Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Studio Monitors

My thought was that down the road, for any other use but as monitors, I'd probably like the M3s more so they are a little more versatile in their uses....

From my limited experience recording it is always good to err on the side of not enough bass. So the M3s slight bass hump might work to your advantage. I find the best way to see if a recording has too much bass is find someone with a big car stereo, and compare it to some recordings of a similar styleEither the M3s or the Behringer truth monitors would be my first choices.

Not sure if these would "break the bank", but they are very excellent speakers:

Harbeth Speakers

I have a pair of M3s that I use as dual centers. Great speakers.

The Harbeth Monitor 30's, for example, are over $3000. They would most certainly "break the bank". Although, they do look to be nice speakers. We will keep them in mind if we win the lottery or something.

Thanks for the suggestion anyhow.

Cheers,

j

I don't have a lot of expereience but a passive M2 (requires an amplifier) and an active Mackie 824 (self powered) are such different animals as studio monitors as to be difficult to even compare.

THE most important thing in recording is accuracy in all the frequencies. No bass humps allowed and the monitor better reach some pretty low freq's or you will make up for it while mixing and end up with a bass heavy mix.

I have a pair of active Event 5" Project Studios and in my limited recording experience I would always end up with mixes that sounded great on the Events but would just be bass mud on any other system that could reproduce bass better than the 5 inchers.

What I was doing is dialing in a LOT of bass on the Events because they couldn't reproduce those frequencies. Hence the mix would sound good but too much bass for any other system that could reproduce bass.

So I got an active subby and the mixes improved, or at least they weren't as bass heavy as before.

Mackie 824's are considered state of the art by some and panned by others but they are VERY popular because you can get all the frequencies reproduced with its wide frequency response.

The M2's which requires an amp would be one the least suited speakers I could think of because of its limited bass response (unless a sub was employed) and the bass hump (or any other hump) in the M3 automatically disqualfies it as a studio monitor, but that's only accrding to conventional wisdom.

PLUS studio monitors are designed for near-field sound reproduction, not to fill a room.

So probably best to get studio monitors for what they are designed for and loudspeakers for their designed intent as well.

Hope that helps

While your waiting for the lottery, try listening to Wilson Duette.

That is what I like about the behringers. They are very afordable, have 8" drivers, are sold as a matched pair, and can be bought active, or passive. The prices are on their web site.

http://www.behringer.com/02_products/loudspeaker_index.cfm?lang=ENG

Every place in Canada uses the MSRP from the net, no good deals, but if you are in the US go to a guitar center, and the Behringer gear is dirt cheap.

I would still say an AB comparison is the way to go.

I don't think the bass hump in the M3s is as pronounced as, say, the Rogers LS3/5A "BBC monitors". I don't have a graph in front of me but from what I remember they peaked the bass up a bit as well...

Is that why the bass is kind of weak on older British recordings, or am I drawing inaccurate correlations?