New Monitor Day!

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7704A

7704A

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I've been looking for a good pair of monitors to have as a reference, since my cheap headphones seem to pretty obviously color the sound. The discontinued Yamaha MSP5's is what I settled on, so when a pair popped up for lower than usual and in apparently good condition I pounced. Just got 'em set up and have been playing various reference tracks on them. So far I like 'em. Definitely different than the headphones, and it's nice to have actual stereo playback in the room instead of just in cans.
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Should def help you get your recorded amp tone dialed in vs messing with cans.
 
I like your stands... looks like my old ones :ROFLMAO:

I finally found some good foam for free and am using that now. I also found that if I laid my monitors on their sides, they sounded better.
 
Ok just ran On Fire's raw guitar track through the monitors and toggled back and forth between them and my headphones. I understated things in the first post, the monitors are definitely better than the headphones, by a good margin. :yes:
 
7704A said:
Interested. I can't do that with these, since the giant heatsink on the back is channeled for upwards convection.
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I think it is because it puts the center of the woofers and tweakers at the same height which you can then put at ear level. When they were standing upright with the tweeters at ear level, I could hear changes in tone when I would move my head. Now I don't.
 
jchrisf said:
I think it is because it puts the center of the woofers and tweakers at the same height which you can then put at ear level. When they were standing upright with the tweeters at ear level, I could hear changes in tone when I would move my head. Now I don't.
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IMHO you want your ears halfway between the tweeter and woofer, not inline with the tweeter.

Lying them on their sides introduces phase issues IMHO 'cause you're creating a distance difference between the two freq bands.

That said, many pro's do it but hey, it's just MHO. :dunno:
 
Monkey Man said:
IMHO you want your ears halfway between the tweeter and woofer, not inline with the tweeter.

Lying them on their sides introduces phase issues IMHO 'cause you're creating a distance difference between the two freq bands.

That said, many pro's do it but hey, it's just MHO. :dunno:
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Interesting.. I thought the tweeters were supposed to be at your ears. I'll have to try this and see. I actually find that putting my monitors on the other side of the room and cranking them up loud, it doesn't matter where they are pointed.. they are going to sound good and also huge. My little 5" monitors have more bass and fullness in the room this way than my 8" monitors or 4x12s at the same volumes.
 
Monkey Man said:
IMHO you want your ears halfway between the tweeter and woofer, not inline with the tweeter.

Lying them on their sides introduces phase issues IMHO 'cause you're creating a distance difference between the two freq bands.

That said, many pro's do it but hey, it's just MHO. :dunno:
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Maybe it depends on the monitors and how they're designed? E.g., the internal electronics might introduce a phase shift that can be compensated for by speaker placement? The manual for my Yamaha's says to stick the tweeter about ear level. Of course manuals have been wrong before...
 
Yeah I've obviously heard the arguments guys.

The discussion about running them on their sides reminded me of my approach, which I shared.

Think about it:
Sit 'em upright and adjust height so that your ears are halfway between the woofer and tweeter heights.
There's enough dispersion already by the time the HF's reach your head to cover the 2-inch (usually max) drop to your ears.
My "method" is the ONLY way to ensure proper time alignment between the woofer and tweeter.
Lying them on their sides accentuates time-arrival differences. Fact. Some don't care. I do.

:student: :LOL:

PS I hear you about the possible inbuilt compensation of the Yamahas mate. I'm not buying it, at least, at "normal" price points.
 
Monkey Man said:
PS I hear you about the possible inbuilt compensation of the Yamahas mate. I'm not buying it, at least, at "normal" price points.
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I didn't necessarily mean inbuilt compensation, as much as just differences in how the internal electronics and enclosure design affect relative phases of the tweeter and woofer regardless of whether it's intentional or not, and the use of position/orientation by the end user to compensate for the lack of design care here. Your statement that your way is the only correct way seems to presume some level of consistency in the design of monitors such that they all (or most all) have the same relative phase between tweeter and woofer, requiring the placement you mentioned. Maybe the product space is that consistent, but I'm not convinced yet. Maybe I just haven't listened to enough monitors to get an idea for the general trend.
 
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Agree 100% mate.

For all intents and purposes 'though, in the everyday "real" world, IMHO it makes sense to assume more-or-less-perfect alignment. Every monitor's gonna vary to some extent or another, brand-to-brand and model-to-model, but each is chasing perfection so to me at least it makes sense to give an enclosure the best-possible chance.

Kinda like how we use the best monitors we can to create our mixes, knowing that 99%+ of the audience won't be listening an anything near the quality we do, but there's that variance I alluded to - a plethora of anomalous resonances, troughs, comb filtering and whatnot in all manner of combinations, leaving us no choice but to chase perfect balance when mixing so that in most situations, sub-par equipment and conditions cannot take any aspect of the mix too-far off-course.

Makes sense in my mind at least. :dunno:
 
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