Need Monitor Help

[nexty76]

Right now I have no output monitors for my MBox 2 Mini. I am currenty using Etymotic 6i headphones as my audio source, obviously not ideal. I see that the output is a 1/4" jack, for now should I just setup some of my sroound sound speakers with an RCA to 1/4" jack? Is that a waste, should I invest in decent headphones? Or is there a set of monitors I could pick up that won't break the bank?

[BradLyons]

Acoustics of the room and the room itself will certainly play a role in this, however you should always have some nice speakers to use anyway. The earbuds you have are just that, they are not actual headphones.... you should consider a good pair of headphones for monitoring when you record but again, I would still consider a decent pair of studio speakers. WITHOUT breaking the bank, these are hard to beat....

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ResolvA6/

You can get a good mix out of these including some excellent bass, but they are also decent to just crank up some tunes and listen.

[nexty76]

Those speakers look sweet, might be a touch out of my range right now considering what I dropped on MBox/PT8/Mic. I may just get some headphones right now to get by. Sound On Sound rated the Sennheiser HD 280 pros highly for a bargain ($99), any experience with this range of headphones for monitoring? Thanks again.

[musicalavtech]

Your other identical post was answered already. Read up on the forum rules about duplicate posts.

[nst7]

One thing about the HD 280's is they offer good isolation. They do this by being really tight fitting on your ears. That's fine for tracking but you may not want to spend hours mixing with them unless you want that "head in a visegrip" feel.

If possible, spend more money on monitor speakers and acoustic treatment. Try to use headphones mainly for quality control (checking for noises, etc) as well as tracking, of course.

A very popular headphone is the Sony 7506's. Or for a little more, the 7509's.

[albee1952]

Don't mix with Sennheiser 280's or any of the Sony's as they are absolutely NOT accurate. I use(and like0 the Sony MDR-V600 for tracking as it has essentially the same sound as the 7506 but much better isolation and comfort, but none of these are good for mixing. Take a look at the recent EQ(or was it PAR??) magazine article on headphones for mixing as they covered some decent choices. I still vote for speakers and by going with a small woofer, you may not get a big bottom sound in the room, but you will also NOT get as much incorrect information due to the room(use the phones to sort out the bottom octave).