John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

I've got a cheap pair of monitors I don't much like (regret having bought them, should've saved my money to buy better) : M-Audio BX5s.

My curiousity is whether it's a good idea to cannibalize the little buggers for the power amps to use with some Fostex speakers, or just keep them as they are?

They're biamped 38W each high & low, and I don't know the crossover point.

My control-room-to-be is pretty small, as things go, so I don't think I'll need large amounts of power to fill it.

Or just save up more money and buy a pair of KRK's or Event 20/20bas?

*gah*

I bet you'd get more out of them just getting a hundred bucks or whatever on ebay. 38W, if that's the actual wattage, isn't going to go very far, and the potential for that crossover to match up well with any other drivers is probably near zero.

I've been thinking the sort-of-cheap route myself, but it's more like two or three small to medium hafler/parasound/adcom/b&k/rotel amps, and building an active crossover.

Hell, I don't know where I'll end up.

jatougas wrote:I've got a cheap pair of monitors I don't much like (regret having bought them, should've saved my money to buy better) : M-Audio BX5s.

My curiousity is whether it's a good idea to cannibalize the little buggers for the power amps to use with some Fostex speakers, or just keep them as they are?

They're biamped 38W each high & low, and I don't know the crossover point.

My control-room-to-be is pretty small, as things go, so I don't think I'll need large amounts of power to fill it.

Or just save up more money and buy a pair of KRK's or Event 20/20bas?

*gah*

It does occur to me, though, that you and I could trade bad ideas for a while until Thomas is compelled to spend a whole day explaining why we're idiots.

Might glean some insight from that.

So how about just going with some $15 coax car speakers? That could sound great.

Jon Best wrote:So how about just going with some $15 coax car speakers? That could sound great.

I actually spent a bored afternoon designing a control room around a modified car chassis, using an LCD projector to handle the video from the DAW (seen through the windshield). Mount the mixer in the dashboard, the whole nine yards.

All the monitors would be car speakers, including the sub.

Like I said, I was bored... but that doesn't make it a bad idea.

After all, where do you go to check your mix?

jatougas wrote:

Jon Best wrote:So how about just going with some $15 coax car speakers? That could sound great.

I actually spent a bored afternoon designing a control room around a modified car chassis, using an LCD projector to handle the video from the DAW (seen through the windshield). Mount the mixer in the dashboard, the whole nine yards.

All the monitors would be car speakers, including the sub.

Like I said, I was bored... but that doesn't make it a bad idea.

After all, where do you go to check your mix?

A club owner friend of mine was renovating, and we almost got him to put in the front half of a convertible for the sound booth. We were going to mount regular par cans in the headlights, and probably end up taking out the front seat to make room for the board- engineer would sit in the back. I still think it's a cool idea...

Jon Best wrote:A club owner friend of mine was renovating, and we almost got him to put in the front half of a convertible for the sound booth. We were going to mount regular par cans in the headlights, and probably end up taking out the front seat to make room for the board- engineer would sit in the back.

The Cadillac Club?

I believe one aspect to cars is that they let sound out into the outside world, instead of just bouncing it around inside. The surfaces are also not very parallel, with interesting amounts of diffusion. The main listening postion is off to one side, which is well, just weird. In any case, it would be hard to emulate the sonic characteristics of an auto environment. The speakers are easy, but they won't sound the same outside of a car.

-lee-