I just bought yet another pair of cheapo monitors

Recording, Mixing and Producing Recording Toys and Tricks
#1

I couldn’t resist the sale price combined with my curiosity, so I just bought a pair of coaxial monoptice monitors. I have the 8" monoprice monitors and the tweater has always bugged me. It’s too harsh, and at nearfield, there’s too much phasing going on with the tweeter being so high up. I’m was curious to see if a coaxial design would solve the things I don’t like about the 8" monitors. Or maybe it will introduce a whole new set of issues.

In any case, I just bought these because I couldn’t resist the $100 price tag. I’ll let you know if they suck or not when they show up.

https://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id=115&cp_id=11504&cs_id=1150401&p_id=605650&seq=1&format=2

4 Likes
#2

I’ll be curious to see whether or not you feel like those are a cheaper alternative to something like the Avantones

1 Like
#3

They’re actually not avantone alternatives. I thought they were at first when I saw them, but was confused by the port. It turns out they’re full range monitors. The dust cap is a tweeter.

#4

gotcha. Speaking of them, I jumped on their site a bit ago and saw that they’re doing their own version of the classic NS10’s now.

http://www.avantonepro.com/cla-10.php

#5

I thought they were avantones! I must say, for 6.5" drivers, the enclosure is really small. I’m curious if you’re going to hear any bass at all from these monitors…

#6

I think they are as deep as any typical 6.5"monitor. They’re just short because they don’t need extra height for the tweeter.

#7

I was pleasantly surprised to hear a pair of 6 or 8in Insignia non-powered bookshelf speakers my amplifier tech had for his gear testing. Considering the price, they sounded fantastic. Looking at Best Buy website, they don’t make them anymore :slight_smile:

#8

I just did a quick test.

Pros: They sound better than the 8" monoprice monitors. They sound less hyped and more natural than those.

Cons: This is a huuuuuuge con. They sound like they have a built in noise generator when the gain is set to 12:00. They produce so much noise that I would call them unusable.

Back they go.

1 Like
#9

This is a new market - monitors with a built in white noise generator - it’s a feature not a bug!!!

1 Like
#10

From the Monoprice review section:
This speakers are quite acceptable in terms of sound, however, there is a for a strong tweeter hiss. To put in perspective, placing the speakers in one end of the living room and standing in the other, the hiss is very audible. It is present in both speakers equally, and without any input cable (except power) connected in the back. Turning the volume knob changes it and strangely at 5/10, the hiss is loudest, a little quieter at 10/10.

#11

Could you have gotten a lemon?

#12

I would have thought that, but it matches this exactly:

If I have it cranked up all the way, the noise goes down, but it’s still annoyingly loud. If I have the volume set to 5/10, it’s really really loud. I thought maybe the guy who left the review was exaggerating or may not have had his gain staging set up right, but nope. It’s worse than I would have expected possible.

I love trying out cheap stuff to see if I can find good stuff for almost no money, but so far I’m 0/2 with anything Stage Right (Monoprices audio brand). The SM57 knockoff I got from them had a transformer just rattling around inside not hooked up to anything. I sent it back and got a new one, and the second one had the same thing, only that time it was glued in place, not hooked up to anything.

I try not to judge a brand from a single product, because I know that brands like these are just sourced from whatever manufacturer will get them the price, but it seems like Monoprices method has become to find the absolute cheapest thing and bank on the fact that people will be too lazy to return it.

I was very pleased with my Monoprice guitar, and the 8" monitors are not terrible even though they have some issues. But these monitors? Bad bad bad.

2 Likes