the right thing, it is well worth listening to some known good mixes through them as much as you can-you should be able to hear if you are then missing some of the bass, but I doubt it.

Fretwired

brucegill said:

Fretwired said:

andy_k said:

I am no expert, but I think more expensive monitors, ie the next step up, will only magnify your problems. It will be difficult to get any sort of balance with the way you have your room set up.

The IK iLoud monitors are lightweight when it comes to bass although the stereo imaging is good. That's why I upgraded.

Looking at the pics I would try the monitors on the desk - that's how they are designed. What settings are you using on the back?

@Fretwired Just been shifting the room around... 

They were set - (desk) Flat, HF flat, Bass -3db as I found the bass was over the top a little.

When they were on the desk they always seemed too low?

Now that desk is on the one wall i didn't photo. Drums have been shifted to the kids bedroom. Already sounding better. Need to get my ear tuned to it though. 

The iLouds are really design to be on the desk hence the funky feet that point up at you. I have mine on my desk and the relevant switch on the back to desk and everything else on flat.

brucegill

Thanks all! 

Are you guys finding they need pointing in towards you? or straight. They're only 74cm (centre to centre) apart from each other as they sit currently. 

Winny_Pooh

Small speakers will only do so much, treatment be damned, aside from the HS7s mentioned look at a used set of Focal, Dynaudio or Neumanns

andy_k

There are some basic rules for setting up monitors, relative to your listening position, basically you want your head to be at one corner of an equilateral triangle, and you want tweeters above ear level. ( I'd check, as I don't know the details )
The funky little feet can fold flat, as some desks have platforms either side of the space for your screen. Your stands look fine to me-but you need to make sure there is no vibration, blu tack works.

octatonic

Yes, you want an equilateral triangle ideally but in that room with no acoustic treatment there won't be much of an improvement to do so.

Also if you aren't mixing for release then the practical considerations of how the room is set up, how big the room is and all the other stuff that is in there will override everything else.
In a perfect world you'd have a load of bass traps and corner traps up, the desk away from the wall, the window covered, speakers on stands and a listening position about 38% along the length of the room.

I wouldn't worry too much but also I don't think spending a load of cash on better monitors will make much of a tangible difference.

Bill_S

@brucegill if you’re like me and don’t know where to start with acoustic treatment, contact GIK acoustics and they will tell you exactly what you need and where to put it. I have the iLouds and the acoustic treatment I installed on GIK’s advice a couple of years ago was a massive game changer for me. Nothing to lose, great advice

brucegill

octatonic said:

Yes, you want an equilateral triangle ideally but in that room with no acoustic treatment there won't be much of an improvement to do so.

Also if you aren't mixing for release then the practical considerations of how the room is set up, how big the room is and all the other stuff that is in there will override everything else.
In a perfect world you'd have a load of bass traps and corner traps up, the desk away from the wall, the window covered, speakers on stands and a listening position about 38% along the length of the room.

I wouldn't worry too much but also I don't think spending a load of cash on better monitors will make much of a tangible difference.

Many thanks mate. Much appreciated. 

Bill_S said:

@brucegill if you’re like me and don’t know where to start with acoustic treatment, contact GIK acoustics and they will tell you exactly what you need and where to put it. I have the iLouds and the acoustic treatment I installed on GIK’s advice a couple of years ago was a massive game changer for me. Nothing to lose, great advice

Cheers for that. Will check them out! 

brucegill

andy_k said:

There are some basic rules for setting up monitors, relative to your listening position, basically you want your head to be at one corner of an equilateral triangle, and you want tweeters above ear level. ( I'd check, as I don't know the details )
The funky little feet can fold flat, as some desks have platforms either side of the space for your screen. Your stands look fine to me-but you need to make sure there is no vibration, blu tack works.

Many thanks! Much appreciated 

octatonic

I've also used GIK several times.
Glenn Kuras (the owner) helped me out a lot when I built my studio in New Jersey, this was back in 2006 or so, I think GIK had just started.
I've used them for all my bass trapping materials in the current studio and I have a bunch of GOBOs and diffusers from them too.
Highly recommended.