Andrea said:
Ott please tell us what you think of them.
I swear by my NS-10's but I spent 10 yrs as a freelance engineer and as a consequence ended up sitting in front of a set of them almost every day during that time.
You're bound to develop an affinity for a type of speaker if you use them that regularly, and as they are what every commercial studio uses as their main nearfields, thats what I ended up getting used to. I wouldn't necessarily recommend them to everyone because they do require a bit of "learning" - but it pays off in the end. Once you know them you can mix with a confidence that not many speakers give you.
They are a pretty remarkable design - never equalled in my opinion.
They lack the low-down "woof" of a ported or passive radiator design, but what bass they
do reproduce is clear and defined. Ported designs may give the impression of a bigger bottom end, but in effect what you get is a vague, smeared low frequency response which is far more reactive to room acoustics and which generally causes more problems than it solves.
Imho, of course.
Obviously with passive monitors, amplification is 50% of the story and while the Hafler 1800 thing I use is adequate [considering the ropey acoustics of my studio] I would dearly love to shell out £1400 on a Bryston amp. One day maybe.
If I were in the market for a new set of nearfields [which I am actually - I fancy a set of active speakers to complete my laptop-based mobile studio setup] I would probably go for a set of Yamaha MSP-5's as they are nice and portable, and sonically they are a short hop from my beloved NS-10's.
I've tried Genelec [yuk!] Dynaudio, KRK, Tannoy, Alesis, etc etc over the years, and found them all to be a bit useless in a studio situation. Its horses for courses obviously, but none of them made me feel that I could mix with confidence and
know that what I was sending out of the studio was any good.
The only other set of speakers I have heard in the last few years that I would confidently recommend are the Mackie HR824. They sound pretty remarkable considering who makes them - never been a huge Mackie fan - but then I would fucking hope so at £1000 a set. They sound conspicuously clear and flat and uncluttered, and the passive radiator design provides a bottom end that remains defined and useful even at quite high volume.
I did try out the 624's but I wasn't nearly so impressed with them. They sounded like all the others and I mentally lumped them in with all the other mid-range speakers mentioned above.
Like somebody else said, your speakers are probably the most vital piece of equipment in your studio so it makes sense to get the very best you can - even if it means not buying that big shiny mega-synth you had your eye on. £1000 isn't much to spend on speakers and amp that will last you a lifetime and sound way way better than anything else.
Makes sense if you think about it.
The only reason I'm not considering them is because i already have a set of studio monitors that I trust implicitly, and for my mobile setup, the Mackie 824's would be far to big and heavy.
Beg, steal or borrow - do whatever you have to do to get the Mackie 824's and I promise you'll never regret it.
Scrimp on £500 now and forever regret settling for mediocre sound.