Monitor advice please. Where to purchase, too...

[Joe Nerve]

What I want and need...

First, my hearing is shot. I'm not an audiophile by any stretch and can't hear the nuances most people can. What I want are monitors that will fit on my desktop and be able to give me clear bass tones, as well as good separation of frequencies/instruments (the ones I can hear, at least ).

Though I'll be using these for recording, what is more important to me is the ability to hear clear bass notes when learning tunes. A few years back I heard Maggie May in a restaurant bathroom that had some awesome speakers, and I was blown away. I heard every nuance of a bass line I never knew even existed . I get that sometimes in my car. I've never gotten that in my home studio - and I've been through lots of speakers and monitors.

What I'm pretty sure I'm getting so far are these:



I like that they have different room settings (feel I'm getting 25 different sounding monitors to check out), the price is right, etc.

All thoughts and advice are welcome. And if anyone has any thoughts on best place to purchase, please let me know. If you know me, you know my thoughts regarding Sweetwater, but I'm willing to give them another shot. I am FAR more interested in getting the best price however than getting all the "added benefits," Sweetwater tacks on. I'm not interested in any of that.

I know I can get 15% off from Musiciansfriend, and thus far that's where I'm going.

 

[Joe Nerve]

My patience isn't quite what it used to be.

2 KRKG4 Monitors have been ordered from MF, with 15% off. Yay.

 

[silky smoove]

My experience with KRK monitors has been dreadful I'm sorry to say. They all have this baked in midrange softnesss that's likely a wide Q dip in the upper midrange. I've never heard a set of KRK monitors and thought it sounded accurate. For your purposes maybe that's fine, but for me I've completely written them off as a brand. The two sets that I've owned were also surprisingly noisy, which I suspect was a fault of the internal amplifiers since I've only ever tried active monitors from them.

Sorry to be a buzzkill. I hope they work well for your needs even if they didn't work for mine.

 

[JRA]

i have larger reference monitors for serious mixing/mastering but the last, small (5"), powered monitors i had were yamahas and they worked pretty well. historically, i've also used different JBL reference monitors. i've heard various iterations of the KRK stuff over the years and i'll have to agree with silky smoove's take that they had a "baked-in" sound --- enough that i purchased the yamahas instead (they also have a baked-in sound, but not as much, nor the kind that i felt would cause me issues). i have no experience with the current line of KRKs per the video. also: what is 'baked-in' for one person may be no problem or even optimal to another listener for all kinds of reasons. experts want 20hz - 20khz, 'flat' and "transparent" and any two of them will argue over what those terms mean, functionally, and which products will get you there!

bottom line: there are tons of good choices out there. all depends on your use/preferences. for 'non-expert' use i'd probably recommend larger = better systems for lots of bass playback (critical listening). sometimes musicians don't 'scale' their listening in a conscientious way when using smaller systems to mix or create.

hope you get a reference system that works for you, joe, or that the KRKs work for you! good luck!

 

[Quinn Roberts]

KRK's are supposed to be good, but I've never used them. I got a set of PreSonus Eris' and the just didn't quite jive with me; though I still use them from time to time. I feel a subwoofer is the missing factor in a lost of these smaller monitor setups.
This year I purchased a set of Klipsch Heresy's and they're immaculate! I got a Yamaha R-N recever as well and it has a "pure direct" feature (bypasses the EQ) that is a God-send for recording and playback.

 

[Wasnex]

My patience isn't quite what it used to be.

2 KRKG4 Monitors have been ordered from MF, with 15% off. Yay.

 

[mikewalker]

https://www.amazon.com/Kanto-Powered-Speakers-Bluetooth-Preamp/dp/B01N0YCWUY/

Also, these are very nice as well:

https://www.amazon.com/Kanto-Powered-Speakers-Bluetooth-Preamp/dp/B01N1ZTJJK/

And, I actually have a set of these tiny ones on one desk, and they can FILL a 250 sq ft room with clean sound

https://www.amazon.com/Kanto-YU2-Powered-Desktop-Speakers/dp/B00O4EFFPS/

I've been very happily surprised with all of my KANTO purchases. I use all three for near-field monitoring.

If you don't mind something a bit weird, then these provide even more clarity in the sound, and I heartily recommend them: https://www.amazon.com/Vanatoo-Transparent-Powered-Speakers-Black/dp/B01N33WUJ9/

 

[MYLOWFREQ]

Most Guitar Centers have dedicated rooms with different monitors with a switching system. Take your Maggie May song, play it back through all of them and see which one you like the best?

 

[trevcda]

A few years back I heard Maggie May in a restaurant bathroom that had some awesome speakers, and I was blown away.

I wanna know what speakers those were!

In a tile filled restaurant bathroom, it could have been more about the room and its weird audio anomalies than the actual speakers. I've found that a processor with a lot of DSP options can help find unearth audio parts that get buried. One would think that using good headphones would remove the your room equation from the process though.

 

[DirkP]

The new KRK G4 series seems to be way different from the budget monitors they offered before. So I wouldn't just repeat the arguments against their precedors without hearing their new line.
This said: Your room is 89 x more important than the speakers. 100,- computer monitors will sound 10 times better in a treated room than 10.000,- speakers in an untreated room. Care about the best listening position in the room, stay away from windows and corners and use at least some absorbers behind the speakers and behind your listening position and on the side walls. If you listen at higher volumes, you need bass traps in the corners.

 

[ObsessiveArcher]

I ended up with PreSonus Eris 3.5. They get plenty loud and I can hear music so much more nuanced and clear. It's hard to listen through almost any other speakers now. Hopefully the KRKG4 does the trick for you!

 

[74hc]

I came in here to tell you that I used a Mackie SRM550 stage monitor on a gig this Sunday, but then I realized you were asking about desktop monitors.

Sorry I can't help much with those, but the SRM550 sounded amazing.

 

[Briton]

Those new KRK Monitors will be great Joe, all the major recording studios in London use them and if you go on youtube you will see them in recording studios from all over the world, and if they were crap the top producers wouldn't use them. Don't forget to break them in for around 15 hours playing continuous music at a normal level, some say it is a myth but I could tell the difference with my Rokit 5's once I broke them in

 

[Joe Nerve]

Thanks everyone for the honest responses.

My experience with KRK monitors has been dreadful I'm sorry to say. They all have this baked in midrange softnesss that's likely a wide Q dip in the upper midrange. I've never heard a set of KRK monitors and thought it sounded accurate. For your purposes maybe that's fine, but for me I've completely written them off as a brand. The two sets that I've owned were also surprisingly noisy, which I suspect was a fault of the internal amplifiers since I've only ever tried active monitors from them.

Sorry to be a buzzkill. I hope they work well for your needs even if they didn't work for mine.

No buzzkill. Truth be told, I used to mix to stereo speakers. Way back I bought a power amp and a pair of NS10s. I sent them back after a week. Couldn't handle them at all, and went back to stereo speakers. Went through a few low budget monitors after that but still have yet to find anything that really blows me away. I think some character in the speakers might/will be helpful for my purposes.

I wanna know what speakers those were!

In a tile filled restaurant bathroom, it could have been more about the room and its weird audio anomalies than the actual speakers. I've found that a processor with a lot of DSP options can help find unearth audio parts that get buried. One would think that using good headphones would remove the your room equation from the process though.

Me too, and agreed. I'm sure it had something to do with the placement of the speakers and architecture. For some reason I can NEVER get that kind of clarity however out of my studio spaces (bedrooms). I don't have many options as to speaker placement.

Your room is 89 x more important than the speakers. 100,- computer monitors will sound 10 times better in a treated room than 10.000,- speakers in an untreated room. Care about the best listening position in the room, stay away from windows and corners and use at least some absorbers behind the speakers and behind your listening position and on the side walls. If you listen at higher volumes, you need bass traps in the corners.

And this is what sold me on these monitors.

They are the only monitors in this price range that give you EQing options for various room settings, as well as an app to help you get whatever it is they consider optimal (no clue how that would be).

Bottom line is that I'm happy that monitors are versatile. All other in this price range I'd be getting whatever I got - and if they didn't work for me, that would be it. They supposedly have 25 presets I can run through, as well as create my own. To me, that's like buying 25 monitor pairs and being able to test them all out in one package. We'll see, I guess.

@Briton Thanks again. I've a feeling I'm going to be pleased with my choice.

 

[Koog]

Joe, I see your impatience has won out. If it doesn't work out for you, the link below will take you to a Bose Soundlink III. These may be out of production now, but I'm certain a little research will find something in the Bose line that is a suitable replacement.

bose portable bluetooth speaker - Google Shopping

I'm now into my seventh decade and quite hard of hearing. The hearing loss makes it difficult because I learn everything by ear....always have. This Bose unit has excellent bass reproduction. It is Bluetooth and, teamed up with an iPad or Android tablet device, has become an essential learning and practice tool. I hear everything well and it's very portable too. I can search easily for songs on YouTube and have a great Dropbox file of music to refer to. I have used this setup successfully for about 9 years now.

Hope this is helpful.

Koog

 

[Mickeyb48]

I picked up a set of B stock Adams F7. Amazing.

 

[Rabidhamster]

I picked up a pair of Focal Alpha 80s used that I’m very happy with.
The internet’s tell me I would be “better off” with the 65s for my listening environment but these were what I got a great deal on and I’ve always been a sucker for big speakers.

 

[REV]

Genelec

 

[rocu]

As someone else who’s hearing is shot I have to say: get hearing aids.

 

[Joe Nerve]

As someone else who’s hearing is shot I have to say: get hearing aids.

Been there, did that, was going to cost me around $4000... wound up taking a $400 hit instead after a 90 day trial of trying to work them out.

No matter how much I tweaked them with the audiologist, they didn't help a whole lot. They made things crisp, tinny, and weird sounding. I was told after all the effort that hearing aids work best for those with serious hearing loss. I was hoping to use them in a similar way that corrective lenses work for eyesight - to restore what I had lost, but I was assured that wasn't going to happen. At least not in the way I hoped.

Maybe one day in future I'll give them a go again, but I've gotten pretty used to my loss and I'm comfortable with close captioning on the TV .