Active designs can yield higher fidelity and higher sound pressure level (SPL) than passive loudspeakers. Even so, a good passive design can provide excellent performance at a lower overall cost, plus it is usually easier to implement than an active loudspeaker system. Yamaha DSR-Series takes portable active loudspeakers to the extreme limits of their potential. Designed through the application of advanced Yamaha digital and acoustic technologies perfected over several decades, DSR provides a listening experience that redefines high definition sound reinforcement.
A guide to our favourite studio monitors, from the best budget models to our pick of money-no-object dream speakers.
You should always be skeptical when you hear someone make definitive sweeping judgments about something as nuanced as music production gear. Objectively there’s no such thing as ‘the best cheap studio monitors’ or ‘the best monitors for producing dance music’. Top choices depend on budget, personal preferences over sonic characteristics and, to some extent, the type of music you’re making (although it’s a fair assumption that producers of most varieties of dancefloor-focused electronic music have roughly similar requirements in terms of transparency and full-range frequency response).
Those caveats aside, this list contains a selection of nearfield monitors which we’d strongly recommend checking out if you’re in the market for a new pair – a totally subjective guide to our favourites, from budget models right up to money-no-object dream speakers. They’re certainly not the only options we’d consider in each of their respective price ranges, but these are the models we’d recommend as starting points.
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There are models here to suit every pocket and every taste, but remember that spending more money isn’t necessarily a guarantee that you’ll find a better pair of monitors for your own requirements. Pick any pair of expensive speakers and we pretty much guarantee you’ll be able to find one group of producers and engineers who think they’re amazing and another who think they’re awful.
A totally subjective guide to our favourite monitors, from budget models right up to money-no-object dream speakers.
The best advice we can offer when it comes to choosing a pair of monitors is to listen to them before you buy. In the era of online shopping (and with bricks-and-mortar music shops closing on a far too regular basis) that might be easier said than done, but given that your choice of monitors is one of the most important studio decisions you’ll make, you owe it to yourself to make the extra effort.
So, starting with two very affordable models and working our way through to the more expensive options, here are our favourites.
All speakers, regardless of the number of drivers, pole type, enclosure type, or other characteristics, fall into one of two categories: active or passive. How they’re classified depends on their relationship to the amplifier driving them.
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The vast majority of speakers are passive. A passive speaker doesn’t have a built-in amplifier; it needs to be connected to your amplifier through normal speaker wire. This speaker level signal has been amplified enough to drive the speakers sufficiently.
Active speakers, on the other hand, have a built-in amplifier and are fed by a low-level (line-level) signal passed along an interconnect cable originating at your preamplifier or controller. Because the amplifier is an active electronic device, it needs power, and so you have to put any active speakers near a power outlet.
For most audio systems, the subwoofer is probably going to be your only active speaker (though you can also find passive subwoofers, and some high-end audio systems use these). There’s no practical reason for any of your other speakers to be active.
Active speakers limit your ability to pick amplifiers tailored to your audio system and are generally expensive. They are also much harder to find. Most active speakers either fall into the low price/low-end category (designed for hooking into PCs or portable CD/MP3 players), or the really high end category (where the speakers cost several thousand dollars each).