New toooyyyyyyyzzzzz!!!
DAMN STRAIGHT! You summed it up nicely!
I have a “new toy” dance which is not dissimilar to my “it’s working dance”. I’m doin’ it.
As long as your speakers aren’t horrible, it shouldn’t matter too much what kind you use, as long as you take the time to learn how to mix on them. That is a lot of work, and a lot of trial&error.
Since I don’t have as much time to spend on music as I would like, it literally took me a few years to really get a feel for mixing on the system I have had for the past 8 years: a pair of Yamaha NS-10M Studios with a Yorkville SR300 amp and a Tannoy powered subwoofer.
My mixes have been getting better and better as I start to really understand how what I hear translates to other systems. Right now I don’t think I’d trade my pieced-together system for something worth 3 times as much, because I’d just have to re-learn it!
try these, if you can find them in stock anymore (their parent companys having some trouble rn):
tapco s8, designed by mackie & actualy very good for the money.. a real 40hz-20khz in a supprisingy compact package & good for listening to music, let alone mixing it 
£270 ..sound comparable to far, far more expensive monitors 
Acoustic Performance
Free Field Frequency Response: 40 Hz 20 kHz (±3 dB)
Lower Cutoff Frequency: -3 dB @ 40 Hz
Upper Cutoff Frequency: -3 dB @ 20 kHz
Sound Pressure Level @ 1 meter, 7.5 dBu into Balanced Input: 100 dB SPL @ 1m
Maximum SPL Per Pair: 113 dB SPL @ 1m
Amplifiers
Low Frequency Power: 60 watts, 4 ohm load, 100 watts peak
High Frequency Power: 60 watts, 4 ohm load, 100 watts peak
Slew Rate: > 15 V/µs
Distortion (THD, SMPTE IMD, DIM 100): < 0.035%
Electronic Crossover
Crossover Type: 24 dB/octave
Crossover Frequency: 3 kHz
Sensitivity: +4 dBu at 300 Hz for full output
Physical Dimensions and Weight
Enclosure: 0.625 in/16 mm thick MDF with 1.0 in/25 mm MDF front panel
Damping: Adiabatic fiberfill
Dimensions:
Height: 16.2 in/411 mm
Width: 11.6 in/295 mm
Depth: 13.8 in/351 mm
Weight: 35.2 lb/16.0 kg
unike mackies srm450 live sound cabs ..these things really do kick arse
seriously, give these a go.. i was so impressed upon monitor shopping for someone else; i bought a pair myself
As long as your speakers aren’t horrible, it shouldn’t matter too much what kind you use, as long as you take the time to learn how to mix on them. That is a lot of work, and a lot of trial&error.
Yes, that is what I was thinking. So, I will be getting to know these speakers for a while to come. I probably will buy more expensive speakers at some time, but not for a while, and I will keep these speakers to reference as well.
By the way, how do you feel about working with your NS-10’s? They have a rep as being excellent tools for monitoring, but pretty fatiguing, and not very pleasing on the ear. Do you think the rep is appropriate?
@stryd: Yeah, there was dancing done at my place last night too. Actually, pretty much any time I had to get out of my seat (and sometimes while still in my seat).
try these, if you can find them in stock anymore (their parent companys having some trouble rn):
tapco s8…
Hi Artesia, thanks for the recommendation. I think I have not seen those in the shops I’ve been to. I’ll keep an eye out though. I don’t think I’ll be buying speakers for a while though.
Cheers
By the way, how do you feel about working with your NS-10’s? They have a rep as being excellent tools for monitoring, but pretty fatiguing, and not very pleasing on the ear. Do you think the rep is appropriate?
I think that modern music surpassed the capabilities of the NS-10Ms sometime in the early 1990s, when big bass became the norm. Back in the day, when I started recording in budget/semi-pro studios, it was the late 80’s, and every place I went to used NS-10Ms for monitors.
Fast forward to the late 1990s: I had some money and bought the NS-10Ms new, just before they were discontinued. I had found myself working in underground dancefloor styles, and I was really disappointed with the NS-10Ms. They are extremely revealing, but you quickly realize you have no idea what’s going on in that way-too-important deep bass area.
Instead of getting rid of them for something else I decided to augment them with a nice studio sub. The Tannoy I’m using has balanced XLR ins and outs, with an adjustable HPF for the output, which goes to my amp for the NS-10Ms. You can tune this with a DX instrument “INIT PATCH”, which is just a sine wave. With the highpass knob in the right place, the sound seamlessly transfers from the subwoofer to the nearfields over about 3 notes on the keyboard, with no perceived level change.
With the subwoofer tuned, I have to sometimes move my chair to a sweet spot a few feet back in order to make decisions about bass levels, but I never suffer ear fatigue. I also have little parties in my studio, after a long night out with anywhere from 5 to 15 people, and we can crank the monitors and keep the party going for a few days! Everybody likes the sound. I really like this setup, but it might not be for everyone, which is the point of my original post: there probably aren’t many people who are doing what I do with such antiquated monitors, but since I know the system, I can create stuff that sounds good. I think that any monitors you use will probably have a learning curve. As long as the response is reasonably flat with no distortion, you have the tools you need.
Hi Nebula,
Thanks for that take on the NS10Ms. Puts things in perspective a bit, and looks like tuning a sub really addresses the shortcomings well.
Regarding the rep as being fatiguing, do you think it is merely due to them being very revealing?
I can definitely understand your point about learning to mix on one’s speakers, although I have not yet done so.
Cheers,
madox
dont need subs with the s8’s
..one reason i love them
also keep your eye on the bigger brothers, the mackie hr series.. if you see them cheap second hand ..grab em ..as those however arent cheap to obtain new.
Regarding the rep as being fatiguing, do you think it is merely due to them being very revealing?
NS-10Ms were once the only nearfields to have. They got a reputation for being fatiguing because they are nearfield monitors, which in itself is theoretically fatiguing - the whole concept is that you reduce or eliminate the sound of your room from what you hear. That’s a pretty unnatural way to listen to music. So if you think back to the control rooms of yesteryear, engineers would switch from the NS-10Ms to the big speakers because they would get on your nerves after a while. This was of course before home studios got big, in which people can usually only afford one decent pair of monitor speakers.
Today’s (awesome) studio monitors are a bit more of a compromise - they are usually ported, and therefore not true nearfields by strict definition, but they are designed to function well as your only set of speakers.
I don’t particularly recommend NS-10Ms. They’re overpriced on the used market. I got them working for me, and I mention them only as an example of an unconventional monitoring system that happens to suit me well.
I think the main reason to have NS10’s is/was that they were simply the studio standard in the 80s/90s, so if you knew how they sound and you went to another (commercial/semi-pro) studio, you could be almost certain they have them, too, and feel at home soundwise. They’re like the MS Word of mixing.
Other reasons why they were so popular are: They were comparatively cheap back then. They represent the lower end stereos of the 80s quite well, i.e. if you mix a pop track so that it sounds ok on them, it will usually sound ok on a common 80s cheap Kenwood/Sony/… stereo or kitchen radio. They do give you quite a lot of mids, so you can hear quite some details and can notice crackles/hiss/other technical problems easily. So while I don’t like their sound very much (they can be quite fatiguing imho) and I don’t know many people who find the sound pleasing, I can see the point in wanting to have them as a reference.
With the electronic music that came up in the 90s, their weak bass became quite a problem. 15 years ago, you would just switch to the large wall monitors every now and then to judge the low end, but when mixing dance/techno/.. tracks, you’ll want to hear what’s going on in the bass more constantly.
S