Buying Guide: How to Choose Perfect Studio Monitors - Part 1

The Tannoy Reveal 402 sounds like a much bigger monitor and offers a wide sweet spot so you’re not locked into a tight mixing position.How to differentiate between a good monitor? The very first time you hear the music play with a quality monitor, you might find it extremely weird. That’s only because you are used to listening to high bass stereo speakers which are more pleasant and are at extremely loud frequencies made to trick you. One of the first things you need to do is, prepare yourself to hear things differently. When you start working with a studio monitor, you might feel that the playback may be really different. That is because it is. Sound from Studio monitors is way more accurate that normal stereo speakers. Rather than looking for effects like bass boost, you want to focus on how accurately your speakers will reproduce sounds in your particular studio environment. The first thing you need to keep in mind is the numbers when it comes to buying studio monitors. Frequency response, THD, SPL and terms like watts and driver size is going to affect your decision when it comes to buying a studio monitor. These specs provide a mental image of how your monitor will perform during recording. They also help you see the results to achieve your desired sound. While these specifications are helpful and important, they are not standardized. Think of it this way, one manufacture’s 0.01% THD maybe another’s 0.03% THD. This varies from manufacture to manufacture. So ultimately, you have to trust your ears and stick with a brand. And the most important bit – RESEARCH! This is all for now, next week we’ll be back to explain important aspects of studio monitors that will make you buy the better studio monitors for better sound! Until then, now go play!