Looking for monitor management options

[Jperkins]

I am currently borrowing a Mackie big knob, it's not bad but I'm wondering if there are any other some-what affordable options out there, would love a Avocet but that's out of my range. Just wondering if there are any I have been missing, PreSonus has an ok looking one but never heard it:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MonitorStat/

I like the SPL but probably not looking to go over $500.
Thanks.

[Barnabas]

I like my Central Station.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/CentralStat/

[Barnabas]

and Sweetwater happens to have a B-stock unit in your price range.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/CentralStatB/

[albee1952]

+1 for the Central Station BUT be aware that the monitor outs are phase reversed.

[audiogeekzine]

I like the central station because it has the S/Pdif input, run any of the cheap M-Audio interfaces or 002/003 into it and enjoy some better quality conversion.

Albee doesn't the phase get inverted with each piece of gear in the chain? I seem to recall this with guitar pedals.
As long as both speakers are inverted the same there shouldn't be an audible difference.

[albee1952]

Its not supposed to but plenty of gear does anyway. The phase issue popped up for me when combining the main stereo signal off the CS with aux sends via analog outputs of my 003. The solution was to make a special set of cables going from the CS to the headphone amp. The cables are TRS at each end but tip and ring are swapped at one end. Admittedly, I only experimented a little on this as once I had a solution, I called it a day. I still like the CS plenty and see no reason to use anything else in this price range. The passive signal path makes for no coloration and the dual digital SPDIF input allows BOTH SPDIF from the 003 on RCA and optical SPDIF from my computer for listening to all non-Pro Tools audio(handy as I master in WaveLab). The other inputs get hit with a CD player and the headphone feed from my Motif es8 so I can listen to the keyboard without opening Pro Tools.

[EGS]

Originally Posted by albee1952

The phase issue popped up for me when combining the main stereo signal off the CS with aux sends via analog outputs of my 003.

Huh? Hey albee, what are you trying to do here? My CS works great.

[albee1952]

My setup has 4 headphone mixes that combine the main mix with a "more me" aux send off the 003 for each mix. I run the stereo signal from the CUE outputs of the CS to the main inputs of a Berhinger HA4700. I also run signal from the 003 outputs 5-8 into the 4 AUX inputs of the HA4700. Before I made the special cables, when I would turn up an aux send for "more me" to a headphone mix, it would make the track get softer (in the phones) until near full cancellation and then it would get louder when turned up farther. Clearly a polarity/phase issue. Once I made the reversed cables, it all works as one would expect. I was scratching my head until another DUC'ster mentioned the polarity reverse so a little testing proved it and special cables fixed it.

BTW, the AUX inputs of the HA4700 are TRS stereo inputs so I made special cables for that too as the 003 outputs are TRS mono. I wanted to feed stereo to each and use outputs 1-8 off the 003 but I could not get outputs 1&2 to NOT have the main mix on them. All this may well be overkill as my neighbor studio has a single stereo mix for all players.

[therealmundy]

a designs atty

2 in 2 out

xlr