Studio monitor recommendations?

[evergreenthompson]

I seem to be leaning toward either a Korg or Yamaha keyboard that requires a studio monitor. (See also this thread.)

Does anyone have any recommendations on studio monitors? Good quality at low cost is a good thing. If possible, I would like to plug in my laptop/PC into the monitors as well.

Thanks much!

 

[evergreenthompson]

Perhaps people simply enjoy nothing more than quiet, soothing, muted clicking sounds of keys being pressed?

 

[kanthos]

Probably no one answered because more people here tend to play live or at least not use a computer, so many of us have amps instead of monitors. I've got a good set of studio headphones if I do anything on my laptop and a Roland KC-350 amp for everything else.

Good studio monitors are fairly pricy. If there's any chance whatsoever that you might want to play without your computer, I'd consider an amp instead. An amp won't be in stereo (unless you buy a more expensive one), but it's generally cheaper to buy an amp than to buy monitors of the same size, and unless your speaker head is sufficiently large, you're not going to get accurate bass response. The purpose of monitors or a keyboard amp (since your effects will probably be handled by the keyboard itself) is to reproduce sound accurately (as opposed to a guitar amp where you *want* the amp to colour your sound; your amp and effects are a part of your sound); small, cheap monitors aren't that accurate.

I don't know any specific models, but for low-end monitors, M-Audio and Edirol seem to be reasonably good and affordable. I'd suggest going to a music store with a CD with a song that covers the harmonic spectrum (high treble and low bass sounds, and everything in between) and is in one of the genres you expect to play in. Play the CD and try out a bunch of different monitors with the same track to get an idea of what you like best.

 

[evergreenthompson]

Thanks for the info.

Actually, I do expect I'll play both with and without the computer. The specs of the lower-end amps, though, appear to cut off a huge chunk of frequencies, especially on the lower end.

What to do, what to do... Back to the music store to hear what I can hear... Oh, darn, another trip to the toy store.

 

[Keys]

@evergreenthompson, I would appreciate it if you could tell me a little bit more about Keyboard Amps vs Monitor-style speakers...

I would love to buy an amp that faithfully represents at least the vast majority of frequencies... my budget tops at $150, and so far only the peavey KB 1 has appealed to me.

What would you say about opting for a pair of studio monitors instead? It is highly unlikely that I will use the keyboard in sonically imposing situations (eg a loud band practice) and at performance venues I can easily plug into the house system. In this situation would a sonically rich monitor be a better option than a high-end amplifier?

 

[kanthos]

Monitors are often more of a pain to set up live, plus amps are built to handle the wear and tear of gigging while monitors are not. With monitors, you want to have the two positioned so that they form an equilateral triangle with your head, which probably means getting stands for them. With an amp, position isn't as important, plus if your amp is large enough, it can just sit on the floor, maybe leaning on something so it's tilted up at an angle, and you'll be able to hear it. Small monitors on the floor won't work so well in that regard.

Also, monitors are stereo while most amps are mono, which may make a difference because most of the time, you'd be playing through a mono connection to the house mixer. With a mono amp, you won't be hearing things that everyone else isn't hearing, which may or may not be important to you.

Studio monitors for $150 aren't going to be any good. Just because it's labelled a monitor (as opposed to consumer-grade speakers, where the sound is intentionally not flat, so as to provide a "better" listening experience for the majority of people) doesn't mean it will be accurate. $150 won't get you a pair of monitors that's anywhere near large, so the bass frequencies will be skewed, since the speaker cone won't be big enough to properly represent them.

 

[evergreenthompson]

Going along with what kanthos said, I had a very difficult time finding a pair of acceptable monitors below the $300 range. I hated upping my monitor/amp budget, but I had to do it.

After a lot of listening and looking at specs, and since I won't be jamming with anyone but laptop in private anytime soon, I ended up choosing Blue Sky's EXO 2.1 monitor + subwoofer set. At about $350 it had the best frequency range for the money by far of all the monitor sets I looked at. I'm sure they aren't top of the line (which I don't need), but every key on my keyboard from bottom to top sounds pretty clear and true.

Here's a piano frequency chart you can use for comparison with monitor/amp specs.

Incidentally, when looking for monitors look for those that are video shielded. (I would think most are these days, but it pays to double-check.)

Also, look for monitors will take unbalanced input. (Keyboard amps should take unbalanced input as a matter of course.) Yeah, I know, one more thing. But if you ignore this, you may end up having to spend yet more money on a DI box to get rid of ground loop hum.

Unbalanced inputs are often TS inputs. TRS and XLR inputs are generally blanced, with some exceptions. But a TRS/XLR combo input should take an unbalanced input, even if the specs simply say the input is balanced.

Don't forget to grab a pair of cables. (Or one, if connectiong to an amp.) You don't need to spend extra for "keyboard" cables. Just go for what appear to be well-made cables with sturdy 1/4" TS plugs on the ends and you should be good to go.