Best in budget: Yamaha HS50, KRK Rokit 5, or something similar

Chuck van Eekelen, post: 41353, member: 2756 wrote: I can see how you’d want the best quality for the available budget, but why not back breaking? Or is that your financial back you are worried about?

I have a set of KRK Rokit 5’s. They are pretty good (I use them for home studio work), but a tad lacking in the low’s. The 6’s are already better in that respect, or you could get the matching KRK sub.
At the end of the day it’s a personal choice, so try to do some A/B comparisons with your own music or productions if you can before deciding.

Everybody here will have an opinion and they are all right. The good news is though that for that kind of budget it’s not a really big pond to fish in.

One thing I’d like to stress here is that you need to set up your monitor speakers so the high end drivers are aimed directly at your ears, preferably from slightly higher. You should be one of the three corners of the triangle made up of you and the two speakers. Everything should be equidistant, i.e. the distance between the two speakers and between of the speakers and the middle of your head should be equal. Since the distance from your screen will be a determining factor, you’ll probably end up with a distance of 4 to 5 feet between the speakers and your head.

Also you don’t want the speakers to produce any sounds that are not supposed to be there. So get good, freestanding, pedestals (made for monitor speakers) that are heavy/solid enough not to add any vibrations. Finally stick some auralex or other acoustic foam under them to decouple the bass somewhat.

Greetinx,
C.

Dank u wel, Chuck. The first part is a very Dutch answer. My financial back was what I was referring to, but not breaking the physical one is also a good thing too!

I have extremely limited space to work with, but I can place the monitors in triangle style setup at ear level on my desk. Hopefully it will support some stands, but at the very least, acoustic foam or auralex sounds like a fine idea.

All I have is a lowly Audio 4 card to work with right now (which obviously does not support the balanced cables) but if you have any suggestions for a better card on a reasonable budget, I’m all ears.

I suppose I could run everything through my MC6000, but that would complicate things unnecessarily I think.

Thanks again!

mvg,

B.B.

You are correct. I do not have dimmer packs on my desk. My ‘desk’ is essentially a very sturdy wooden plank on top of some filing cabinets. It supports my CDJS and 6000 with flight cases, laptop, computer speakers, et. al without issue, so adding the monitors probably won’t be an issue.

I own XLR and TRS cables that have sufficient length, and some standard high quality RCA cables as well. I also have adapters that convert to RCA to single jack to fit in a computer’s line/mic inputs.

So perhaps I’ll just do as you suggest and route via the 6000. The Audio 4 has 24bit, but I have no issues with how the sound has come out of my 6000 when DJing. And the balanced monitoring of everything certainly wouldn’t hurt matters.

The 6000 would be one more piece to the puzzle that would always have to be present, but I suppose it usually is on my desk anyways.

Thanks again.

djmdubs, post: 41372, member: 2813 wrote: I agree with Chuck here. I have the rokkit 5’s and they sound great but lacked punch so I added the rokkit 10s and now they are a perfect setup for me.

I wish the 10s were in my budget frame. Since I can get a new pair of G2 5’s for 250 right now, I think I’ll consider going this route to start, and put some egg foam or mats underneath them.

Do you have a preference for a good starter keyboard? M Audio is usually what people recommend, but I’m thinking of getting a low end keyboard to help learn chords and such that could double as a midi controller.

I value all opinions.