Nearfield active monitors.

[Shostakovich]

In my home studio/DAW, the stereo integrated amp I used for listening back has failed. I wondered if a pair of active monitors might be a useful replacement. I'm struggling to find a current integrated amp that will fit the rack space I have, so I thought active monitors might be a solution. For mixing down I'll continue to use the DAW & high end headphones, so I really just need something to hear back WAV, FLAC etc files and review/playback ongoing project files in my DAW. My local (40 miles away!) music store has Adam Audio T5V and T7V speaker pairs available, so I'm interested to hear any views about these products, or any other solutions you might suggest. I just need something that will accept the balanced line out from my audio interface. Wodya fink?

[Drew Stephenson]

I've heard the T5 but not the 7, but for the money I think they're pretty impressive. Certainly if the requirement is really just for a reverb, depth and pan check, whilst the heavy lifting is done on headphones, then they're definitely worth a listen.
Kali LP6 are a similar price to the 7s and also worthy of an audition if available.

[amanise]

I played some of my tracks to someone last year who had set up some T7v active monitors for the purpose. What I thought were finished songs sounded alarmingly full of mud. Disturbing. But I work like you, primarily on nice phones with monitors for periodic sanity checks. Apart from the mud the other thing that struck me was how loud they were.

[amanise]

... Apart from the mud the other thing that struck me was how loud they were.

Quoting myself - things must be bad. However, on re-reading this it would have been better worded as "Apart from the mud they revealed the other thing that struck me was...."

[Hugh Robjohns]

Ah... but did they reveal it or did they (or the installation/room) add the mud?

[Shostakovich]

Thanks for the replies so far!

[amanise]

Ah... but did they reveal it or did they (or the installation/room) add the mud?

Well, excellent point as ever. It may have contributed some (or other) less than perfect effects. The room in question was improvised in an old disused commercial size glasshouse on his farm in Kent. 'He' works in the film industry doing major league set design, so ends up with all sorts of 'free' gear at the end of each project. The monitors were in the latest batch of stuff that had arrived back at the farm post shoot/gig. I can say that though it looked bad, I couldn't hear any bad sound from the 'room' during normal conversation etc - and we had those things way the heck up there sitting right in front of them. But mud is what jumped out to me having been used to my home studio.

I think Drew can probably support the mud theory in my mixes of last year, having helped out and steered me through it with some EQ suggestions. I wasn't really aware it was there until I listened on those T7Vs. Not exactly a fully scientific test environment, granted, but I'm just relaying my experience of those monitors. Which I enjoyed, I hasten to add, after I got over the mud shock - which I put down to my own mixing deficiencies. I'd get some myself.

[Drew Stephenson]

Muddy mixes is a phenomenomemnomemom that all of us experience I think.

I've not heard the 7s, but I generally tend to trend toward smaller drivers at the budget end of the market - they don't tend to be as compromised because they're not hunting for the same bass extension. Physics innit.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Yes, there certainly is an abundance of lower mid mud in the universe that finds its way into mixes.

And if a speaker helps to highlight that as an issue that's obviously very helpful.

But I'm always wary of jumping to conclusions when listening to unfamiliar speakers in unfamiliar rooms...

Checking a system out first with a few carefully chosen and well-known tracks to provide a reliable frame of reference is so important.

[ajay_m]

Any untreated listening environment is going to add room nodes and they won't flatter the sound. Obviously flutter echo is the absolute worst case but even where you don't have obvious ringing, I can attest that my untreated plasterboard walled listening environment is far from ideal. Whereas your home studio probably has proper acoustic treatment.
Of course, that said, it does amuse me that these beautifully crafted mixes end up being listened to in mostly untreated rooms. Whether the presence of sofas and other furniture in the average domestic listening environment turns out to significantly mitigate the lack of acoustic treatment is an interesting question. Because these hifi nuts who are willing to spend all that money on special cables don't seem to be springing for acoustic treatment of their listening environments.
Makes you wonder if we all need to listen to the final mix in some kind of British Standard Living Room space and tweak it until it sounds good there

[Arpangel]

I think no matter what monitor or room you mix on/in, you will always mix for that sound, no matter how much money has been spent.
Therefore, as I always say, there is no such thing as a reference point, neither is there a handy generic system that we can all have access to that is completely neutral.

[amanise]

...Whereas your home studio probably has proper acoustic treatment....

Makes you wonder if we all need to listen to the final mix in some kind of British Standard Living Room space and tweak it until it sounds good there

Yes, mine does - and I try and make a good balance between what's going on in headphones and what's going on on the room monitors. I have reference tracks and all that for that. There's an awful lot of subjectivity still there though, and when your ears are tired.... Ideally you'd be able to try a range of monitors in your own room - but that sounds unfeasible to me somehow.

I think your BS Room Standard idea makes a good use case for room modelling software down't it? A centralised service we could all trust? Rampant far left loony socialist that I am.

But then everyone would still be listening on earbuds

[Arpangel]

If you’re a top notch engineer working with a variety of people, you’ll get a good mix on anything, it’s your job.
Most of us here don’t need all that, our abilities are fine for what we do, if I gave my music to Bob Clearmountain it wouldn’t sound any better, he may teak the EQ here and there just to make it how he thinks it should sound, but I like it as it is anyway.
I haven’t bought new monitors simply because I don’t need them, mine are more than good enough for anything I do.