Avoiding the long story, I'm intending on doing a bit of home recording for fun, and to learn. But I've been intending on doing this for years, and only ever inch towards it. So this sets the context for budget!
Last night I had occasion to do a very simple recording of an acoustic, and comparing listening to the files back on my home office speakers (ancient cheap Creative Labs PC speakers, about £15) and my work speakers (even more ancient Creative Labs, but a 2.1 system that was about £60 a million years ago) has made me realise just how crap the home speakers are.
I'm way out of the game on this, so was wondering if there are any reasonable PC speaker systems available these days for this kind of thing, at not a great deal of money (in absolute, not relative terms!). Obviously I'm not going to get proper studio monitors, but as I'm using an Alesis interface and am clueless in Reaper, I don't need those - just some powered speakers on a 3.5mm jack that sound "OK".
Any thoughts?
Comments
OK, to re-phrase the question: any pointers at PC speakers that are "good enough" for very much rank amateur hobbyist/home use?
In the unlikely event this becomes a serious thing I'd upgrade. Everything!
https://www.juno.co.uk/products/ik-multimedia-iloud-micro-monitor-studio-reference/599151-01/
PC accessory loudspeaker systems tend to be aimed at gamers. They usually include a sub bass loudspeaker and the amplification circuitry adds a colossal bass boost in an attempt to make the games seem more exciting.
IMO, Mackie is a good choice. Buying pre-owned would help keep the cost down.
I like Acoustic Research AR16s with the Grahams gasket upgrade mod. According to an interview in Sound On Sound magazine, so does producer Hugh Padgham. He takes them wherever he works. I figured that he knew what he was talking about and stole his idea. These loudspeakers are by no means ideal but they manage not to fatigue the ear during extensive listening stints.
Obviously if I were to get serious about it, that would change things dramatically. But whilst it's just a whim that I indulge a handful of times each year, the aim is to get something that's "good enough" for a very low bar.
I appreciate I've probably done to you guys what people do to me asking about computer kit, and my starting point for "OK" is normally three times their entire budget because there's a huge gap in perceived need/requirement, but I do appreciate it!
Multiple hundreds I can't justify for my personal use-case, even though I understand that to do it "properly" that's where you end up.
The Mackies mentioned up-thread I could stretch to without too much internal recrimination. And I'm not averse to secondhand in order to get something better at lower cost.
In the unlikely event I get massively into mixing (time and talent contra-indicate this) then I would invest proper money. But right now this is largely for my own amusement, and I just want something good enough that when I play recordings back I don't think I'm even worse than I am just because of the speaker quality.