OT: Basic Studio Monitors for $169.95/pair

Coursedesign wrote on 8/16/2005, 3:16 PM
Zzounds.com is blowing out Alesis One MkII Studio Monitors for $169.95/pair B-stock or $199.00 for brand new.

Note that these are passive speakers, and need a power amp. There is also an active model that sounds better for more money.

These monitors are not super accurate, but neither is anything else near this price. They are far more pleasant to listen to than "PC speakers" for the same price.

Auralex Mopads are a must with these, IMHO.

Comments

busterkeaton wrote on 8/16/2005, 6:19 PM
How do these compare with the M-Audio BX5's?

Musician's Friend has these for $199. They are already amped.

The prices on the BX5's have come down because M-Audio has come out with the BX5a which has Kevlar cones. M-audio claims this refines the sound compared to previous versions.
Coursedesign wrote on 8/17/2005, 10:14 AM
When I compared the BX5s side-by-side with the Alesis Mk2 Actives a few years ago, I thought the Alesis sounded clearly better. I also thought the BX5 sound was a little bit tiring, which I could not live with. The Alesis Actives I ended up buying then were not tiring even after 10 hours of editing sound. They are not nearly as balanced as the high end Mackies and Genelecs, but for the money they were the best at the time.

I also listened to the Alesis vs. Alesis Active speakers, with the latter sounding definitely better, even with a decent amp for the passives. At the time, the Actives cost something like $550 list and $350 with some fairly aggressive buying.

Note that it is tricky to compare speakers even in the best of circumstances.

At the HD Expo, I got a demo of Genelec's new series of studio monitors. The sales guy was very, very proud and asked what I thought of the "fabulous sound."

I could only say that they sounded really poor, and that the problem seemed to be with the source because the flaws didn't sound like speaker problems... These were $1K-$2K monitors...