Studio monitors for piano listening?

[iancollett6]

Hello,
        Im in the process of buying some new speakers for my man-cave/sleepout.
 Ive read all the info about studio monitors giving a flat output throughout the frequencies, therefore being a more accurate reproduction of the recording. I have also read that because of this, these speakers are not as "pleasurable" to listen to as hi-fi speakers that tend to exagerate the bass and high frequencies.
 As I listen to classical piano with the upmost concentration, would't these speakers be better for my situation?
 I understand that people may say " Just listen to them in the store and see what you think!" but in a large open plan store this kind of makes things muddy.
 The models that come to mind are yamaha Hs-80m or possibly rokit's.
 Thankyou for any responses.

[hfmadopter]

Not sure monitors are really what you want. In terms of accuracy yes, but they are pretty directional in terms of that accuracy.

[iansinclair]

"studio monitor" is a much abused term in the audio world these days.  There was a time when it is true that it referred to a speaker (often system -- multiple drivers in one enclosure) which was intended for studio monitor use, and thus was supposed to have particularly flat and distortion free response.  Nowadays?  Not so much.  In fact, in many instances which I have seen, a "studio monitor" speaker in a manufacturer's line is pretty much the same as the rest of their line, except in a particular style of enclosure.

A true high fidelity speaker does NOT, repeat NOT, exaggerate any frequency.  A really good high fidelity speaker will have a flat response, give or take a decibel or two, from its low cutoff to its high cutoff; beyond that, the response will drop at between six and twelve decibels per octave, depending on the particular model.  It is quite common for smaller high fidelity speakers to require a subwoofer for response in the low bass -- say below 50 hertz or so -- but if the subwoofer is properly integrated, the break between it and the main speakers should be nearly inaudible.  Some very high end speakers -- such as my Cambridge Soundworks Towers (no longer made) or the truly fabulous speakers made by Legacy Audio -- this isn't necessary; as a general rule, depending on design the low frequency cutoff of a speaker will be related to the size of the woofer; the larger the lower, somewhere in the vicinity of about 250 divided by the diameter, in hertz for a good design (that is, a 5 inch may be good to 50 hertz, a 10 to about 25 hertz), but this can be tweaked by integral electronics in the speaker -- provided that you have the amplifier to drive it (this is how the old KLH bookshelf speakers performed such miracles of low frequency response -- but they took a big amplifier to do it!).

More later.

[iansinclair]

I have not listened to, nor seen reviews of, either of the speakers which you mention, but Yamaha has always made a decent speaker.  Based on the specifications, I would not think of either as a true high fidelity speaker (minimum frequency range 25 hz to 20,000 hz, plus or minus 1 db), but in the price range they at least look decent from the specs... (to give you an idea on price, the Towers I mentioned retailed for $800 each, 10 years ago; the Legacy Classic is around $1,000 each these days, as I recall)(that's each -- double for a stereo pair).  Further, the ones you mention appear to have integrated amplifiers, which is probably a good idea (assuming the amps are good, which they probably are -- power amps are pretty easy to design) as it allows for better tweaking.

[indianajo]

I agree "studio monitor" doesn't mean much these days.  It does mean a speaker designed to produce sound in a very small room.  IMHO look for speakers that have an actual +- 3 db specification of frequency range.  Most consumer speakers only mention a frequency range with no +- tolerance quoted.  Maybe +- 10 db, may be anything. RadioShack used to have great specs,and lousy sound, but a brochure on their headphone let out the secret. The headphone had a "production tolerance" of +- 20 db, which means if it made any noise at all they shipped it.  
In my market the best bargains are Peavey speakers.  I bought SP2's which have a quoted +- 3 db range of 54-17000 hz.  I auditioned first some SP5's which with 70 hz lower end were not low enough fro piano or organ, IMHO.  54 hz is, and the SP2's are only down 10 db at 44 hz.  
these are Woofer + tweeter two way speakers, and require 10' or frontal space so for the stereo image to meld with 6' separation. I have a 14'w x 10' high x 32' long living dining room, with the speakers on one end of the room on poles above and straddling the piano. This projects the sound anywhere in the room 10' away, even the couch to one side, and also through the single door into the kitchen 40 ' away when I eat meals.  If your room is irregularly shaped or very small, some other type of multi-element speaker may be more appropriate.  The harmonic distortion levels of the SP2 speakers are so low at 1 W, however, that Peavey plots them in their customer brochure.  Look for that on any other speaker! I run mine at about 1.5 Vpp average into 8 ohms, < 1 watt. Acoustic suspension speakers will require much more power to produce the same level of sound, as these SP2's are 98 db at 1 m at 1 watt, pretty sensitive. Yamaha and JBL produce similar 2 way speakers in the pro line, and Peavey has some self powered ones with a little looser specifications in the customer brochure.  
I find the huge warehouse stores useless for auditioning speakers.  I take my own piano CD's out, and try out used speakers at people's houses, that are selling them off.  A good piano CD is one of the hardest sounds to do correctly, so they make a good test.    I got the SP2-XT pair, speaker stands (poles), a wedge monitor speaker with 15" woofer and horn,  an CS800s amp with issues, a 15 band stereo graphic equalizer with issues, a digitech quad 4 effects box with issues, a 100' 20 out 4 in snake cable, a road case, a 12 input mixer with phantom power for condensor mikes (with issues) for $1000. This was from  a band leaving the road. the issues are mostly tired electroytic caps in the power supplies or blown $.30 components on the inputs or outputs due to the band plugging the 1/4 phone cable in the wrong hole in the dark when setting up.  All this equipment was from 94-95.  the speakers have been perfect, other than all the tobacco ash covering them that I beat off the wool before bringing them in.  

[richard black]

Practically all loudspeaker specifications are meaningless, ditto labels like 'studio monitor'. Sad, but true. I reviewed hi-fi equipment for nearly 25 years and very few loudspeakers impressed me - almost none of them models I actually reviewed. Bang and Olufsen make some shockingly good ones, though they certainly aren't cheap. Perhaps the best speaker I ever heard was made by Celtic Audio (UK-based) and was made to order in tiny quantities for approximately £25,000 per pair - in the mid-1990s. https://www.linkwitzlab.com/ has some very good speakers. Most of the best speakers expensive, but not all expensive ones are good, and some cheap models are surprisingly convincing: I'm particularly fond of the budget range from Q Acoustics.