No question is a stupid one if it is an honest one.

The answer is you do not need an amp if you have powered speakers. The speakers are driven from the line out on the board, computer or whatever. The amp is inside the speaker enclosure.

But how you audition your monitors.
And don't forget it's matching subwoofer.

Pick 4 cd's in different styles, and listen to them on several systems.
Find CD's that seem consistant on several listening systems.

I usual have 1 bluegrass, one classical, one salsa, and 1 old classic and one new rocker.

And of course somethings I have recorded.

Bela Fleck's Drive
or David Grisman with Tone Rice, Tone poems or with Jerry G.

Beethoven's 9th recorded at the Concert Gebau Amsterdam

Gloria Estephan's Mi Tiera is a great salsa reference

Early Zepelin, Dark Side Of The Moon,
and or Byrds, anything you like a lot,
and sounds good most times you hear it
over the years.

Or if not rock,
Ray price's Time is a great country recording,
and I also find Van Morrison's newest pretty nicely recorded.

OK, if ALL this music sounds pretty good,
but ESPECIALLY the one closest to the majority of your style,
then this is the system you want.

If what you play sounds killer,
but OTHER styles sound weak,
then it is accentuating YOUR style,
and will likely fool you when mixing.
Make them ALL sound good, and you have covered your bases.

Note : also mnotice exactly how the speakers
you are auditioning are placed in the room at the time.

Get the system home and you still
must determine you mixing/monitoring position:
wall to speaker and wall to subwoofer ratios
to get a good sound from fine speakers in YOUR space.

Use ALL the same cd's to find the best balance
of speakers to walls/corners and listening position.
Sub woofer is best starting with a placement
right of center. Aprox. 2/3L - 1/3R IN THE ROOM.
But if it sounds smoother 6" left or right then that is correct.
Don't forget also distance to the front wall, behind your speakers.
Bass notes are 360 degree, not just at the mouth of the woofer.

So you must allow bass sound to the wall AND back as a reflections,
and place your subwoofer so those reflections seem best balanced in time and volume.
Listen for bass notes notably weaker or stronger.
Minmize the difference.

Yeah right, simple Huh?
Well you can do better than NOT thinking about it
and moving it around till you like it best.
Worth the effort.

Great Monitoring is your ONLY way to get good sound,
unless you buy hugely expensive mics...
and pray a lot that you got it right using them.

[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 26 November 2006 at 09:16 PM.]

As it is, I have to turn on each monitor every time I use them. Sometimes I forget to turn them off. I also have my computer running out to the monitors (Windows sounds) so when my computer first comes on, it can be a little startling if I've forgotten to turn the monitors off.

I haven't had any problems with mine (Event TR-8-XL). It's just a tiny hassle to have to turn them on and off.

My 2 cents - at no charge.

------------------
Gary Shepherd

Carter D-10

So I say buy bigger speakers like mine if you want awesome bass response. Buy smaller ones if you want to to know what you mix will sound like to the average users. Mine cost me $500 a pair new but I've seen them used for about half that.

While I am not trying to promote anything, the Mackie's or any other high quality monitor should give you a reasonable flat response and your mixes should sound good wherever you play them.

------------------

Steve Stallings
The Songs

If you go sans subwoofer you're driving blind.

Brad Sarnu has a great phrase for this audio byproduct ;
Junk in The Trunk.

Low frequencies you weren't aware of,
but that WILL be reproduced for noticable
negative effect in good systems.

AND will make a small amp on bad speakers work
MUCH harder trying to reproduce sounds
that the speakers can't even reproduce.
So the whole system distorts MUCH SOONER.

You can always shut THE SUB WOOFER off
or switch to NS-10's or the KRK's if you
want a boom box check.

But basic mixes and tracking requires
a full range monitoring system.

Would drive down the freeway at night
with sunglasses.
There surely would be things you missed.

[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 14 December 2006 at 07:56 AM.]

quote:

---

If you go sans subwoofer you're driving blind.

---

David, are you saying that the sub is required to hear what the audible low-end response is doing, or just to be able to identify 'problems' that could be lurking below what's audible in a non-subwoofer equipped system?

If you can't hear it you can't deal with it accurately.

You CAN make educated guesses.
Jim P. yes, you can do drastic cuts below 80 hz.
But it is much better to hear how much you are cutting,
rather than an arbitrary setting you are using blindly.

Usually stand rumble and recording debres
have some upper frequency signatures too,
so you get an idea that something is also down below.

But bass drums, floor toms and bass guitars,
and more so upright bass, typany, even synthetic ones,
all need to be heard clearly IMHO.

There are many usefull frequencies down to 40-50 hz,
that are still quite valid musically.
But below 30 hz or so in popular recordings
it becomes rumble.

In classical a 16hz note from a
Bossendorfer piano is wonderfull to behold,
But without a sub woofer... it will just be lost.

I like the bigger KRK's and with the sub they are very nice indeed.
My acoustic designer friend put in a 5.1 surround KRK system in
at UBISOFT's mixing room for their game sound tracks.
I heard several of my mixes on this system,
and some favorite cd's of mine.
Both with and without subwoofer.

If you have a perfectly tuned cabinet
with double 15" woofers,
inline with super finely matched midrange driver
and mounted in a great room,
it is possible to get down to 20 hz .

But these speakers will buy you a new car...
a nice one EACH.
An example :
http://www.reyaudio.com/large-e.html

I want these babies for my new room.

But I may have Empad make me something similar, custom.
They are here in Thailand, and Eddie was head of design for Meyer Sound for decades.
We have one of their PA systems.

But I will still keep my Genelec 5.1 surround system.
It has a 400w 15" subwoofer.

For practical applications using typical woofer cabinet sizes,
a subwoofer is the way to go.

I have 2 Infinity Reference 1 MKII bookself speakers I got in Paris,
and a Sansui passive subwoofer I found in a pawnshop.
I was using them in a bedroom to write and did a few sessions,
until I built my small Nimes studio.
Once I found the place for the sub in each room I got quite acceptable mixes.
The Infinities are two way with only a 6" woofer.

But adding the sub gave me something useful.
The mixes from that period don't sound half
bad on the big system and in cars and boom boxes.

I have had them 10 years now, andI still use
the Infinity's as a small speaker reference today.

If you can get down approaching 35hz at reassonable volumes,
then at least you have a clue what's happening in useful frequencies.

You will likely be doing radical eq shelves
at some point down there.
I often stack 2 eq plug-ins on my final mix downs
to get really chopped below 30hz.

But one usually gets it's start frequency
and amount of cut modified,
and often another parametric used to re-lift
some of the above the point cut off to keep
it flat till it drops hard.

You need not sell the farm to get a useful subwoofer.
The best ones are matched to the speakers, from the same maker; typically.

What enables me to Get Low And KNOW
is the sub woofer.

[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 14 December 2006 at 08:37 AM.]

Frequency Response: 44Hz - 25kHz (+/-3dB) Crossover Frequency(ies): 500Hz, 5.5kHz Sensitivity: 102dB (1 watt/1 meter) Power Rating: 10 - 300 watts Nominal Impedance: 8 ohms Woofer: 15" (381mm) polypropylene coated Midrange Driver: TWO - 4.5" (114mm)polypropylene coated Tweeter: 1" (25mm) high-output polycell

If I want to get really crazy, I can run things thru my JBL SR 4733's. These have 2x15" drivers and a hf horn. They go down to 37mhz.

------------------

Steve Stallings
The Songs

I do miss my old JBL 4311's still
decades later.

Another speaker I like very much are
ADAM
http://www.adam-audio.com/studio/

The tweeter works like and accordion bellows,
lateral movement pushing the sound out the side, with little phases issue I could discern.
I hear my mixes on several models at an AES, and was quite pleased.

[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 15 December 2006 at 11:25 PM.]