[brandondrury]

There are several sides to this issue.

The idea that studio monitors are more accurate than X speaker is total bullshit.

For one, studio monitors sound drastically different from speaker to speaker. I was at a mixing session in a mega studio in Nashville and couldn't believe how poorly the NS-10s translated to the outside world...of course, if I was used to them, this would be a different story. About 100 zillion platinum records have been mixed on NS-10s.

Secondly, the average home recording guy doesn't have a $30,000 control room (just construction and acoustic treatment) so even if the studio monitors were more accurate, the room would wreak so much havoc on the frequency response (especially in the low end) that the difference between speaker X and speaker Y is less significant.

Third, the entirely most underrated part of the whole mixing thing is your ears and style of mixing. You have to find studio monitors that display the music in a fashion in which you can combine that with your tastes / preferences and come out with a great sounding mix.

Some guys love super pretty sounding mega hifi speakers. I consider my Mackie HR824s to be this way. The problem is the mids are clearly scooped in certain places. Actually, I think many major label cds sound quite thin on them. Well, the inverse theory kicks in. Since the monitors seam to be scooped in the 400-600Hz region, my mixes are often too heavy in that region.

It's clear that after doing this a while, that the Mackie HR824s are not the right monitor for me (but may be great for others). So I need a studio monitor that is a little dark, boxy, and a little muddy sounding. From there, I will fight to take the mud and / or boxiness out of my mixes and the end results will be closer to the bright / thin sound that is expected in modern music production.

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Now as far as your situation is concerned, if you are on that tight of a budget, I would go with some used studio monitors, I guess. I buy everything used because that means as long as I don't break it, I get it for free (when I get my money back from selling it down the road).

There may be issues with buying used studio monitors, but I'd take a look. You may be able to get $800 monitors for $500.

I'd pick up Mackie or Yamaha or KRK before I bought M-Audio, but that's just a gut feeling. The M-Audio speakers may be amazing.

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Ideally, you'd get to try out your monitors for a week or two and then give them back if you don't like them. If you don't have this luxury, you are going need to make a blind guess.

Brandon