Avantone Mixcubes. I bought them for my bedroom - Notebook place. But they sound so nice that they have found the way into my "studio" and now I use them more often than my NS10s. The Mixcubes do not have much bass. But really good mids (and highs). Everything that sounds good on the Mixcubes sounds good on any other system. That little cubes surprised me a lot!

The Mixcubes are a great 2nd/additional pair of speakers.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Feb 22, 2018

Yeah, this is true! A smart way to control your mix. You buy and work with just 1 mixcube, don't you?
Something equivalent but cheaper? (If possible of course)

 

I use 2 mixcubes. They translate the main part of the music (mids) very well. They are like a typical listener speaker. They have a frequency range from 90hz to 17khz (i think). And they really sound very good and accurate in this area. They are a nice second pair of speakers. What makes the mixcube great is that everything thats sounds good on them sounds good on any other system.

Music making people often forget that a lot of people do not listen to music with speakers that delivers (flat accurate) <40hz - 20khz.
Thats were the mixcube can help ...

 

Last edited by a moderator: Feb 22, 2018

I had to figure out what this was, and now I want one. Seems like it'd be a great help in a room like mine where the bottom end doesn't work too well mainly due to dimensions of the room.

 

KRK Rokit and VXT are quite different. The price difference reflects that. I will always gladly mix with VXTs 6 or 8 and add Yamaha HS6s or 8 to the mix and that's a very good combination of cheap speakers for mixing. VXTs are more hi-fi [but really Hi-Fi, unlike Rokits - the bass sucks so much on these] Sub is only useful if you've got a big and treated room. It's better to "approximate" the bass with normal speakers and turn them down a bit when you're not sure. Mixcubes are great for checkup, but when you have VXT6s and Yamaha HS6s, they are not absolutely necessary, I think.

 

Yamaha NS 10 DUDE

 

imho look at the focal range :
https://www.sweetwater.com/c405--Active_Monitors?params=eyJmYWNldCI6eyJCcmFuZCI6WyJGb2NhbCJdfX0

or if in a tight budget sell your krk's & get this,(the originals where great & the mk2 version came out not long ago) :
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/LSR305MK2--jbl-305p-mkii-5-inch-powered-studio-monitor

if you like the krk sound buy the vxt series
also the krk kns 8400 are good & flat :
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/KNS8400
but stay away from these :
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/KNS6400

 

HS 8

 

Sceptre S8

 

Yep, that is not problem, i started with much worse than even krk. But if you wanna choice make it right

 

I attended an exhibit of several systems 3 yrs ago, the revelation was the KRK RP 10-3 G3. At about 950 euros/pair now, it probably is the cheapest entry to mid-field 3 way monitoring and a great overall value. You can have an 8 speaker mid-field monitoring system for less than 4k euros. But don't just take my word for it:
https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/krk-rokit-rp10-3
https://www.mixonline.com/technology/krk-rokit-rp10-3-powered-speakers-review-369626
https://www.musicradar.com/reviews/tech/krk-rokit-rp10-3-524632

First of all, the only sys that will play well along with the RoKit 6s at the same time, is another identical pair lol. Everything else, no matter how high quality, will be very messy. "We" buy two different monitoring systems so we can A/B from one sys to another and find/compare differences, not play them all together. So now that we got this out of the way:
Upgrades may concern many things. Peeps upgrade for 2 main reasons (any friends feel free to add yours):
Better quality or a more powerful system. Of course you can go for a sys that would "tick" both these reasons but this would cost significantly higher than your RoKits.
If you are looking for a louder system and some more bass, grab a KRK sub like the KRK 10S2 (about 2 extra octaves extension for your rokit 6s) or if your room is too small the KRK 8S2 (about 1.5 extra octaves extension for your rokit 6s). Both these subs are tuned to play along with your RoKits, so this upgrade is a no brainer if you just seek to augment, that is pimp your monitors Just remember to add some bass traps in your room, which won't "break the bank" either.
For a better quality system, the sky is the limit, so if you won't post a budget limit i can't recommend anything at the moment, there's too many great sounding systems depending the price range always.
Cheers

 

I'm an ADAM guy with a pair of AX8A models as my main pair but after a friend picked up a pair of Yamaha HS-8 monitors, I grabbed a pair for myself also as I was very impressed, They are impossible to fault for the money and with the 8-inch driver it is an essential really IMextremelyHumbleHO unless you use a sub with a smaller pair of monitors or PMC models due to the clever design that enables the lows to extend down but at the same time PMC's start at expensive and get MOAR pricey so for the money I'd expect such quality.
An 8-Inch driver enables one to really hear along with feel the kick and funamental frequencies of a bass guitar or synthesized bass which I believe makes mixing quicker and easier as the clashes are far easier to pick out and deal with but YMMV and it might just be me who feels that way about driver size delivering low end a lot better due to being more effient along with usually a more powerful amplifier built-in if active to drive them. The HS-8's also extended up above 20kHz and there is a benefit to that even though it isn't audible, I find it really makes the high frequencies sound less harsh and again you get a more detailed picture which helps speed up workflow.
These HS-8's do not have the overly pronounced mid-range like the good old NS-10's which is a good thing for full-range reference monitors as I have a pair of NS-10's with which I have compared them, They really are useful the NS-10's but I mostly use them whilst setting up mic's to hear problems that pop out pretty glaringly and whilst tracking too along with checking mixes on them, Not on all the time.
I reckon the HS-8's are very good for for the money and as said I really can't fault them at such a price.
I've not really got much in the way of experience with KRK's Rokit monitors, From memory the few times I've tried them and run into them over the years they have sounded to me hyped which is not something I like in a monitor speaker but for listening like Hi-Fi speakers is fine/kind of expected to some extent, Another example of a monitor which I'm not keen on for monitoring but would gladly use for listening to music as a Hi-Fi speaker are Mackie's HR range, The low-end is really rather exageratted on them which is good fun for listening to music on but as a reference monitor more of a detriment than any sort of useful attribute, Again YYMV of course and just my 2 pence FWIW

All the best to all as always, Hope everyone is well/life's treating you all fairly

 

Treat your room and your KRKs will "sound" better. - and you'll be.......treating your room.

 

Indeed, I simply used my HiFi for a good while when starting in the nineties, I was using a (for some reason I've seen them given the vintage classic status/badge of honour fairly recently!) Marantz 2245 Stereophonic Reciever, The 70's earlier solid-state big old silver fronted box as my power amplifier which I got passed down to Me off of My Aunty and Uncle who must have upgraded as I always got their hand-me-down electronics stuff from pong video game system being the first when I was like 7 through Spectrum ZX, Commodor Amiga and a few PC's along with anything music/audio related, I love the Marantz and still have it but retired it many years ago,
The reasons I really love it are obviously nostalgic mainly but also a couple of the features I still think are great, Those would be option to switch between two pairs of speakers plus run both at the same time, A proper fully equiped equalizer setup just after the preamplifier consisting of low, mid and high controls along with a switchable steroid-like option which is next to the speaker in/out buttons simply called loud, The lows got boosted yet pretty tight, The mid-range came alive but without a ton of muddy low-mids nor a boxy quality either in the 600 to 900 Hz area happened and the higher mids/presence plus the treble got crisper and sharper without being shrill or harsh, In conjuction with the 3-band EQ it was really easy to tailor the sound to suit different speakers, Really hype any speakers in order to just enjoy listening to music, Although it does not feature any dedicated bi-amping it was easy to work around by utilitizing the option of running two pairs of speakers at the same time, So it was simply a matter of going round back and wiring a pair of speakers. I used a pair of Mission speakers for ages with the 2245 which I liked design wise, Especially for nearfield monitoring even though they really were not at all intended for such a role, The way the driver is above the tweeters helped I believe, As the tweeters are set back in the front baffle so that the driver and the tweeter arrive at the same time just like some reference monitor designs are designed the same way or incorporate DSP which does the same job via a small delay on the high frequencies and is so common a feature and an important one for any live sound system worth its salt I have a dbx Driverack which is one of numerous things that I always take with Me if I'm doing any live sound work.
So yes that was my super pro totally flat reference quality monitoring setup for a good while.
I got hold of my pair of Yamaha NS-10s at roughly a year or maybe two in which I obviously hooked up to the Marantz 2245 (Which was in hindsight just lacking the power to drive the NS-10s properly, But at least the tweeter on neither came even close to blowing out!) and Mission speakers and then kept progressing up the ladder slowly but surely and as shocking a setup it is by the standards of today, I am not ashamed to say I did not know any better really, Being far too young, green/inexperienced along with having almost zero of a budget to work with :D I've enjoyed and still enjoy the learning process Integral brother, Thank you and this thread for triggering those fond memories

 

KRK's are great I've owned a couple of models over the decades.
The last pair were the "trapezoid" style granite looking Rokits.
I eventually moved up to Genelecs.
The M series are affordable if you get a few more coins,
adjustable and sound absolutely amazing.

 

Last edited: Feb 24, 2018

As you said you're into EDM/Electro Pop stuff,

This guy, who you might know he used to own Dynaudio BM6A MK2 2 years ago if i'm not wrong, now he's working on a pair EVE SC205 (probably hooked to a sub, but if you get the bigger SC207 or SC208 you wouldn't need a sub for that).
I own the 3way EVE SC307, Dynaudio DBM50, Yamaha HS8
and Yamaha HS8S subwoofer.

I've listened and checked out many other brands and models, from ADAMs (even the new range S3H, S2V, etc.) or the popular AX series, also Focal Twins and Solo6, Dynaudio LYD48, KRK VXT8, Genelec 8050B. The ones that drew my attention recently and also recently tested were Amphion One18 and the new KERR K300.
The Kerr Audio K300 are an amazing design, i was blown away here in KMR Audio UK/England. It follows the same Transmission Line Concept (similar to PMC, also on their huge Kerr K100 mastering speakers they implement the same high quality woofer that PMC's using) The Kerr K300 has a 6.5" wood-fibre woofer that reaches down to 33hz and for a nearfield that's amazing, it also reproduces efortless highs even more open than the Amphions, thanks to their unique and huge "True Ribbon Tweeter" with a diaphragm of just 15 microns thick with a moving mass of just 0.027g which is around 18 times lighter than a conventional Air-Motion-Transformer ribbon tweeter.
They're a pure joy to listen to, if you'd produce/mix on them you wouldn't even realize there's any speakers between you and your computer. "Lifelike" would be a good word for the way it sounds. When compared to the Amphions, i thought the midrange was a bit more "intuitive" and rounder on the Amphion which would be subjectively more suitable for Mixing&Mastering for my own personal taste. But the KERR are both entertaining and very accurate with high frequencies which feels as smooth as real life.
The K300s are around 2500 euros/2.200pound a pair, but they (and also Amphions) need an amplifier as they're both passive designs.

The total cost would go around 4200 euros/4000 pounds.

I know it doesn't sounds affordable to you, but if i'd be in your shoes i'd rather keep working on the actual Rokits until I sell some more productions and save enough money for a great pair of monitors like either Amphions One18 or Kerr K300, then I wouldn't have to upgrade in 15 years. In your case I think the Kerrs would suit you better as they provide deeper bass which you'll enjoy in your EDM needs.

My personal favourites right now are my actual 3ways EVE SC307. But soon enough i'll replace my secondary pair of Dynaudio DBM50 with Amphion One18 + Amphion Amp500 (not that 2 x 500watts would be needed, I could be ok with the Amp100 but i'd rather get future proof in case i'll be upgrading to something else in the next 10 years) and also the KERR K300 to replace my Yamaha HS8. This is going to happen in the next couple of months or maybe a year. I know that 3 pairs might seem a lot, but it's always a good thing to check your mixes on multiple monitors, even Dave Pensado approved that.

Back to the SC307, they are a beautiful balance between entertaining and accurate. Sounds beautiful but very accurate at the same time. They also don't fart at high SPLs (like the ADAM AX port issues) and they sound really impressive, better than the AX series from ADAM, a great tool to impress your clients when you show them your new demos and stuff, in your own room.

My 2cents

+1 , phase issues would be the first thing, I realized that in my tests when I was playing both EVEs and Yamaha HS8. Yamahas are analog and EVEs are digital which probably introduces some sort of slight delay responsible for the phase issues. Also the advantage of using each pair one at a time is that you'll get a different mix perspective on each so you can evaluate how your music translates across all the pairs that you own. The similar you get it across all the speakers, the more confident you get with the translation.

Evorax​

 

Last edited: Feb 24, 2018

Budget minded, Sceptre S8s

 

I live in the third world and I make a living with a pair of KRK rokit6. They are what they are. They suck balls in the lowmid area.
I couln't do any serious work without Sonarworks Reference, the difference it makes is AMAZING, it changed everything for me.

 

Thanks for the heads up on the KERR heads up, I hadn't heard/read anything and would of remained that way had you not posted about them Evorax as I've been quite a hermit for past few years.
I'm a North Western limey and I love KMR Audio, I really do not get nearly as many opportunities as I'd like to spend time visiting in order to try with a view to buy if/when I'm able but when I do...Oh it is like being a kid in a sweet shop!
The team are also a vast well of knowledge and they are not gear snob types which is an attribute that I think very highly of/view as a virtue in the world of audio, Even more so with the levels of quality gear they deal. They really do make the atmosphere inviting without the overly eager sales person types around whom I find a PITA, Getting disturbed/distracted by "can I help you with anything?" for the umpteenth time just gets on my wick.
I also appreciate hearing your experience with the EVE monitors, Especially with it being a 3-way design and an offshoot of ADAM that have improved on the template, I'll be checking out when I have the shekels to do so.
I personally do not think that your plan to upgraing along with having a trio of genuinely top-draw monitors is OTT at all, So long as space and funds permit why the heck not is how I usually approach such areas from, It can only be a benefit the way I see it.

Cheers and greetings from Greater Manchester which isn't so great and again nice one