Choosing your monitors

Studio monitors come in all shapes, sizes and types, so it’s worth knowing exactly what you need, what you’ve got, and what you want. The first differentiation we’re going to look at is amplification.

The electrical signals coming out of a mixing desk or interface are calibrated to a different level than that required by a typical loudspeaker. For that reason, almost every monitor needs the help of an amplifier, to give the signal that extra juice. That amplifier can either incorporated within the speaker itself, in which case you have active monitors, or it can be used separately and externally, alongside your passive speakers.

In reality, the vast majority of monitors these days are active, using compact onboard Class D amplifiers, but there are notable exceptions: Yamaha’s famous NS10 monitors are passive designs, and some high-end manufacturers such as PMC, Amphion, ATC and MunroSonic still produce passive monitors. For the average home studio, though, active monitors are usually far more practical, as you don’t need to choose, find, buy and place an external amp.

Two-ways and three-ways

It can’t have escaped your notice that some designs contain two speakers, some three, and some even more. Anyone who’s ever tried to kick out the full frequency spectrum on a single speaker will know why – it’s hard to engineer one speaker that can deal properly with both lows and highs, so having multiple speakers, each dedicated to its own frequency range, results in a far truer sound.

A classic two-way speaker employs one woofer, dedicated to producing low frequencies, and a tweeter that kicks out high-mid and high frequencies. The signals are separated by a crossover filter, which, as you can imagine, splits the input into low and high bands. In cheaper monitor designs, this crossover point sits at a crucial midrange area, so many higher-end monitors feature three-way (or even four-way) designs that employ more speaker drivers, aiming to keep those key midrange frequencies free of crossovers and so clearer.

Sizing up

As a general rule, the bigger the monitor, the more power it can reproduce, and the more bass frequencies it will kick out. Your room’s size and how well acoustically treated it is will probably determine the size of monitor it can handle: big, loud monitors can easily overload a small space.

Nearfield monitors are designed to be placed fairly close to the listener’s ears, in a typical home studio. Midfields, on the other hand, are designed to be placed further away, at a further distance apart, in a bigger room. Lastly, professional studios usually also feature giant, full-range monitors – referred to as mains.

Monitor sizes are based on the woofer diameter, with that number often part of the model number – for a nearfield monitor, this can range from 3 inches to 8 inches. For most small to medium rooms, nearfields are adequate.

Ports of call

Without getting into too much technical detail, a monitor’s bass port is an exposed hole or pipe that vents air out of the monitor, and is tuned to resonate in the low end to help extend the monitor’s low-frequency response. Bass reflex ports can be either forward- or rear-facing – in the casecas of the latter, monitor proximity to a rear wall canca be problematic, so try to avoid a rear-facingrear-fa port design if you can’t position the monitorsmonito at least a foot away from a wall.

Conversely,Con other designs eschew reflex ports – which can overhype bass frequencies and exhibit subtle distortion – in favour of a sealed cabinet, transmissiontransm line or even cardioid design, which can all give a less exaggerated, tighter bass and better low-frequency transient response.

PluggingPlug in

What abouta the connections that actually get signals into the monitors? Active monitors can offer ja jack, XLR, phono, digital or USB connections, and they’rethe designed to be hooked up directly to your interfacein or computer. If your interface has balancedbalance outputs, opt for your monitors’ balanced XLR or jack input to reduce noise. For passive monitors,monito you’ll need to send your interface or computercompu output to an amplifier and then connectconnec that to your monitors. At the very least, active monitors also include a level control, and room-compensatingroom-c EQ controls are common.

“The“The bigger the monitor, the more power it can reproduce, and the more low bass it will kick out”