Speaker(s) recommendation for jungle/dnb production?

[Merlo]

Hi. I dj jungle and drum and bass, and want to start producing. I'm looking for advice on speaker(s) under £400, new or used.

Club sound systems are mono, so am I better off buying the best single speaker within my budget and producing in mono? Or should I buy two cheaper ones?

 

[pozz]

400 for a pair? If you could stretch your budget then two of these: https://m.thomann.de/gb/kali_audio_in_8_2nd_wave.htm Measurements here: https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/kali_in-8v2/

These will give you pretty ideal response once you take room gain into account. Def need to apply EQ if you have access to a measurement mic like the UMIK-1. If not, use headphones to check bass.

Having been down this road, cheaper options have these weaknesses:

• Hiss. It's an irritant, but ignorable most of the time.
• Poor vertical directivity. I can't stress enough how bad this is when listening close in. I thought it was ok until I experienced otherwise.
• Less bass. This is actually ok. In general you can't rely on the bass you're hearing from speakers unless you've used corrective EQ, and even that may not fix all the issues.

Those good cheaper options will be by Kali (LP series), JBL, ADAM (T series) and KRK (Gen 4 speakers). If you look at measurements you'll find there are other problems as well (on axis is less smooth or less flat, or there are small resonances, for example).

You could mix entirely in mono with a single speaker, even doing the panning. The only downside is that you'd have no way to check the stereo mix unless you have a separate system. Headphones would be somewhat unreliable since they tend to overemphasize the effects of small stereo changes. Keep in mind that, although the final destination is a club, the promoters, DJs and anyone else involved in the scene will be listening on home systems, headphones or cars. Same goes for your fanbase. So the stereo aspects have to be done well too.

 

[Merlo]

Thanks for the detailed reply. Yes £400 total, though I could stretch a little and buy used to get a better deal.

I don't know much about producing, I assumed original jungle was mostly produced in mono so was looking at getting something like a used genelec. Or whatever's good for sub bass, drums, pads and samples. I'll look into your recommendations.

 

[DVDdoug]

Club sound systems are mono

I didn't know that! I know most live-music PA systems are setup for mono...



I'd guess you'll get more for your money, and bigger woofer and more bass with a single monitor. It's just "unusual" to have a production studio set-up for mono. Most mono recordings are done with a stereo recording setup and two monitors with everything panned toward center and mixed to mono. ...But I don't see a problem with one speaker. If you don't have a subwoofer I'd say an 8-inch woofer is the minimum size.*

I think the problem is going to be bass. Ideally, you need a good subwoofer that can pump-out the bass and since small studios aren't naturally "bass friendly" the room should be measured and you'll probably "need" bass traps and maybe some other acoustic treatment. That's going to exceed your budget.

Headphones can reproduce bass but bass in headphones is "experienced differently" than bass in a room.

If you have access to a club during off-hours you could make your final EQ tweaks there. Cubs aren't necessarily set-up for accurate sound and different clubs will sound different but it should be better than the average untreated home studio.



* Woofer size isn't the only thing that affects bass and bigger woofer isn't always better. But I'm old-school and to me 8-inches is barely a "woofer" and certainly not a subwoofer!

 

[audio2920]

Personally I'd go for two speakers; producing on a single speaker just isn't fun, so even if it arguably it is good for accuracy, I wouldn't go there. And even if you want to work in mono cos it's more jungle, it's less involving thing when it's just coming at you from one speaker all day...

Budget precludes a sub I think, so you're looking at 2.0

Evenness of bass response will be your issue in non-ideal room (heck, even in a half decent room, it's always the biggest anomaly, and in basic terms you can easily end up mixing some bass notes higher or lower in level than you intend)

So, if you've got a decent mic (or can borrow one) and are up for doing some googling about room correction and getting familiar with REW, I'd probably say getting a MiniDSP 2x4 is a better investment than spending that extra £100 on monitors. While the 2x4 is hardly hardly last word in fidelity, for production, a more neutral frequency response is almost certainly worth the sacrifice in purity.

You could do that basic room EQ in the monitor chain of your DAW of course, and not spend that £100, but it just becomes a ball ache and settings are easily lost or neglected etc. Then you're also stuck having to play everything through the DAW. You can't just spin in an external etc... So anyway, I always put my "room correction" in hardware for simplicity.

Anyway, my recommendations would be:

1x MiniDSP 2x4 (@ £100)
Plus one of....
2x ADAM T7V
2x KALI LP-6
2x JBL 306
2x Mackie MR624

They're all "good" speakers and all about £300/pair.

To my ear, the Mackie, Kali and JBL all have a (relatively) similar character, the ADAM is the one that sounds "nicest" and has great LF handling for it's size, but might be a bit too "sweet" sounding for jungle production? It sorta sparkles but doesn't shove midrange at you like the others.

If your room is untreated I'd *guess* the LP6 or 306 might be good options as their off-axis is "good" so the reflections aren't too colored - although you could search ASR to confirm. Of those two the LP6 probably has the better designed bass port which allows you to play louder & cleaner IMHO.

Lastly, having waffled on, to directly answer your question if you really don't want to get involved in all the room EQ carnage; the 8-inch versions of the above I.e. JBL 308 or Kali LP8 will give you a tiny bit more LF extension for your £400.

I've given up buying 2nd hand at this price point. Firstly, speaker design moves on, so older speakers are on the back foot. Secondly, particularly with studio monitors, they might have seen some abuse (or rather, high SPL accidents that happen in the studio in a way that rarely do in the living room!) and even if you collect them in person, that damage doesn't always come to light in a quick listening check.

That's my thoughts anyway. Hope that helps!?