Why the Internet Cannot Pick Your Next Set of Monitors

When it comes to speakers there are a few things you need to know before you know one really important fact:

• Do they deliver the detail and bandwidth needed?
• Do they interact well in your room?
• Do you enjoy listening to them?

Do they deliver the detail and bandwidth needed?

You should be able to hear enough bass, midrange and treble to make decisions on for sure. We should make room for personal decisions here if working on your own music. What if you need deep, pounding sub bass response? Be sure it delivers. What if you need very clear and airy highs to discern space and reverbs in classical music? You should personally decide what fits. Also, some speakers limit the dynamic range of music which means you're not hearing the full swing of your material. Make sure the ability to push enough volume is matched to your needs and mixing preferences.

Do they interact well in your room?

It used to be that rooms were designed with the speaker choice already in mind, but today the typical room is not purpose built. On top of that there are literally hundreds of choices, when way back when there were just a few speakers to consider. You should be willing to treat your monitoring space acoustically, I don't mean just putting up panels and assuming it's all good but rather taking the effort to cure reflections, nulls and peaks.

Do you enjoy listening to them?

This really is key since you will be spending hour after hour in front of them, crafting your vision. Some speakers irritate and fatigue, others come across as smoother in delivery and texture and you can tolerate them more. I don't mean a hi-fi effect where everything sounds better because of the speaker, but you need to actually like the speaker.

What about the one, really important fact?

Lets talk about translation, which in the end is literally the goal here.

Translation means that in general your mixes sound good on all speakers. This means some compromise as things tend to glue together differently on certain systems. The perfect reverb levels on one speaker might sound like an empty gymnasium in your car. Kick and bass slamming nicely on one system might get lost on a set of earbuds. Vocals seated perfectly within a pop production might sound buried when cranked on a live PA system.

So how does one achieve translation?

Time and education in one's own space.

Seriously, there isn't some dude on the internet who can tell you on a forum that he mixed things on eighteen pairs of speakers in a row and because some of them sounded better elsewhere, those translate better. The reality is that he has done the opposite of learning translation, and rather has approached each speaker with zero previous experience...and then told you what he thought. That is complete and utter nonsense, and at best ignorant (at worst, misleading or a flat out lie).

The one piece of gear you should never play "flavor of the month" with are your monitors, since you are throwing away the most valuable aspect in the end: knowing the speakers in the room and what your mix choices mean outside of it.

What is a good approach to learning translation, once the speakers and space are set?

Listen to commercial material that you are intimately familiar with in the car, on the radio and in the boombox or most hi-fi stereo you have. Pay attention to balances (or lack of, a good mix doesn't mean everything is balanced but rather the things that need focus, get focus) and reverb levels, use of delays and other effects. The cool thing is, with an A/B input switcher on your monitor controller you can instantly reference mixes of similar genres you are working on. If you're mixing your own music, you already know and have mixes of what you are inspired by. If you're mixing for a band, simply ask them for reference material that they like so you can check against it when needed. At the very least we're trying to make your songs fit in nicely if they were played one after the other with similar material, we're not trying to copy somebody else's style.

Pay attention to monitoring volume levels, for example when mixing at low levels you will notice that vocals tend to sit more "on top" of the music. Start turning up the volume and the louder you get, the more the voice will sit within the mix with the music. Guitar balances and other midrange elements will "glue" differently, reverb levels will appear more wet vs dry, and effects like compression with be more or less noticeable. Start to find that compromise that delivers the right energy at all levels.

Referencing more than one speaker pair and listening on headphones is not a bad idea. Notice I did not say necessary, as there are many engineers who know what translates instantly from a single pair of speakers in a great room. I will say though that earbuds and traditional headphones do deliver a drastically different sound and if you suspect your mixes will be heard this way, the only way to know is to check with a pair. 

Keep checking your mixes against other real world systems like the car and home stereo, and adjusting as needed. After a while you may find that you need to do this less and less, or not at all.

So remember, choose a great pair of speakers and work them into your space. Once you invest in your own education from the mix position, you can stop wondering what else you need and keep making music.