How important is to have studio speakers for music production at home?

Steinberg Lounge
1

I want to start composing my own music rather than MIDI mockups, but unfortunately I don’t have the choice of a real studio setup like you see on most videos from people like Dom Sigalas and most other Cubase users. I have a decent sized desk, but the NI MK2 S88 keyboard takes most of its space, along with the 3 displays, even if they are mounted on brackets.

So my way of hearing what I’m doing in Cubase is either using headphones (Audio-Technica ATH-MSR7bBK connected to a Fiio Q3 that in turn is connected to my Behringer UMC404HD audio interface), or to one of two receivers, a Sansui G-5700 connected to two Pioneer Andrew Jones tower speakers, or a Pioneer VSX-935 connected to a set of JBL home theater speakers and a BIC America 12” subwoofer, which is great when I want to create a 5.1 project (although in that case I don’t use the Behringer, I use HDMI via the graphics card).

I know these are far from a “pro” setup, but my question is, do I really need to get a pair of Adam Audio T7V or similar if I want to create music that will have good sound quality to most people? Or am I good with what I have? The only reason I haven’t bought a pair of Adam Audio speakers is because honestly in my setup it would be a pain to place them anywhere, considering that they have to be close to you on the desk, and as it is, that would be complicated when it comes to space to move around.

But about the sound quality, I have a video production background so this is a similar topic to the usual argument video people have about color grading on a professional color grading monitor, with many of them saying you absolutely need one. Well, I can tell you that you don’t need a $30,000 Sony 32” pro color grading monitor to do color grading, you just need a $1,600 LG OLED TV set, properly calibrated of course, because nobody has a $30K pro monitor at home to watch movies, even mega rich people, because it’s just 32 inches, or 27 could be, I can’t remember. But these days we have consumer grade TV sets that are top quality unless it’s a Samsung.

Same thing here, I’m more of the opinion that you need to preview the content you’re creating in a device that most people will have, not something that nobody does except professionals. However, I have over 20 years as a video producer and my experience with music is just 2 years of learning, so in this I’m not so sure that the same reasoning applies here.

So, do I need the Adam Audio speakers or am I good with my current speaker options?

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Hi,

there is no short answer to that question.
Firstly, there are people who like to mix exclusively on headphones although this is still a minority. I wouldn’t want to do that, for various reasons, but that’s a personal choice.

Your speakers are not designed for monitoring and thus it might be difficult to hear what you are doing. I am not saying it’s impossible. But it’s more difficult to understand their shortcomings and even harder to finetune frequencies when you don’t know what you are looking for. So, yeah, a decent pair of studio monitors are recommendable. It doesn’t have to be Adams, though. I’ve heard that there are a lot of decent budget speakers out there nowadays.

One of the very first things I would do is to look at your room acoustics. The best monitors in the world will do nothing if you don’t take care of the acoustics in your room. Hence, acoustic room treatment would be at the very top of my priority list. Unfortunatly, this is an aspect that most amateur studios tend to ignore. If I had a limited budget I would rather spend more money on acoustic room treatment and go for a cheaper pair of monitors than the other way round.

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Not necessarily. If you use something you are used to and know how other music sounds and can get your tracks to translate then it’s fine. I used hi fi speakers for years and actually got better mixes on them because I knew the sound do well. I struggled with my first studio monitors to do the same.

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Sound quality in the sense of a consumer is not really the reason why people use studio monitors. Almost to the contrary. Professional monitors are supposed to deliver the sound as neutral as possible, ie. no sound shaping should occur. Hi-Fi products will always shape the sound, they are meant to sound great, not neutral.

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I kind of agree. The main problem in my case is that it’s not just that my current speakers are not studio monitors, but that they are placed in a location that works perfectly for lying in bed watching movies, and for that use they are great. In fact, I can’t find a single theater in my area that has even a quarter of the sound quality my home theater has.

But when I’m sitting at my desk, which is left of the bed, right off the bat, all the left side speakers are blocked by three 32” displays, and I can hear them, but obviously it’s not ideal. The reality is that I would need to do this setup in another room where I’m at the center of all this. As of now, when I’m done editing, if I want to listen to the actual panning and all that without headphones, I just need to sit on the bed to be in the middle of all the speakers to get a real sense of the final quality.

But one thing to keep in mind is that I want to create a lot of 5.1 projects, because it brings so many more possibilities. I don’t understand why the world hasn’t embraced 5.1 music when it’s so much better, and you don’t need a really expensive home theater to appreciate it. That might be the problem in part, because most people think “home theater” is something grossly expensive that only rich people have, and consist of its own acoustic treated room with speakers on the ceiling and all that, which is true in some cases, but you can have great sound quality with a Pioneer VSX-935 well EQ’d and decent bookshelf speakers without breaking the bank.

But if I do that, the Adam Audio set would do nothing for me, because for 5.1 I would need a lot of them and a 5.1 interface, all of which would be too expensive and I don’t have the space for.

I don’t mind spending on a pair of budget Adam Audio speakers like the T5V instead of something cheaper from some no name brand. Adam Audio seems to be the standard, of course larger studios or producers with a larger budget spend thousands on them. I was thinking of the T7Vs until I saw a YouTube video with a guy holding one of them, and those things are huge. I’d rather have the T5Vs with a subwoofer to help with the low end, which the T7Vs would need anyway.

Well, if you mean to do a full acoustic treatment that is not possible because not only it would cost too much money, but also this is my master bedroom, not a studio. Now, if you mean, buying a few of those square foam things to place on the walls, I’m cool with that.

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There’s another thing I forgot to mention. You talk about neutral sound, which is totally understandable. However, how neutral any speaker can be when human beings are anything but neutral, and their hearing decreases with age?

For example, in 54 and I know that my hearing is not as good as it used to be, but especially in the higher frequencies, which are the first to go with age. So what to a 30 year old music creator with standard hearing perhaps would be a really neutral sound quality, for me it would be a muffled quality. As it is, in every single device I have that has an EQ, my curve is always set to a U shape, because most devices these days seem to have a default curve that while it may look flat, to me it sounds like a mountain with all the bad frequencies brought forward and the good ones tamed.

Maybe it’s because I grew up with Sansui receivers from the ‘70s and ‘80s which have excellent sound quality compared to anything these days. My VSX-935 sounds great because it has a ten band EQ, but from factory it sounds awful.

So for me to create and edit audio, I need something that will be more along those lines, a U shaped curve as it is rather than the typical “flat” curve these days that is not so flat.

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The other guys already mentioned that you should chose whatever you feel comfortable with. If you can do better mixes on hifi speakers then go ahead.

I honestly don’t understand your response to my post.

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I meant that what sounds like neutral to younger people, might sound muffled to me, so neutral is not the same for everyone. And I read somewhere that even when people have a good hearing, still not everyone hears the same frequencies, so to some people the same song might sound like the highs are exaggerated, and to others it may sound muffled, and to some others might sound perfect.

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Neutral is helpful because of nuances… If you have a pair of monitors or headphones that are bass heavy, for example, when you mixdown your project and listen to it elsewhere you’ll likely be disappointed that the bass is missing or diminished. Neutral listening space allows for working with the truth of what frequencies are in use… Then later, people/listeners can adjust to taste. If there are frequencies missing or exaggerated it’s harder to make those adjustments. Also, when your music is played between 2 tracks that are well mixed there will be a noticeable difference as yours will be imbalanced

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Hi, I use an old Sony Surround amp and have done for over a decade.I feel no need to upgrade. Your amp looks good. My speakers are old Tannoy Reveal speakers. I have tried to upgrade to better speakers, but I am not satisfied aurally they are any better. The Tannoy Reveals are defunct these days but have an excellent reputation, they come in passive (red) or powered (blue) and you can get them for around £100 a pair. I have six pair! I love them. They are respected studio monitors

Z

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The other thing that is a problem is that because of my layout, I need stands for these speakers that are at least 54 inches tall, because I have no way to put them at the same height my ears are when sitting at my desk, so they would have to be on stands that tall but also at an angle facing downwards about 20 degrees or so, so it needs to be a stand that will have some kind of tilt and can hold the speaker with pressure so it doesn’t fall.

Based on the search I did, that’s really hard to find, even though it shouldn’t be. Without stands like that, it’s just impossible.

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I’d consider using the VSX-935 w/ the Pioneer towers, and the BIC sub, with room correction.

The Pioneers look like OK speakers anyway, but elevated treble that needs taming.

The T7V’s also look to have elevated treble. And they don’t seem to go much lower than the Pioneers.

need to preview the content you’re creating in a device that most people will have

Not really, because I think it’s fair to say, most people don’t have good speakers. With all the different speakers out there, it’s best to make your music on a neutral, low distortion system. That will cater for the most people.

And people who also have neutral low distortion (ie high fidelity) speakers will experience the magic if the mastering is done well.

If you’re not aware, know that flat speakers do not measure flat in an actual room. The response is slightly elevated bass and slightly reduced treble.

The whole hifi vs monitoring concept is fiction. Why would you want to mix on speakers on which you can’t enjoy the music?

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Well, that wouldn’t be possible because the Pioneer speakers are connected to the Sansui, and the VSX-935 to the JBL bookshelf ones, of which there are three pairs plus the center speaker.

Switching cables around is not something I look forward to do all the time, and the Pioneer tower speakers connected to the VSX-935 would mess with the 5.1/Atmos setup that has all the JBL speakers that sound the same, except for the center speaker, which I EQed to sound as close as possible to the rest.

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No, generally it’s not a good idea to mix on average or low quality speakers, at least as your main monitors.

I think there are two main reasons.

The first is that you won’t be able to hear what’s going on on the mix. The sound will be confused and unbalanced and that makes it very hard to make good mixing decisions.

The second is that average or low quality speakers are not all the same. They will have different peaks and troughs in frequency response and different distortions. So if you mix for one set of poor quality speakers it will sound very different on a different set of speakers.

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Auralex makes a wedge. I have some from an old setup and they were great (back when I needed them)

Didn’t look too hard to see if these are the exact ones, but here’s a link to something similar, if not the same

https://www.crutchfield.com/S-oJFlPm2p40C/p_927MOPADXL/Auralex-MoPAD-XL.html?XVINQ=BP0&XVVER=WX5&awcr=77515760560743&awdv=m&awkw=Auralex&awmt=e&awnw=o&awat=&awug=86421

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If you’re worried about monitors and all the extra cost, setup, etc. they introduce… it might be worth looking at something like Steven Slate VSX. It’s cheaper and designed for a scenario just like yours

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My position is:
If you want to give your music away, then do what the hell you feel like doing, and don’t give a flying coitus as what others think.

But…

If you want to sell your music, get a pro mixerer (is that a word?) then give the mix to a pro masterer. (is that a word?)

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Thanks for the tip, but I think the angle has to be steeper than that. Looking at the monitor I have above my main monitor from the side, it seems to me something like 30 degrees, since that monitor is obviously angled downwards.

I wish these speakers had VESA holes like computer monitors, that would this much easier. Which sucks because I already had the two Adam Audio speakers and two nice XLR cables in the cart, when I realized that I just have no place to put them unless I find the perfect stands. I just don’t think that having those speaker facing horizontally two feet above my ears is going to give me the best sound quality, even if they are angled towards me in the Y axis, but without them pointing a bit downwards, I’m not going to get the sound that I’m buying these for.

I just need to keep searching for the stands, or McGrubber something myself.

19

Eventually I want to sell my music. But I hope to learn everything I can to produce it all myself, for which I have spent thousands since 2022 in libraries, plugins and other software to do precisely that. With the amount of money I have spent already, it would be ridiculous to hire a sound engineer to mix and master my music, unless it’s a matter of not having enough time to do it.

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If I may say so: Do yourself a huge favour and collect as much info as you can before you buy anything. Books on mixing/mastering, podcasts, social media, websites on room acoustics etc.

It’s a good tip :wink: