$99 Studio Monitors - Tascam VL-M3

[ken]

Hey All,

I know the question of what good cheap studio monitors you should buy comes up every so often and I wanted to suggest these. There is a review of them in Tape Op Magazine (get your FREE subscription) this month that made me happy to be able to recommend them to everyone. The reviewer said he uses them for editing, checking mastered mixes, and rough mixes with good results. This seems more than high enough quality for Songfight. So, if you have $99 to spend and are looking to get some studio monitors for your recording set up, I feel confident in suggesting a pair of Tascam VL-M3s.

Oh wow, they are even cheaper here at B&H Photo. Double check they don't charge a lot for shipping.

If anyone gets these, please post your review.

Be well,
Ken

[Billy's Little Trip]

A 3" full range speaker? Yikes. I'm very skeptical, so yeah, I'd really like to hear a real review or go listen myself.

If it was Bose, I'd figure they just did their usual voodoo on it and buy it at that $68 price. But then again, if it was Bose, it would cost more like $868, lol.

edit: I just read this. I know, opinions are like ***holes.... http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/6 ... ml#reviews

[jast]

I find it very suspicious that there is no frequency range listed in the specs... not even on the manufacturer's site.
Actually, I just downloaded the manual now, and it claims 46 Hz to 20 KHz, +0/-3 dB. Well, I'm sceptical.

For reference, I've got these guys. They're specced as 80 Hz to 20 KHz, which seems more realistic. And, well, they've got pretty good sound for the price, just no bass.

I don't think anything in this price range and size will be able to deliver solid bass sound, but maybe someone who actually owns a better set knows better.

[jb]

Being good for mixing and pleasant to listen to are not necessarily traits that have to coexist.

It may be a case of "If you can get your mix to sound acceptable on these speakers, it will translate well to other speakers."

Put your mixing engineer hats on, fellas, not your audiophile hats.

[Billy's Little Trip]

That's actually a good point, jb. After all, they are studio monitors and described as very flat. If you do a mix and get it the best you possibly can on them. Chances are the mix will sound good on a good audio system. The only area that might be an issue would be mixing the bass too strong in the mix and one would have to get used to where that level is.

I do all of my mixing on my DT-770 studio phones and final sound check on my car system. It cuts down on the family annoyance factor.

[jast]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I still use them as my monitors (and for any other kind of listening, too... it's actually not that big of a deal to get used to and grow to like neutral-sounding speakers), since I don't have anything else that attempts to sound neutral. But they can't help me figure out things about the low end of the spectrum in a mix; I have to use my consumer headphones for that. And I use the headphones more than the monitors for the same reason BLT mentioned.
And, by the way, I don't think of mixing as engineering. Mixing engineers might disagree with me, but I don't think I care.