Monitors: Edirol MA-15D vs. M-Audio BX5a

Bryan

Bryan

Well-known member
Looking to spend under $300 for a decent pair of active studio monitors. The two models in specific that I've been looking at are the Edirol MA-15D and the M-Audio BX5a.

Opinions? Any owners out there, what would you recommend if not the above models? I did notice the Edirol's have digital outputs, whereas the M-Audio's are analog. Big deal? I've heard conflicting thoughts.
 
What are you using them for? More details, please...

Just a few others to consider:

JBL LSR2328P

Genelec 6010A

Alesis M1 Active MkII

Mackie MR8

Yamaha MSP5 Studio
 
unclebob6958 said:
What are you using them for? More details, please...

Just a few others to consider:

JBL LSR2328P

Genelec 6010A

Alesis M1 Active MkII

Mackie MR8

Yamaha MSP5 Studio
Click to expand...

Most of the above cost significantly more than the $300 you said you wanted to spend for the pair. A pair of the Genelec's currently sell for a little under $600 at B&H, for example.

I have five BX5a's that I use for surround mixing and, while they are not perfect, I find them adequate for my purposes (audio monitoring for video editing, mostly dialogue and sound effects) and to be a good value for the price. I believe these speakers have gotten pretty good reviews--I bought mine after reading the Sound-on-Sound review a couple of years ago. Ideally, they would be used with a subwoofer, which I hope to add to my setup sometime in the future.

Kevin
 
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I would not buy near-field monitors made by M-Audio. Sound cards yes, speakers absolutely not.

KRK's are cheap enough at 5" diameter.

But go listen to them at a store with your own CD. then choose, You might like something else.
Also consider the fact that your choice of speaker may nead to scale (into a 5.1 setup maybee) so price per speaker matters.
 
kwoff said:
I have five BX5a's that I use for surround mixing and, while they are not perfect, I find them adequate for my purposes (audio monitoring for video editing, mostly dialogue and sound effects) and to be a good value for the price.
Click to expand...

Thanks Kevin. That's basically what I want use them for, general video editing and some mixing (monitoring dialogue, sound effects).

DJDecay - why no love for the M-Audio?
 
Bryan said:
DJDecay - why no love for the M-Audio?
Click to expand...

I used midiman products forever, when they got bought out by the protools guys they started making all the other devices that goes with an electronic music production station, like keyboards and speakers. When they first hit market, their overpriced toy speakers were in every store that sold apple products, they even put out a "custom" garage band controller that did not work with anything else.

I was mixing dance music. Almost made an error in judgement of picking up a pair of those speakers. But I did the right thing in 2005, took a couple of CD's from artists I liked, played them on their tascam, which was connected to a Presonus monitor switcher, and picked up a pair of cheap, but heavy 5" KRK's. M-Audio speakers had high SPL but the bottom end was missing completely, somewhere around 70hz and down to LFE.

When I was buying another set of nearfields later on, came with some other CD's they had this brand new line-up of M-Audio speakers now (not just the toy ones). The sales dude was all over it, and every synth in the store had a pair of them attached. I listened to some tracks electronic and acoustic, still sounded louder on the HF and no low end. - Went with yet another brand.

I don't know but for me (personal taste) for mixing they arent that flat. Unless you stick an Low Shelf EQ on your master channel to cut-off from 75hz down, you wont be able to hear what kind of low-end is in your mix without a LFE box on the floor, and with it, the low end is amplified more, so bass the tendency will be to dial down the bass on the Master Multi Freq Compressor/Expander.

But I did make another mistake which was to pick up a pair of Events, and as set of Behringer "DA TRUTH". Should have just gottent a set of Genelecs.

But out of the whole gamut of M-Audio products, the only one I really liked (aside from my 1814 which crashes all the time) was my 5volt PCI Delta 66. That sounded so transparent, but does not work in anything anymore (esp not my PCIe mac). For some odd reason M-Audio did not make the move to PCIe, I think since Protools HD is PCIe they're afraid that the M-Powered would take over some of that market if a card was available.

My Old Cubase Mixing setup Circa 2005-2006 (I was using a Presonus Firebox at the time)
These cheap, and relatively unknown "made in china ROC" speakers gave me some of the best mix monitoring I could have sitting at a particular distance,
monitoring at -20db or lower on peak. - M-Audio's just hurt my ears.

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