Monitors (Speakers)

The machines we love to hate

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Jeff Evans
Posts: 1624
Joined: 4 Apr 1999 1:01 am
Location: Cowtown and The Bill Cox Outfit

Monitors (Speakers)

Post by Jeff Evans »

Search didn't turn up anything here. So what are you guys using with your Digital Audio Workstations? Are powered studio monitors the way to go? How about rigging up stereo speakers?

Thanks.
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Jeff

PS: Money is an object. Image
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Jack Stoner
Posts: 22146
Joined: 3 Dec 1999 1:01 am
Location: Kansas City, MO

Post by Jack Stoner »

"Standard" speakers are not shielded and usually do not work well close to PC's or monitors. The old PC speakers I had went out (the internal power amp died) and I tried using some non PC speakers and it didn't work unless I had them far away from the machine.
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Jeff Evans
Posts: 1624
Joined: 4 Apr 1999 1:01 am
Location: Cowtown and The Bill Cox Outfit

Post by Jeff Evans »

Thanks for the reply, Jack. I am looking for alternatives to the $400 powered studio monitors (if there are any.) I have seen a hard drive-based recording set-up where the guy was using stereo speakers. They weren't right by the PC, as a matter of fact.
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Bill Llewellyn
Posts: 1921
Joined: 6 Jul 1999 12:01 am
Location: San Jose, CA

Post by Bill Llewellyn »

Jeff,

You actually have a lot of choices. If, by powered speakers, you are referring to the typical PC speakers which come bundled with PCs, I'd forget them. They usually sound awful.

What I do is run the LINE OUT from my computer through a passive volume control and into an external hifi amplifier, then on to some decent home speakers. See my setup, below:
Image
You can see the speakers are pretty far away from the monitor, so their magnetic fields don't bother the monitor (that's not a problem anyway if you have a flat screen, such as a laptop PC). You may be able to get by without the external volume control box by just using the built-in volume control in the PC. However, the gain of an external amplifier is often high enough that you have to keep the PC turned way down for a comfortable listening level, and the residual noise of the sound card becomes noticable, too. That's why I use the volume control (but you may not need it).

Now for a shameless plug: My company makes a plug-in amplifier card for the PC. You just pop it into an open slot in the PC, then run a jumper (provided) from the sound card LINE OUT to the amp card input, then hook up your speakers. It's easy, and it sounds really good.
http://www.tripath.com/html/tio_home.htm

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<font size=-1>Bill * MSA Classic U12 * email * my online music</font>

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