Budget monitors

[madox]

try these, if you can find them in stock anymore (their parent companys having some trouble rn):

tapco s8...

Hi Artesia, thanks for the recommendation. I think I have not seen those in the shops I've been to. I'll keep an eye out though. I don't think I'll be buying speakers for a while though.

Cheers

[nebula]

By the way, how do you feel about working with your NS-10's? They have a rep as being excellent tools for monitoring, but pretty fatiguing, and not very pleasing on the ear. Do you think the rep is appropriate?

I think that modern music surpassed the capabilities of the NS-10Ms sometime in the early 1990s, when big bass became the norm.  Back in the day, when I started recording in budget/semi-pro studios, it was the late 80's, and every place I went to used NS-10Ms for monitors.

Fast forward to the late 1990s:  I had some money and bought the NS-10Ms new, just before they were discontinued.  I had found myself working in underground dancefloor styles, and I was really disappointed with the NS-10Ms.  They are extremely revealing, but you quickly realize you have no idea what's going on in that way-too-important deep bass area. 

Instead of getting rid of them for something else I decided to augment them with a nice studio sub.  The Tannoy I'm using has balanced XLR ins and outs, with an adjustable HPF for the output, which goes to my amp for the NS-10Ms.  You can tune this with a DX instrument "INIT PATCH", which is just a sine wave.  With the highpass knob in the right place, the sound seamlessly transfers from the subwoofer to the nearfields over about 3 notes on the keyboard, with no perceived level change.

With the subwoofer tuned, I have to sometimes move my chair to a sweet spot a few feet back in order to make decisions about bass levels, but I never suffer ear fatigue.  I also have little parties in my studio, after a long night out with anywhere from 5 to 15 people, and we can crank the monitors and keep the party going for a few days!  Everybody likes the sound.  I really like this setup, but it might not be for everyone, which is the point of my original post:  there probably aren't many people who are doing what I do with such antiquated monitors, but since I know the system, I can create stuff that sounds good.  I think that any monitors you use will probably have a learning curve.  As long as the response is reasonably flat with no distortion, you have the tools you need.

[madox]

Hi Nebula,

Thanks for that take on the NS10Ms. Puts things in perspective a bit, and looks like tuning a sub really addresses the shortcomings well.

Regarding the rep as being fatiguing, do you think it is merely due to them being very revealing?

I can definitely understand your point about learning to mix on one's speakers, although I have not yet done so.

Cheers,

madox

[Artesia]

dont need subs with the s8's ;)

..one reason i love them :)

also keep your eye on the bigger brothers, the mackie hr series.. if you see them cheap second hand ..grab em ;) ..as those however arent cheap to obtain new.

[nebula]

Regarding the rep as being fatiguing, do you think it is merely due to them being very revealing?

NS-10Ms were once the only nearfields to have.  They got a reputation for being fatiguing because they are nearfield monitors, which in itself is theoretically fatiguing - the whole concept is that you reduce or eliminate the sound of your room from what you hear.  That's a pretty unnatural way to listen to music.  So if you think back to the control rooms of yesteryear, engineers would switch from the NS-10Ms to the big speakers because they would get on your nerves after a while.  This was of course before home studios got big, in which people can usually only afford one decent pair of monitor speakers.

Today's (awesome) studio monitors are a bit more of a compromise - they are usually ported, and therefore not true nearfields by strict definition, but they are designed to function well as your only set of speakers.

I don't particularly recommend NS-10Ms.  They're overpriced on the used market.  I got them working for me, and I mention them only as an example of an unconventional monitoring system that happens to suit me well.

[seppoman]

I think the main reason to have NS10's is/was that they were simply the studio standard in the 80s/90s, so if you knew how they sound and you went to another (commercial/semi-pro) studio, you could be almost certain they have them, too, and feel at home soundwise. They're like the MS Word of mixing.

Other reasons why they were so popular are: They were comparatively cheap back then. They represent the lower end stereos of the 80s quite well, i.e. if you mix a pop track so that it sounds ok on them, it will usually sound ok on a common 80s cheap Kenwood/Sony/... stereo or kitchen radio. They do give you quite a lot of mids, so you can hear quite some details and can notice crackles/hiss/other technical problems easily. So while I don't like their sound very much (they can be quite fatiguing imho) and I don't know many people who find the sound pleasing, I can see the point in wanting to have them as a reference.

With the electronic music that came up in the 90s, their weak bass became quite a problem. 15 years ago, you would just switch to the large wall monitors every now and then to judge the low end, but when mixing dance/techno/.. tracks, you'll want to hear what's going on in the bass more constantly.

S