Monitor Speakers, on a budget...

Flink_Poyd

On my current mission to spend every last penny I have on kit I now have a new craving, monitor speakers. At the mo I have an aging iMac which has to have the audio out through a USB adapter ( the jack off a pair of headphones snapped off in there and refused to come out ) which goes into some perfectly fine (cheap) Altec Lansing 2.1 speakers from the mighty Argos. For watching cat videos on YouTube its fine but Im wondering if a pair of budget monitor speakers would help out as I now have a Zoom G3 pedal to plug the guitar into and play with as well. I only use the Mac on weekends for a few hours so splurging out £100s really isnt worth it so sort of £75 max ( I know a few people might say M Audio AV30s ) new or secondhand, ideally powered so the kids can just switch them on and the ability to plu into a USB dongle by 3.5mm jack.
 Pointers to stuff on sale in the classifieds, eBay or online would be lovely

TTony

IIRC @Ian_Savage had some monitor speakers in the classifieds.

steamabacus

On that budget, I'd look at seconhand hifi power amp and bookshelf speakers. Loads of excellent old hifi kit can be found pretty cheap in this computer/tablet age. I'm assuming you can send a stereo line level signal out of your usb adapter?

Flink_Poyd

steamabacus said:

On that budget, I'd look at seconhand hifi power amp and bookshelf speakers. Loads of excellent old hifi kit can be found pretty cheap in this computer/tablet age. I'm assuming you can send a stereo line level signal out of your usb adapter?

Ideally like it more compact, hence the active speakers. Many years ago I had and Arcam CD player with a Cambridge amp (A1?) and Sonata bookshelf speakers and just that small cheap setup was a revelation.

TTony said:

IIRC @Ian_Savage had some monitor speakers in the classifieds.

Link comes up as Whoops!
 

Fretwired

I have an immaculate set of Wharfedale Pro Diamond 8.1 Pro Active monitors if your interested .. £75 if you could collect.

Here's a review in Sound on Sound .. http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Oct04/articles/wharfdiamond8.htm

Flink_Poyd

Fretwired said:

I have an immaculate set of Wharfedale Pro Diamond 8.1 Pro Active monitors if your interested .. £75 if you could collect.

Here's a review in Sound on Sound .. http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Oct04/articles/wharfdiamond8.htm

Cheers, Ill check them out.

TTony

@IanSavage

Flink_Poyd

TTony said:

@IanSavage

Theyre nice but a bit out of budget, Im actually sticking to this one.

spark240

I have an older Yamaha set of decent PC speakers with a small sub woofer, still boxed, hardly used, well under your budget.

Would have to get them out the loft for pics.,  

Flink_Poyd

spark240;474384" said:

I have an older Yamaha set of decent PC speakers with a small sub woofer, still boxed, hardly used, well under your budget.

Would have to get them out the loft for pics.,  

Already using that type of set up so wouldn't worry about it too much

thermionic

steamabacus said:

On that budget, I'd look at seconhand hifi power amp and bookshelf speakers. Loads of excellent old hifi kit can be found pretty cheap in this computer/tablet age. 

Definitely. In my 4-track cassette days I went to Richer Sounds to get and amp and speakers for monitoring mixes. By a stroke of luck, the salesman was into recording music himself, knew what I was after and did me a deal - an Ariston amp (nothing special) and some JPW Mini Monitors. They did a decent job for a few years and I now have them set up in my bedroom with a spare CD player. I'm always astounded by how good they sound (a quick google tells me they're still highly regarded in hi-fi circles). I might set them up again when I have room, as a second pair in an NS-10 style.

Flink_Poyd

After lots of waiting on eBay auctions a pair of M Audio AV 30s popped up as new (open box) for best offer, ended up getting them for £55 delivered so not a bad deal. Time to crank them up over the weekend. Look out neighbours.........