John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hello, I'm doing my little home studio (for electronic music). I have a question about my studio monitors.
I had intention to buy Event Tr-6 but I have seen a good offer to buy an Event 20/20 with amplifier ( http://www.musicstorekoeln.de/es/Record ... store.html ).

It's bad to buy passive monitors? I don't know if there is any quality difference between active and passive monitors.
I think it's better active monitors because with passive monitors I can have some problems due to have differents marks.

My main worry is about the power. I'm going to use sometimes the monitors for mixing, so for that I think it's better the most powerful monitors. But most of time I use them to produce, so I don't know if the Event 20/20 have too much power. My room is around 15m2, and I'm worried about if I have too much bass and I can't listen the songs with a real sound.
With a powerful monitor I have to listen it very high to get a real sound? or can I put it with little sound and listen it with the same quality?
I mean, 8" it's too much for my room, or if I turn down the general sound I can listen without lose quality (like Event Tr-6)?

Thank you very much.
Greetings.

sagiib, welcome; can you please edit your profile to include a location? Not your address, just a country would be fine, thanks -

To your questions -

Keep in mind that my comments are from personal experience and opinion, so others may disagree;

Active vs. Passive - I'd rather have a GOOD passive monitor than a POOR active one; but generally, if they're designed correctly an active monitor will have its amplifiers and crossovers matched to the drivers (speakers) being used. This means that you'll probably get better results overall with actives; what it does NOT mean, is that passives are bad.

Bigger woofers and louder speakers CAN excite room problems more, but those problems will be there (and affect your mix decisions) on ANY speakers. So you need to learn enough about acoustics to do what you can for proper room treatment.

Barefoot has commented in the past, and I agree, that a 2-way speaker with an 8" woofer has too much of a "gap" in response between the two drivers, making it difficult (if not impossible) to get a balanced, flat-sounding result.

Because of this, my solution is to use 6" or smaller woofers in nearfields and add a subwoofer if you need better low end response. I've had excellent results using 6" (passive) nearfields and a dual 8" Yamaha sub with a 24 dB/octave crossover. Done correctly, the 6" cones aren't being "worked to death" and the sub just extends the low end.

I've had comments from several people wondering "how I got that much sound out of those little speakers" - (the sub was out of sight behind the console) - point being, the sub doesn't HAVE to sound "like a sub", if it's balanced/positioned correctly.

As to loudness, it's much easier to turn DOWN the volume on a larger amp or speaker than it is to turn UP the volume on one that can't produce higher sound levels without distortion.

Amplifier power level matching - a large amp driving small speakers is no problem, as long as you limit the maximum power that can go to the speakers - this can be done by setting your system's output level at max, then slowly bringing up the volume at the power amp til it's just starting to sound distorted, then lowering it til the distortion just barely goes away. Now, if you accidentally raise the volume at your mixer, you won't damage your speakers.

It's better to have TOO MUCH power in an amplifier than TOO LITTLE - an overdriven amp causes DC to be applied to speakers during the clipped portion of the output waveform, which overheats the driver coils and damages the speakers. A larger amp, properly set as in the preceding paragraph, will NEVER clip.

For the best overall sound, as I said, if you want accuracy I'd go for the 6" speakers and add a sub - if you're only doing hiphop/R&B, then the 8" units might be just what you're looking for - I bought a pair of the Behringer Truths (8", active) originally just for something portable to use for room acoustic measurements, and they work well for dance music with no sub required. Not the most accurate, but suitable for that purpose.

HTH... Steve

Thank you very much Steve for the information. I think I had understood everything

greetings!