I’m looking for suggestions on either Studio Monitors that can double as practice speakers or a pair of FRFR speakers.
We’re building a house and I plan to have my office double as a practice studio (guitar). The current plan is to place a builtin on one wall that will have a desk in the middle and lower cabinets and upper shelves on either side.
I use a Line 6 Helix and will include a rack mount mixer for the Helix, keyboard, mics, etc. for an occasional jam session.
At my current home, I use PA speakers connected to my mixer but I need something more aesthetically pleasing, ideally which would mount or be set in the builtin cabinets.
I have a generous budget as I (not my wife) consider this as part of the house budget. But realistically up to $4k for a pair, but I’d like to do it for less.
My home studio at my full time house has three sets of speakers- two small studio monitors, two larger legacy 8" Tannoy speakers with a sub and then two 10" powered PA speakers. The home studio has more equipment (keyboard, drums, mixing desk) than what I will have at our second house.
I’d like to be able to play backing tracks, recordings, etc. through the speakers and also support my Line 6 Helix or a keyboard to play along with the tracks or to support a jam session, etc. So double duty…
I had a similar question, which budget is worth putting into studio monitors for practicing guitar at home with amp modelers like Helix or Neural DSP ?
So, I discussed with one of my colleague who worked as a mixing/audio technician in his past life. Basically, he told me that it depends on the context. In the context of practicing guitar at home, he thought that it would be really hard to the untrained ear to hear the difference between budget and really expensive studio monitors.
My use case was quite different than his (mixing professional tracks with many instruments for work). He needs monitor that are 100% flat for his mixing work and I don’t.
So, in the end, I took his advice and I paid about 200$ for a pair of budget studio monitors which are Presonus 4.5" since I only play at low volume. Bigger ones are more expensive. I’m satisfied with them for guitar playing.
Been more than happy with my Behringer Studio 50USB monitors. Excellent value for money at £129/149euros. Permanently connected to my Behringer Xenyx AI for both practice and as an additional set up PC speakers and more than powerful for a home studio.