Small size "monitors" that are worth it?
 

Around or under 200$-300$ a pair, is there any models that would handle the lows of a 5 string bass and the bass drum of my drum machine without being necessary a perfect reference for mixing? My goal is to find something pretty cheap and as small as possible.

The powered version of the Alesis Monitor One is under $300 a pair, and sound very good IMHO. They aren't particulalry small though. If you haev really limited space you might consider a 3-piece sub + satellite system.

I guess I'll try to work out some space, I hate the fact that the lows aren't exactly stereo when using a sub...

I've just checked the specs of those Alesis, seem nice.

In 99.9% of situations, you want the bass to be mono anyway. Spreading low-frequency energy around the stereo field doesn't really work well in practice.

For small and under 300 that are going to represent your 5 string well at all, you probably want a 3 piece system.

And +1 to not wanting to spread out your bass in stereo. Many mixing pros will even high pass low frequency instruments and treat that band separately if they want to use a stereo effect (some effects units even have this built into their design).

Point is at this price range a 3 piece system is your best bet.

I use one of a variety of solutions to put the low end of a mix into mono, or more specifically, narrow its representation in the stereo field. Izotope's Ozone5 has a multiband stereo imaging section that allows negative values to narrow stereo perception. I'll set that to a low frequency range and really hit it hard with negative values. Works great. Airwindows ToVinyl does a great job of this as well, but is only available in AU format.

...I'm getting pretty far off topic here...

OK, so if I consider a 3 piece system, what should I look into?

They're a little more than you want to pay, but its a complete system that's accurate and has great low end extension. And its really small.

http://abluesky.com/products/exo2-new/

Typically $499.

Equator D5's, $299 a pair

http://www.equatoraudio.com/D5_Studi..._Pair_p/d5.htm