Studio monitors are the instruments of the creator, producer, sound man and mastering. The bassist plays the bass, the keyboard and the synthesizers, the singer on his vocal cords while the creator plays through the sound processors, software and software additives on his monitors, in the hope that everyone will hear the music he creates at least as good as it sounds!

The revolution of home studios has led to a significant increase in the number of monitor manufacturers. The amount of models from which you can choose your favorite couple is huge, the confusion and the choice is almost impossible. We will try to help you narrow down your choices as much as possible and focus you on the best monitors for you, here’s how:

Ratio of monitor size to room size

Many depend on the size of their monitors in the size of the room they sit in, but in practice it is advisable to determine the size of the monitors that suit you according to a number of other variables:

1. Seating distance.

The further away your monitors are, the more energy you will have to spend in moving the air molecules from the monitor to your seat. To be able to move the air in the lower frequency range, you will need a monitor with at least 8 inches wide membrane for more than two meters of sitting distance from the monitors. If you’re having trouble connecting the membrane size to the low frequencies you can hear at a reasonable distance, do a short experiment: Listen to music through the headphones that wrap your ears and as the listening begins to keep the headphones away from the earpiece. Note that the overall audio volume decreases as expected, but as the distance increases you still manage to hear the high frequencies well and the low frequencies completely disappear.

Sitting at a great distance has its advantages and disadvantages, the main advantage being that the distance allows the sound to develop in the room and reach the “unified” ears (the distance between the Twitter and the bass element is less noticeable) and more natural, the main disadvantages will be the need for higher listening power, more expensive acoustic treatment and the overall response speed The system (monitors, amplifier, room, air molecules) will decrease.

2. Favorite listening power.

In most cases, prolonged listening activity will impair hearing quality. Listening at low volume may be less exciting but allows you to understand the music as most people will listen to it in the future. In order to succeed in moving a large membrane, a stronger power amplifier is used and usually when not sufficiently amplified the low frequency range is not clearly heard. On the other hand, using a small membrane for the low frequency range probably will not allow you to reach a high listening power as the bass component enters distortion.

Note that the lower your listening power, the simpler acoustic treatment is required.

3. Responsiveness is required.

The larger the low frequency domain membrane, the lower its natural cut point (the lowest frequency the component can produce without another acoustic amplifier with the internal resonance of the monitor box to which it is attached) and the lower frequency range the monitor can play. On the other hand, the lower the frequency component, the greater its mass, which results in a reduced reaction speed.

The musical type you create has an important impact on the required responsiveness, those who produce radio and dance hits will need a precise representation of the lower frequency domain and preferably as wide as possible, in more acoustic musical styles such as jazz, rock you can achieve great results even in the narrower range. .

translating

You play through your monitors and everything sounds great, but what would that sound like elsewhere? What will it sound like on a headset, through a smartphone speaker, or from a laptop, how will it sound in a large amplification system in a club, car, or luxury stereo system?

Translating the mix into diverse playback systems is one of the challenges of every creator, sound man and especially mastering technician. As a player learns to feel and connect to his instrument, the creator goes through an adjustment period during which he experiences his listening system, compares with other systems and learns how to play his monitors so that his music translation goes anywhere as close to the way things sound in the workspace. His.

Every monitor needs to get used to it, but in this case as well as the musical instrument, the more accurate and accurate your monitor, the shorter the adjustment period and you can be more productive sooner. Note that in most cases the exact monitors are more expensive and creators who are at the beginning of the process will not be able to appreciate their contribution to their work process and if that is not clear then I believe that too

You wouldn’t buy a kid who just started playing Stradivarius violin …

budget

Your monitors will sound different in each different acoustic environment, the further away you will have to amplify them and the effect of the acoustic environment will increase. When we look at the quality of the listening system, we usually check the monitors for the room’s response as a complete system.

When considering the budget available to you, you should split it up so that it is sufficient for monitors and compatible acoustics. The ratio should be 60-70 percent of the budget for monitors and the balance for acoustic treatment. There is no sense in acoustic treatment of NIS 20,000 in a room with only NIS 3000 professional monitors installed, the monitors may sound better than without the acoustic treatment, but more substantial investment in the monitors themselves will certainly bring you a better result (as a room monitor system).

Monitors up to 1,000 USD:

California-based Kali Audio has swept the entire industry with the LP-6 and LP 8 monitors.

Comparisons with all leading manufacturers in the same price ranges, Kali Audio, provided the best result in the mix.

The broadest detail in terms of frequency range when responsiveness remains balanced throughout the spectrum, without hiding such elements or other “behind” the mix – it’s all frontal and very clear.

The low range of frequencies, the bass, is exceptionally accurate and drops to 39Hz at